Constitutionalism Web-Papers, http://les1.man.ac.uk/conweb/
ConWEB, No. 2/2000
Europe’s Social Self: “The Sickness Unto Death”
by Miguel Poiares Maduro, Nova University, Lisbon
maduro@fd.unl.pt
“The Sickness Unto Death” is the title of the famous book written by Søren Kierkegaard in the
middle of the last century.1 The sickness to which Kierkgaard refers is that of a human being
who is unable to believe in his own destiny beyond physical death. A human being who, in his
view, refuses to accept the meaning of his or her life. That meaning is, in Kierkegaard’s
writings, closely associated with the Christian faith but the metaphor of the sickness unto death
can be used in a broader context. In this essay I use it in two ways: first, to highlight the fact that
many of the European Union’s current social policy problems stem from its own refusal to
accept the conclusions which follow from its internally developed political identity; and second
to stress that current social debates risk begging the question if they continue to ignore, and do
not discuss, the question of Europe’s social self and advance proposals that are instead based on
quite different assumptions. The risk, as Kierkgaard would say, is that of constantly discussing
the “rest” while losing oneself. This argument, applied in my own terms, goes so far as to say
that this is a foundational moment for Europe, in which it can either “accept” its selfhood or
deny it with a risk that a split may occur between its self (which guarantees social legitimacy)
and its emerging political form.
It has often been argued that the impact of EU law on social policies has been a
functional one with regard to economic integration and the general promotion of economic
freedom and social de-regulation. At the same time, it is historically known that economic
integration has, on other occasions, provided a rationale for the promotion of social rights in
Europe in order to guarantee a level playing field and to avoid distortions of competition.
Furthermore, European integration has also been conceived of as a safeguard of the welfare
state. In the latter perspective, the European Union is the new forum in which social rights, no
longer viable at the national level, are re-introduced. These different perspectives of Europe’s
social policy are also associated with a broader debate on the nature of European integration:
some conceive of European integration exclusively as economic integration; others argue that
economic integration needs to be complemented by some form of political integration which
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must include a system of social entitlements. But this political integration can still be conceived
of either as a functional necessity deriving from economic integration, or as arising from an
independent political claim which stresses the need for solidarity in Europe.
This paper approaches the debates on the nature and position of social policy in the EU
from a different perspective. It puts them in the context of a discussion on Europe’s
constitutional identity and its social self. In this way, the paper relates the current debates on the
European Union’s social policy to other recent or anticipated constitutional developments. The
paper also identifies a series of dilemmas and problems in Europe’s social policy the solution of
which, it is argued, requires us to focus on the contested social identity of Europe. Are the
different aspects of the social impact of European integration and the social policies of the
Union based on some agreement regarding a core set of shared European social values? What
rationale has commanded the different social developments involved in European integration?
Does European integration need some criterion of distributive justice?
The main normative argument of this paper will be that it is no longer possible to evade
the debate on Europe’s social identity at the risk of putting at stake the overall integration
project itself. The Sickness Unto Death to which this paper refers is Europe’s refusal to face and
discuss its integration identity in the social sphere. Kierkegaard identifies the crisis of one’s
search for one’s identity in three types of despair: “being unconscious in despair of having a self
(inauthentic despair), not wanting in despair to be oneself, and wanting in despair to be
oneself.”2 I will argue below that Europe’s dilemma in defining its social identity lies in the two
forms of authentic despair highlighted by Kierkegaard.
In the first section of the paper I will concentrate on contrasting Europe’s social self with
Europe’s social policy and the concept of European citizenship. Raising awareness of one’s
identity is the first step in making a true choice of one’s self. This section will additionally
review the emergence of a European social policy from the perspective of the debate between
negative and positive integration. I will review the evolution of the different dilemmas at the
core of this policy and highlight the current strains within the EU’s traditional approach to
social issues in light of the fact that European social policy has been developed in a functional
relation to market integration. The second section will review the emergence of the concept of
European citizenship in relation to social rights. It will highlight the under-developed nature of
European social citizenship and the confused and ambiguous character of the current set of
European social rights. Again, the underlying paradoxes and dilemmas will be related to other
aspects of the political and constitutional development of the EU and I will argue that those
paradoxes and dilemmas can only be properly addressed in the context of a debate on Europe’s
social self. The last section of the paper will relate the normative and political paradoxes of
European social policy to the debate on Europe’s constitutional model. It will be argued that
present developments of the EU’s constitutional model (to be reinforced in the planned
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institutional reform) are producing a change in the dominant conceptions of the demos and telos
of the European Union, and can only be fully legitimised if this is reflected in the degree of
European solidarity and if the question of Europe’s social self is finally addressed.
1. From Negative to Positive Integration: The Emergence of Europe’s Social Policy
It has now become common to hear about Europe’s social deficit. Either as result of legal
constraints or the constraints of economic competition, European economic integration (in
parallel with global economic integration) has generated pressures towards de-regulation and
has challenged social standards and welfare. This has not been (totally) compensated for by
social policies arising at the level of the European Union. It is easier to promote integration by
reducing state legislation interfering with economic activities (negative integration) than by
creating common standards and regulatory frameworks for economic agents (positive
integration). The latter requires an agreement on social policies and rights normally expressed in
the form of legislation, and is difficult to achieve in the EU context of different national
interests and ideological standpoints.
The impact of Community law on national social rights, through negative market
integration, has generally been seen as “negative” by social lawyers because it has restricted the
capacity of States to enact social provisions. However, the opposite has normally occurred when
Community law is addressed by social lawyers from the perspective of positive market
integration in the form of social legislation enacted at the EU level.3 This is so, even though the
competence of the EU on social issues has generally been limited and moves at a slow pace.
Community law has been seen, mainly among labour lawyers, as a source for the defence and
promotion of social policies against the predominantly deregulatory ideologies at the national
level. The ideology of de-regulation is not uniform among the Member States and labour
lawyers hope to mobilise the more “social” states to push, at the European level, for social
rights and policies that they are not able to establish at the national level. At the same time, the
arguments in favour of de-regulation often stress the need to be competitive in the European
market, which requires states with more protective social rights to reduce their degree of
protection. Thus, labour lawyers try to reinstall the primacy of social rights over the market
through common regulations at the European level.
Nevertheless, the core of the European economic constitution lies in market integration.
It was under the legitimacy granted by market integration and through the rules provided in the
Treaties for its achievement that the Court has developed the notion of a European constitution.4
Although the original Treaty of Rome also contained social provisions (for example Articles
117 to 119 EEC), the core of market integration has been the free movement provisions
promoting market access to the different national markets. However, the borderline between
securing access to the market to further market integration and securing access to the market to
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enhance economic freedom is thin and often non-existent. When reviewing national measures
which have an effect on free movement, the Court of Justice is deciding both on the acceptable
degree of restriction on trade and on the level of market regulation. The fundamental rights
character granted to the free movement provisions and the widening of its scope of action in
order to extend European supervision over national regulation and support the
constitutionalisation of Community law has led to a spill-over of market integration rules into
virtually all areas of national law. As a consequence, many national social rights and policies
have been challenged under the free movement provisions. The extension of the scope of action
of the free movement of goods and services has raised a challenge to almost any regulation of
the market and has limited the social and economic policies of Member States. Several nondiscriminatory national regulations protecting or promoting social rights have been challenged
as giving rise to restrictions on free movement. This has been the case with legislation regarding
the working hours of workers,5 the organisation of work and the monopoly of workers
associations,6 public systems of labour procurement services7 or price regulations,8 all of which
can be said to be related to social rights. In general, the application of some of the free
movement rules has been seen as promoting deregulation and as preventing Member States
from pursuing national social policies, even those which are non-protectionist. The same has
occurred with the application of Community competition rules which has led to challenges to
different national labour law provisions.9 In some cases, it has been common for social
provisions to be challenged through a co-ordinated application of free movement and
competition rules.
Such de-regulatory consequences at the national level are not, however, a product of a
neo-liberal vision of the economic constitution by the Court, but are instead the functional result
of the need to promote integration – requiring negative integration in the form of judicial review
of divergent state regulations restricting trade – coupled with the absence of a distributive
justice criterion which could guide the Court in authorising some of those restrictions on the
basis of socio-economic grounds. Market integration generates competition between the
national economic and legal systems subject to the goal of efficiency. This is a process which is
reinforced if such market integration is achieved mainly through negative integration (accepting
products complying with different social and labour standards) and not through positive
integration (introducing common social standards). The consequences of this process are
deregulation at the national level and a reduction in the political control over the economic
sphere.
The arguments in favour of a European social policy attempt to reintroduce such
political control over the economic sphere at the EU level and, in such an instance, the EU
would become the relevant level for the establishment and protection of social policies.
Negative integration should be followed by positive integration. On the other hand, those
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arguing against the development of a European social policy and European social rights prefer
to subject those policies and rights to market competition itself.
Much of the current status of social values in the European Union is a consequence of
the balance between negative and positive integration. There is nothing new about this debate.
When the EC Treaty was drafted there were two divergent opinions on whether the prior
harmonisation of social policy was necessary. One side (coinciding with the French who had the
most protective social legislation) argued in favour of European legislative harmonisation of
social policies. The other side (Germany) opposed such harmonisation, preferring to “rely on
normal competitive forces to achieve it in the long run”.10 What became Article 119 EEC,
requiring equal pay for men and women (now Article 141 EC), was a result of the compromise
reached in the Treaty.
In reality, both systems of managing economic and regulatory competition in integrated
markets generate harmonisation of social rights and policies. The difference lies in the
institutional framework through which such harmonisation arises and its impact on the final
outcome of harmonisation. As stated by Trubek:
“Once economic interdependence reaches a certain point, and borders no longer serve as
major barriers to economic movement, there is a pressure towards uniformity in
economic policies. These pressures may come about to ensure fair competition and the
smooth functioning of economic enterprises that span national borders (‘level playing
field’), or they may be the result of ‘regulatory competition’ among sovereignties in a
unified space”.11
One of the questions to be addressed in the context of the European Union is whether
we should accept competition among the different states even with respect to social rights and
policies or whether should we establish common rights and policies to which such competition
should conform. For a long time, this balance between positive and negative integration and its
impact on social policies has been decided on the basis of the institutional problems linked to
positive integration coupled with a vision of negative integration as the only available
alternative to integrate the market. However, this state of the affairs has slowly changed and
today there are enhanced legislative competences for the Union to intervene in the social
sphere.12 At the same time, incentives have been created for social partners to shift their social
dialogue into the European arena.13 These developments have, however, remained prisoners of
the logic of market integration whereby they secure equal conditions of competition while
imposing common social standards which are to be secured and guaranteed by the different
Member States. This emerging social policy is not one in which the Union takes into hand the
job of guaranteeing a minimum safety net and social protection for all European citizens.
Instead, it is a social policy in which the European Union requires its Member States to comply
with certain social standards in order to fully benefit from their membership of the internal
5
market. This is why Europe’s social policy is built upon the joint-efforts of two different forces:
European States which have an interest in promoting higher social standards to secure their
competitive position; and national social actors who use European social policy as an alternative
political process to promote national social rights. But the alliance between these two forces is
only possible with regard to social rights which can be constructed as preventing unfair
competition in the internal market. Rights which could promote redistribution in European
terms and would require a commitment of the Union to distributive justice are excluded from
European social policy. Moreover, even the social rights which are enacted as part of that social
policy are, as a consequence of the limits under which such social policy is conceived,
understood so as to restrict their potential for redistribution within the Union. Moebius and
Szyszczak have recently reviewed the notion of worker in Community legislation and the rights
it affords to European citizens.14 In their article they argue against the limited interpretation of
the concept of work which is usually assumed to underpin Community rights and policies. They
favour a concept of work and worker to include people undertaking unpaid care work. The
difference between the traditional concept of Community worker and that proposed by Moebius
and Szyszczak lies in the different identities of European social policy which those concepts
reflect. The policy developments proposed by Moebius and Szyszczak require a European social
policy which pursues independent political goals of the Union and which the Union is ready to
assume, if necessary by “paying the bill” and setting up a criterion of distributive justice to
allocate it. Instead, the continuing dominating paradigm of European social policy is not based
upon a criterion of European distributive justice but only upon assuring the incorporation of
some common social standards at the national level to the extent that they do not imply an
additional burden for the Union and may help to secure a “level playing field” within the Union.
According to this paradigm, the costs of social policies are distributed by the market and
supported by the different States independently of their welfare position. A different paradigm,
such as that underlying the proposal of Moebius and Szysczak, would require the Union to
assume independent social goals and figure out a method of distributive justice to allocate its
costs.
The debate between negative and positive integration and its effect on social policy has
usually underscored the consequences of the definition of distributive justice in Europe.
Independently of the preferred method of integration chosen, it is obvious that the dominant
political arena for the determination of social values shifts to the European level. The notion that
negative integration will protect the various states’ political autonomy (by recognising their
different rules) is artificial since the balance between efficiency-enhancing and re-distributive
policies is no longer a choice dependent on those policies but a functional result of the degree of
negative market integration and its system of competition among rules. Negative integration
already implies a shift in the relevant political arena of social policies. It therefore becomes
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crucial to discuss what legitimises that political arena and the social values to be taken into
account therein. But positive integration also requires more than the setting of common social
standards to be secured by the different Member States. Once European economic integration
develops its own social policies and erodes the capacity of nation States for redistribution, the
relevant question becomes, what should guide the framing of those policies, and how should
mechanisms of redistribution at the European level be re-introduced? Those who focus on the
EU exclusively as an area of free trade and a common market envision the Union as an
instrument of efficiency and wealth maiximisation. But can and should the EU only be about
increasing societal net gain through market integration without concerns about how such wealth
is distributed within the Union? And, if, as it will be shown, European rights and policies have
re-distributive consequences, should these not be based on a European criterion of distributive
justice instead of being decided by the market and the power of the different states?
2. From Free Movement to Social Rights: The Different Faces of European
Citizenship
The foundations for the construction of the European citizen and the status of citizenship are to
be found in the free movement rules. This provides the best starting point for an enquiry into the
social identity of Europe and the ranking and character of social rights in its legal order. A
comparative analysis of the treatment given to the different free movement rules and its redistributional impact already highlights the subsidiary and under-developed nature of Europe’s
social citizenship when compared with its original market citizenship15 and the emerging
political citizenship. The Court has referred to the free movement provisions as “fundamental
freedoms”16 granting them a status similar to that of fundamental rights in national constitutions.
This conception of the free movement provisions as fundamental rights has played a key role
both as an instrument of market integration (in co-operation with individual litigants and
national courts) and, at the same time, as a form of legitimation of Community law and market
integration. However, the character of such fundamental freedoms has, to a certain extent,
remained indistinct and the Court has for some while favoured the promotion of the free
movement of goods and, to a lesser extent, the free movement of services over the free
movement of persons.
Until the case of Keck and Mithouard,17 the Court of Justice adopted an interpretation of
the rule of the free movement of goods that subjected almost any national regulation to a test of
proportionality similar to cost/benefit analysis.18 This brought virtually any public regulation of
the market under close scrutiny and promoted de-regulation of the market at the national level.
As we have seen in the previous section, the expansion of free movement rules has had an
impact on other areas of the law related to social concerns and not just trade protectionism and
the promotion of economic freedom.19
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Market integration can also be used to promote the development of European social
rights although the functional use of market integration rules to further social rights has been
limited. The Court has mainly required the abolition of discrimination based on nationality
among workers in one Member State, albeit expanding the prohibition of discrimination beyond
the issues mentioned in Article 39 EC: “employment, remuneration, and other conditions of
work and employment”. For some time the Court has been giving a more restrictive
interpretation of the rules regarding the free movement of persons than its interpretation of the
free movement of goods and the freedom to provide services. As we have seen, in the field of
the free movement of goods (and to a more limited extent, services), the Court has considered as
restrictions to trade national regulations that do not discriminate against imports but may,
nevertheless, affect trade by affecting market access in general. In this way, many national
regulations limiting economic freedom (including regulations protecting social rights) have
been challenged under Community rules since the limits to economic freedom are also
conceived of as limits to free trade and market access. The same broad scope has not been given
to the free movement of workers which could be used to challenge national regulations
restricting certain social rights. In fact, in the same way that it is possible to argue that
regulation of the market creates barriers to trade, it would be possible to argue that workers will
need a minimum degree of protection to effectively exercise free movement. For example, the
argument could be made that a prohibition, in a Member State, to strike or to be become a union
member could deter workers from other Member States, where those rights existed, from
moving to that Member State.20 This argument may seem remote from the original wording and
intent of the Treaty rules on the free movement of workers but it is in no way different from the
arguments, in favour of deregulation, which have been accepted in the context of the free
movement of goods.21
The broader scope granted to the free movement of goods and services in comparison to
the free movement of workers has however had re-distributional effects; the wealth generated
by economic integration has mainly gone to those who benefit from the free movement of goods
and services. The more restricted development of the free movement of workers when compared
to other free movement rules has, in fact, reinforced the exclusionary character of the free
movement rules with regard to some categories of people, such as the unemployed who were
not included in the original free movement provisions. The more cautious interpretation of the
Court of Justice in the area of the free movement of persons may have simply reflected the
political sensibility of some States with regard to this issue; this can be seen in parts of the
Treaty such as the unanimity requirement for the adoption of Community legislation in this
area.22 This attitude on the part of some Member States departs from their concern about the redistributional effects which a general principle of the free movement of persons could have
within the Union but, at the same time, it appears to ignore the re-distributional effects which
8
the current status quo promotes and which tends to create a category of European people
excluded from the full benefits of European Union. The extent to which this state of the affairs
can be maintained is dubious in view of the political growth of the European Union and the
current dilemmas facing both its political and judicial processes.
The recent case-law of the Court signals a shift in its judicial activism towards
favouring a limitation of the scope of the application of the free movement of goods and a
broader application of the free movement of persons. The limits set in Keck to challenges, under
Article 28 EC (ex Article 30), to national rules the effect of which is to limit the commercial
freedom of traders,23 will reduce the impact of the free movement of goods on national
legislation protecting social rights. Instead, a broader use of the free movement of workers is
now available to promote social rights in the European common market. The Bosman decision
is a good example, supporting a right to work and the freedom of workers to choose their work
and employment.24 This decision prohibited rules that, albeit not discriminating against workers
of other Member States, reduced their free movement by imposing limits on their freedom to
leave their employer and to choose among different employment contracts. The consequence of
the recent expansion of the free movement of persons provisions beyond the simple prohibition
of discrimination on the basis of nationality may be the recognition of a set of European social
rights required for an effective protection of the free movement of persons. Developments in
this sense will depend largely on the sophistication and capacity of social actors to raise
litigation combining Community law arguments with fundamental social rights.25 But they will
also depend on the notion of the underlying European political community which the Court and
the political process will construct to support and mould the rights of market integration.
What is clear is that the most important developments in the area of social rights have
also come from the core of market integration. It is the relationship established between free
movement of persons and the principle of non-discrimination on the basis of nationality that has
mainly been the driving force behind some of the most important developments on the
protection of social rights in the European Union and the construction of a European citizenship.
The prohibition of discrimination on the basis of nationality (Article 12 EC) has been used by
the Court to extend the protection conferred by social rights in a given Member State to
nationals of any Member State in that State.26 This has been furthered by the direct effect
granted to the principle of non-discrimination on the basis of nationality established in Article
12 EC. Such a principle is only effective within the scope of the application of the Treaty but,
once a certain social right can be conceived, for example, as being instrumental to the protection
of the free movement of an individual included in one of the categories of persons covered by
the Treaty, such a right must be applied in a non-discriminatory manner. This process
culminated in the Martínez Sala decision where the Court appeared to confer almost absolute
protection against discrimination by a Member State to a national of another Member State
9
lawfully resident in that State. So long as that is the case, a national of any Member State in
another Member State is granted the same social rights and protection accorded by that State to
its own nationals. Discussing what are now Articles 17(2) and 12 EC, the Court stated:
“Article 8(2) of the Treaty attaches to the status of citizen of the Union rights and
duties laid down by the Treaty, including the right, laid down in Article 6 of the
Treaty, not to suffer discrimination on grounds of nationality within the scope of
application ratione materiae of the Treaty.
It follows that a citizen of the European Union (…) lawfully resident in the territory
of the host Member State, can rely on Article 6 of the Treaty in all situations which
fall within the scope ratione materiae of Community law, including the situation
where that Member State delays or refuses to grant to that claimant a benefit that is
provided to all persons lawfully resident in the territory of that State on the ground
that the claimant is not in possession of a document which nationals of that same
State are not required to have and the issue of which may be delayed or refused by
the authorities of that State.
Since the unequal treatment in question thus comes within the scope of application
of the Treaty, it cannot be considered to be justified: it is discrimination directly
based on the appellant’s nationality and, in any event, nothing to justify such
unequal treatment has been put before the Court.”27
The limit posed by the condition that the “unequal treatment in question comes within the scope
of application of the Treaty”28 is much less significant than one could initially think, as the case
in question confirms. In fact, it is difficult to conceive of any area which is still ratione materiae
outside the scope of Community law,29 much less when any unequal treatment among nationals
of different Member States in a Member State can be said to restrict the free movement of
persons. In this area, the scope of application ratione materiae of Community law will basically
depend on its scope of application ratione personae. In other words, it will depend on the extent
to which all European citizens are given a general right of free movement. If they are granted a
general right of free movement, the logical consequence will be that they should not be
discriminated against independently of the State in which they choose to live.
However, even this basic right to free movement for European citizens (the right to
freely take up residence where he or she wishes) is doubtful. Although the Treaty of Maastricht
proclaimed the general principle of the free movement of persons, it is not clear whether this
principle has direct effect and the conditions upon which its exercise are made dependent are
equally uncertain.30 This uncertainty comes directly from the ambiguous nature of Europe’s
social identity and the incapacity to face the questions immediately raised by general principles
such as the free movement of persons: Can Europe citizens choose whatever national model of
social protection they prefer? Would some type of harmonisation of national social policies be
10
required? And will that not require, in turn, an exercise at the European level of a re-distributive
function to be supported by some European criterion of distributive justice? My argument, to be
developed below, is that it is no longer possible for the European Union to avoid these questions
and the definition of its social self.
At the moment, the traditional “unbearable” status quo still dominates; although the
Court has extended the protection granted by Community law to students or job-searchers, there
is no general right of free movement of persons granted with direct effect even, arguably, after
the Martínez Sala decision in which the Court did not consider it necessary to clarify the status
of what was then Article 8a EC (now Article 18 EC).31 So long as the free movement of persons
continues to be developed as a function of market integration and economic efficiency, the
intention is an optimal allocation of labour under the mechanisms generated by market
integration. There is no free movement of persons conceived of as a right to choose among
different models of life and regulatory regimes (including social protection). Neither is such a
principle accepted to entail a form of redistribution by allowing people to optimally locate
themselves in view not only of labour demand but also of social protection. At the same time,
however, it is becoming more and more difficult to explain the “status of apartheid” of the free
movement of persons in the context of a Union with growing spheres of competence and an
increasingly majoritarian institutional framework (which however still does not apply to free
movement of persons). The answers to these questions require us to face different redistributional consequences and to discuss the nature of the European social contract, something
which the Union continues to avoid.
As things stand, and to use the raw Marxist language of Gustav Peebles, “people
primarily gain rights within the European Union by demonstrating that they embody exchange
value and are therefore personified commodities; people are not accorded rights merely for
being human”.32 The extension of rights performed by the European Court of Justice has gone
hand in hand with an extension of the economic and market rationale into other areas of human
interaction.33 It was the latter that made the former possible, but it also made the European
constitution and its “citizens” prisoners of the functional logic of the Treaties. Therefore, the
development of social rights in the EU does not come about as a consequence of a political
conception of the social and economic protection deserved by any European citizen. An
overview of the status and position of classical social rights in the EU confirms this.
The classic example of a social right enshrined in the Treaty is Article 141 EC which
establishes “the principle that men and women should receive equal pay for equal work”.
However it is well known that the origin of this norm is to be found in the aim of protecting
equal conditions of competition. Even if the Court’s case-law and Community legislation have,
in effect, partly raised it into the status of a true fundamental social right, this principle has
always appeared a “lone ranger” in the otherwise empty and foggy landscape of European social
11
rights. Moreover, its unique status and the absence of an underlying rational and coherent
construction of the legitimacy of Europe’s social rights has limited the development of this
principle of equal treatment between men and women with regard to work into a prohibition of
other forms of work discrimination, such as discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.34
Only a perception of strong limits on the legitimacy of European social rights may justify the
reluctance of the Court to extend the prohibition of discrimination into other categories of
people. A broader understanding of the legitimacy of social Europe would have allowed the
Court to fill in the gaps in the protection afforded by current European legislation to cases of
work discrimination on the basis of the general principles of the European legal order.
The picture is even more complex and confused if we look at the broader status and
catalogue of European social rights. It is well known that the Court of Justice has developed a
catalogue of fundamental rights as legal principles of the Community legal order with which
Community acts, and, in some cases, national acts have to conform with. This judicially
constructed protection of fundamental rights has been transplanted into the Treaties. However,
social rights have always appeared to assume a secondary position in the context of that
catalogue. It has even been argued that the Court’s jurisprudence has generated some confusion
between its fundamental human rights doctrine and its fundamental economic rights doctrine
and, in effect, has made the former dependent on the economic objectives of the Union.35 There
is, however, a core of social rights which have been tentatively developed by the Court in
different circumstances and under different doctrines. We have already highlighted the right not
to be discriminated against on the basis of nationality, equality between men and women, free
movement of persons (with some limits to be clarified),36 the right to work and the right to
freely choose a job and employment. Other rights (such as those regarding workers’
participation) have been affirmed by the Court but only following Community legislation and
without the recognition of a constitutional and fundamental rights status. Both the Court of
Justice and the Court of First Instance have also referred to general sources of social rights
protection such as the European and Community Social Charters.37 Such references have,
however, been limited and rarely has the Court of Justice affirmed, as general principles of
Community law, fundamental social rights. This contrasts sharply with its approach to property
rights or to economic activity which have been frequently applied in the review of Community
acts and legislation.
It is this uncertainty regarding the status and catalogue of fundamental social rights in
the EU legal order that has led to calls for the introduction of a list of fundamental social rights
in the Treaties.38 This is reflected in the proposals of the Comité des Sages responsible for the
report on a Europe of Civic and Social Rights prepared before the Amsterdam IGC. The
Committee argued that it was necessary to provide the Court with a stronger legal basis in the
Treaties empowering it to review Community legislation (and national legislation within the
12
scope of Community law)39 under the criteria of fundamental social rights. The Treaty of
Amsterdam did not however include a list of social rights and fewer steps were taken than the
Committee had proposed. Nevertheless a relevant novelty was the insertion into the EC Treaty
of a general principle prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex, race, ethnic origin, religion,
beliefs, disabilities, age or sexual orientation.40 But such a principle does not appear to have
direct effect and is more a clause of empowerment for future EC action in this area. The Social
Chapter was also inserted into the Treaties and Article 136 (in the Title on social policy) now
includes a reference to “fundamental social rights such as those set out in the European Social
Charter signed at Turin on 18 October 1961 and in the 1989 Community Charter of the
Fundamental Social Rights of Workers”. Contrary to the proposals of the Committee, no
catalogue of fundamental social rights was inserted, nor were they given the same status as other
fundamental rights whose respect by the Union is imposed in Article 6 TEU. Moreover, the
reference in Article 136 must be read in light of the fact that the Court of Justice has considered
that such a provision “is essentially in the nature of a programme”.41 As to rights which could
promote a European function of distributive justice, the Treaty is completely silent. The idea of
a European safety net is far from even being considered a topic of debate and redistribution is
still to be constructed in cross-national terms and is limited to regional and cohesion funds.
The overall picture remains ambiguous and confused. The status of Europe’s social
rights and its relation with other fundamental rights is still unclear. The legitimacy constraints
which limit the potential of Europe’s social policy will continue to restrain the development of
Europe’s social rights and will provide misguided results between the ambitions of the
independent goals commanding some of those social rights and the limits on their interpretation
and application derived from the ambiguous and limited nature of the legitimacy underlying
such rights at a European level. At the same time, the growth of the number of such rights
without an appropriate framework of legitimacy identifying their status and overall placing in
the European political project will raise potential conflicts of rights without appropriate criteria
to regulate them. The new Charter of Fundamental Rights may bring some certainty and
coherence into this confused panorama with the introduction of a catalogue of fundamental
rights but it will not solve any of the underlying dilemmas if it does not use the opportunity to
start a deliberative moment in which the legitimacy of social Europe is discussed, including the
lack of a criterion of distributive justice. This is also required to complete the construction of
European citizenship and the social legitimacy of its supportive demos.
Citizenship is normally defined in reference to a certain demos and developed in a
political and social status derived from the social contract of that political community. But one
of the originalities of European integration was an evolving notion of citizenship referring not to
a demos but, to use the expression of Peebles, to a “community of economic circulation”.42 This
corresponds to what Everson has termed as the “market citizen”. This is a citizenship whose
13
status corresponds to the set of rights granted to individuals as participants and beneficiaries of
the process of economic integration. The political spill-over of European integration has
stressed the inadequacy of this limited version of citizenship and reinforced the claims for
political and social rights in the European Union. The “Maastricht citizen” was an attempt to
answer those claims by formally establishing a European citizenship and a limited status of
political rights which can be related to other institutional changes (such as the reinforcement of
the European Parliament’s powers). But it is still unclear to which dominant demos these
political rights relate.43 Furthermore, apart from the still contested and ambiguous principle of
the free movement of persons there is no real social content given to European citizenship.
Again, the reason probably lies in the difficulty of elaborating a principle of distributive justice
within the emerging European political community. The crucial question becomes whether there
can be a European citizenship deprived of a social content. This is not to say that there are no
European social rights. In fact, as we have seen, there are several of such rights. The problem is
that they arise and are defined not in reference to independent political goals associated to a
social status attributed to any European citizen vis á vis the emerging European political
community, but in reference to ad hoc political bargains that are aimed at binding the States but
not the Union and which are legitimised via market integration. As a consequence, their redistributive effects are not really thought out in accordance with a criterion of distributive
justice for the Union.
3. Demos, Telos and Europe’s Social Self
If one looks at Marshall’s well known description of the three waves of fundamental rights
associated with citizenship one is bound to notice that, whilst political rights are emerging in the
European Union, social rights continue to be the main gap in the process of constructing
European citizenship.44 Even the arguments in favour of European social rights refer mainly to
the need to create a set of rights in relation to which the European Union can ensure States’
compliance. The idea of European social rights as European social entitlements arising from a
criterion of distributive justice agreed among all citizens of the Europe Union is rarely, if ever,
discussed.
The recognition of a set of social rights accorded to all European citizens both with
regard to the different national demos’ and the emerging European demos must follow from a
notion of citizenship that is not simply inclusive of those wealthy enough to enjoy the elitist free
movement and (currently) limited citizenship provisions. If citizenship is narrowly inclusive,
many Europeans will feel estranged from European citizenship45 and it will be a hotly debated
issue: Debates on efficiency versus distributive justice never have been peaceful and are not
likely to be in the context of a “contested” European political community whose degree of
cohesion and solidarity can only be said to be weak. The main problem is that decisions on
14
these issues are already being taken at the European level. In the absence of an agreed European
social contract those decisions simply flow from the functional ideology of market integration.
Moreover, European integration has reached a point where its emerging European demos and its
re-distributive and majoritarian elements can no longer be socially accepted and legitimised
without an underlying social contract and a criterion of distributive justice.
The rhetoric of the Treaties has seen a progressive reinforcement of the social goals of
European integration included in the preambles and initial articles. This social rhetoric goes
beyond the simple safeguard of social values in light of the regulatory challenges brought by
economic integration. The current rhetoric is even partially linked with a notion of European
solidarity whereby the goal of economic and social cohesion is entrusted to the Union.
Article 2 of the EC Treaty states that the Community shall “promote throughout the
Community a harmonious, balanced, and sustainable development of economic activities, a high
level of employment and of social protection (…) and economic and social cohesion and
solidarity among Member States”. This provision is reflected in Title XVII but also in the
conception of the Community’s social policy as aiming at “the promotion of employment,
improved living and working conditions, so as to make possible their harmonisation while the
improvement is being maintained, proper social protection, dialogue between management and
labour, the development of human resources with a view to a lasting employment and the
combating of exclusion” (Article 136(1)). A goal which the Member States recognise will not
only ensue from the functioning of the common market but will require direct Community
action (Article 136(3)).
However, this rhetoric has much of the symbolic about it, lacking any real
correspondence with the other provisions of the Treaties or the policies of the Union,46 and it is
clear that Jacques Delors’ goal of a European social area has not moved much beyond words.
Still, one must not ignore the powerful consequences which may be derived from this rhetoric
as a legitimating factor for the European Union. In combination with human rights and
citizenship, the reinforcement of the goal of economic and social cohesion is one of the key
instruments written in at the Maastricht and Amsterdam IGCs to promote the social legitimacy
of the integration process in light of its economic and institutional developments. Maastricht
saw the reinforcement of the structural funds and an increased stress on the social and economic
cohesion of the Union as a necessary complement to Economic and Monetary Union, vital to
safeguard its feasibility and social acceptance.47 But the re-distributive function of the Union
(although not its re-distributive effects) is still fundamentally restricted to the structural funds
which form the basis of a policy of economic and social cohesion much more modest than the
name leads us to assume.48 In fact, the re-distributive function performed by the structural funds
appears as part of package-deals agreed in the context of broader reforms within the Union and
to guarantee support for other substantive and institutional developments. In spite of the rhetoric
15
of social and economic cohesion included in Articles 2, 3, and 158 et seq EC, that goal is not
reflected in the different policies of the Union and its pursuit appears to be committed only to
the structural funds. In this way, that re-distributive policy is not part of a criterion of
distributive justice which could co- ordinate all the policies of the EC and EU but is, instead, a
compensation which is given to some States which could loose more or gain less from other
specific policies or institutional choices of the EC and EU. Redistribution in the EU occurs as a
result of ad hoc inter-governmental bargaining and not as a constitutive element of an emerging
polity founded upon a social contract which includes a criterion of distributive justice. This
form of re-distributive policies could fit well with the original foundations of the European
Communities, but it is doubtful whether it is adequate for the political form and re-distributive
effects of the contemporary European integration project.
If it is usual to see critiques of the current status quo refer to a European social deficit,
the same is true that few of those critiques address the question of distributive justice at a
European level. Bob Hepple, for example, argues that “until such time as European social policy
is explicitly based on general principles which reflect common social values, there will be no
rational basis for Community legislation and judicial interpretation in the social field”.49
However even Hepple appears to concentrate on the protection of a common set of social values
(which he derives from the different Member States) from the intrusion of market integration
and efficiency enhancing policies and not on the establishment of European policies which
would promote a European dimension of that common set of social values.50 The social
constitution of Europe to which this author refers will serve as a yardstick for the protection of
social rights at the national level and Community norms but would not, itself, promote forms of
redistribution and social allocation at the European level. It would therefore preserve the idea of
Europe’s social policy as establishing a common set of social values to be achieved and
safeguarded by the different Member States, and not as promoting a European ideal of
distributive justice expressed in independent political and social goals. In other words, that
social constitution of Europe will guarantee a level playing field within Europe and impose on
all States a core set of social values to be respected by all but would not entrust to the Union a
function of redistribution to be achieved in accordance with a European criterion of distributive
justice. The social perspective underlying this limited conception of Europe’s social self is that
which merges the interests of those who want to guarantee a level playing field in the internal
market with regard to social standards, with the interests of those who want to use Europe to
promote more social rights at the national level. This limited version of the European social self
does not really recognise Europe’s right and legitimacy to establish and exercise an independent
re-distributive function.
The reality, however, is that European policies already have broad re-distributive effects
and what appears to be lacking is an overall criterion of distributive justice to assess and co-
16
ordinate those re-distributive effects. Is the lack of a real agreement on a criterion of distributive
justice for Europe acceptable in light of the political and economic developments of the
European Union? Is the current and expected future model of the European Union compatible
with the lack of identification of its social self expressed in a criterion of distributive justice? Or
will that social self come about as a creation of the functional method without a true European
social contract? Does European despair (following Kierkegaard) come from not wanting to be
itself as it has now became or does European despair come from wanting to be itself? The latter,
as Kierkegaard noted, entails a higher level of consciousness of the self. In our case, it departs
from recognising the political form that Europe has already attained and the re-distributive
impact it has in the different States and among European citizens. But can this political form
continue to emerge and have re-distributive effects without a form of social legitimation? To use
the words of Kierkegaard, this despair arises in the context of “severing the self from any
relation to the power which has established it, or severing itself from the conception that there is
such a power”. How, therefore, can this relation be established and Europe become itself? The
answer given by Kierkegaard, in relation to human beings, is faith. This is what, in his view,
allow us to leave despair and relates us to the power that created us, thus gaining perfect
conscience and acceptance of our self. This is not an easy concept to transfer into a political
project. Here, the power lies in the people (the demos) and, at least in my view, the relation
between the demos and the polity must be rational. The form of the polity must come about
through a form of deliberation among the members of the demos. But the individual reasons for
giving our allegiance to that polity and acceptance of being part of that demos may vary. What
are the conditions for European citizens to have “faith” in the current European Union? To
answer this we must ask both what the European self already is (to improve consciousness of
that self) and what it needs to find out about itself if it wants to secure the relation with the
power that created it (the European demos, however it may be understood).51 This raises several
broad and difficult questions which there is not space to address here; I instead wish simply to
raise awareness of the European social self and to highlight its relation with other political and
constitutional developments of the Union in a way that may contribute to re-shaping the current
constitutional debates of the Union and the understanding and role of social policies. The focus
is on assuming that distributive justice has to become part of the European social self.
The assumption of economic integration was, as stated before, increased growth without
interference in the distributional function. But a viable and sustainable integration is only
workable if the effects of economic growth are fairly distributed. The issue of redistribution is
therefore present from the outset of any project of economic integration. It is well known in
economic theory that, although all may gain from economic integration and trade liberalisation,
it is to be expected that richer and more competitive countries may gain more than less
developed countries.52 Still, as I have mentioned before, the focus of the project of European
17
economic integration has been on efficiency enhancing and wealth maximisation. The economic
growth to be expected from market integration was to be beneficiary to all, albeit not in equal
terms. Moreover, the degree of economic and social cohesion of the starting members of the
project would create reassurance that the re-distributive effects would not impose an undue
burden on any of the members. In most economic integration agreements, States make their
cost/benefit analyses at the time of signing and, if necessary, obtain specific compensations for
agreeing to certain areas of economic integration. The fact that re-distributive effects have taken
place as a consequence of developments in other policies of the Union could also be legitimised
in light of the adoption of unanimous voting procedures for decision-making in the European
Union. In this case, States could either prevent policies which could have adverse re-distributive
effects on their own welfare or could subject their agreement to the receipt of some form of
compensation in other areas of European policies (something referred to as issue linkage).53 It is
this that has determined the pattern of both goal determination and the institutional development
of the European Communities. Taking as our basis the traditional standards of efficiency, we
can make reference to Pareto superiority, Pareto optimality, Kaldor-Hicks efficiency and Pigou
optimality in determining the different goals and decision-making procedures which can be
adopted in the project of European integration. They can be seen as rules orientating decisionmaking procedures or decision-making outcomes.54 In the latter, Pareto superiority is assured if
no one is worst off and at least one person is better off. Pareto optimality exists once there is no
conceivable state (n) in which anyone will be worst off. A decision is Kaldor-Hicks efficient if
those that are better off win sufficiently to compensate the loosers so that they are not worst off.
Finally there is a Pigou optimal as long as there is a net benefit, that is those better off win more
than those worst off lose. The original model of European integration and its patterns of
decision-making emphasised a kind of Pareto or Kaldor-Hicks efficiency. In the absence of a
common belief in some kind of European ideal or political concept of European integration,
integration could only proceed if it pragmatically satisfied as many people or groups as
possible.55 This could be achieved either by guaranteeing that all would have to agree to a
specific decision (an institutional rule promoting Pareto efficiency) or by agreeing on
mechanisms of compensation to those who would be worst off by virtue of a certain decision
(subordinating institutional and substantive developments to a form of Kaldor-Hicks efficiency).
The leading idea justifying free trade is a kind of Pareto or Kaldor-Hicks effciency. Free trade
and economic integration will maximise total net benefits but not necessarily in a even way.
With the development of European economic integration and its institutional and political spillovers, re-distributive concerns arose and the solution was the introduction of re-distributive
policies which have been developed as compensating some States and which still correspond to
an overall Kaldor-Hicks form of efficiency.
18
However, the development of European integration has strained this form of relation
between the model and degree of integration and its ideals. The degree of integration, the
expansion of the scope of action of the European Union and its institutional changes are
producing re-distributive effects which are no longer predictable as part of ad hoc political
bargaining that may then be legitimised through appropriate forms of compensation. Instead, the
degree of majoritarian decision-making and the scope of European policies require an overall
criterion of distributive justice which may legitimise those different policies and their redistributive effects. The institutional shift to majoritarian decision-making (both through the
extension of majority voting and parliamentary intervention) and the growth of Community
competences tend to subordinate the EU to a societal goal such as Pigou optimality and to have
a re-distributive impact larger than that which could be functionally legitimised.
In this respect, by increasing majoritarian decision-making and parliamentary
intervention, the Treaty of Amsterdam may have a constitutional importance well beyond that
which is usually attributed to it.56 Renaud Dehousse has identified two models in the European
institutional architecture: the parliamentary system and the regulatory structure. As this author
remarks, “the regulatory approach is primarily a functional one: the European Union should
concentrate on activities in which it can hope to achieve greater efficiency than can the Member
States”.57 The Parliamentary system entails a move towards forms of traditional democratic
legitimacy such as those involving majoritarian decision-making and direct representation.
According to Dehousse once more, the Treaty of Amsterdam has, in many ways, confirmed and
reinforced the role of the Parliamentary system which was already indicated at Maastricht.58 The
current 2000 IGC’s focus on institutional issues appears destined to further that parliamentary
and majoritarian model. But, in my view, the change towards a parliamentary and majoritarian
system cannot be separated from a debate on the telos of the Union and its social self. Those
institutional changes also involve a move towards Pigou-optimal decisions which tend to have
stronger re-distributive effects since they do not require the agreement of all parties involved.
However, these re-distributive effects will not be guided by a criterion of distributive justice. In
the absence of this, the re-distributive effects of the majoritarian system will simply favour the
interests of the majority without taking into account the intensity to which different interests are
affected by the decisions of the majority or the departing status quo of those called to participate
in the decisions. In this way, a majoritarian system needs an underlying social contract based on
a criterion of distributive justice to guarantee the social legitimacy of the majority decisions.
Such a social contract guarantees the allegiance of all to the polity by stipulating forms of long
term compensation and by protecting the interests of those minorities which may at times be
unduly burdened by the re-distributive effects of the majoritarian decisions. One of the key
elements of such a social contract is the setting up of overall mechanisms and criteria of
distributive justice.
19
Up to now it has been possible for European integration to comply with the
requirements of both formal and social legitimacy through its recourse to the regulatory model,
functional legitimacy and national input. The re-distributive impact of European policies was
legitimised both by recourse to functional goals and national direct or indirect agreement. Issue
linkage provided the relation between the two: the unintended re-distributive effects of some
European policies were compensated for with other policies and, in this way, such redistributive impact could, one way or the other, be reached to an agreement of the States. In this
way, functional legitimacy both limited the re-distributive impact of European integration and
subjected it to trade-offs and agreements between the States. The increased majoritarian and
parliamentary character of the European Union make this traditional form of legitimacy more
difficult. At the same time, the extension of the scope of Community competences and its
growing role as a new political arena mean that it will be increasingly used by different political
and social groups to promote independent political goals, and not only those which are
functionally attached to the construction of a common market. This emerging political and
majoritarian character of the European Union can only be fully legitimised if it is based on a
social contract. As Hirschman would put it: less voice would either lead to exit or be replaced
by loyalty.59 And loyalty can only come to the European Union through the means of a social
contract. In my view the institutional and social challenges currently faced by the Union require
it to also address its underlying telos and social identity. This constitutive moment of the Union
arises out of the exhaustion of the functional model and its incapacity to legitimise the current
institutional and political developments of the Union.
The result of this constitutive moment is unclear, but what must be included is a debate
on the social identity of Europe and its reflection on a criterion of distributive justice.60 Without
such debate there can be no true social contract capable of legitimising the emerging European
polity61 and the consequences would be either a return to a less advanced form of integration
(including a reduction of majoritarian decision-making and stricter limits on European
competences) or, if the current model continues to be stretched, a crisis of social legitimacy
which may manifest itself in increased national challenges to European policies (whose redistributive effects are not understood and accepted).
There are, however, good reasons to suppose that it will be possible to develop such a
social contract (which does not necessarily require a constitutional project or referendum) and to
agree on a criterion of distributive justice for the Union. Recent work by Habermas has
developed this argument, departing from the current global challenges to the national welfare
state. According to Habermas,62 it will not continue to be possible for the nation state to
guarantee the mechanisms and instruments of social solidarity on which the welfare state has
been founded. But this affects the legitimacy of the nation state which requires social justice to
secure its own survival. The alternative, for Habermas, lies in the project of European
20
integration, but for this the reinforcement of its capacity for political action must go hand in
hand with the development of a form of civil solidarity among European citizens which will
secure and express itself in different re-distributive policies.
I argue that the project foreseen by Habermas is not only a possible answer to the global
challenges faced by the nation State but a choice which the Member States can no longer ignore
in view of their own construction of the European Union. Once a certain degree of economic
and political integration is achieved, the competition among states generated by that economic
integration and the re-distributive effects of the policies of the new political entity, will make it
difficult for the different Member States to carry on with successful independent re-distributive
policies.63 It is this that explains the fears of some who foresee the likelihood of a general
principle of free movement of persons hinted at in the Martínez Sala decision of the Court of
Justice.64 But this is so only if we refuse to accept that the Union entails in itself a degree of
solidarity between its citizens that must, at least, extend to full European citizenship for all, if
necessary, by imposing a re-distributive burden that is to be legitimised by a criterion of
distributive justice among all European citizens. The masters of the Union (citizens and
Member States) may deny that such civil solidarity is possible within the Union but they may
not evade the question any longer. Whatever the perspective adopted, it is now clear that we
must link European social expectations to principles of social justice65 and that this requires a
debate on Europe’s social contract.
The promotion of economic integration through free trade is understood to increase
efficiency and wealth maximisation. However, many fear that such gains may occur at the cost
of weaker social groups and may not be fairly distributed among all the members of society. At
the same time, the institutional developments of the Union have promoted forms of decisionmaking with re-distributive effects. Without an agreement on a criterion of distributive justice,
these decisions will be seen as a simple reflection of the balance of power in the Union and as
lacking general social legitimacy. This is not to say that the EU needs some kind of supportive
communitarian ideal or cultural or historical identity. The European demos and its social
contract may result from the free allegiance of all European citizens with regard to a set of
political and social values. But whatever the structure of the European demos it needs an
underpinning social contract which, in its turn, must entail some criterion of distributive justice.
In my view, this requires the replacement of the current redistribution policies based on tradeoffs and issue linkages for redistribution policies which are no longer conceived of as State to
State but as citizen to citizen and are embodied by a criterion of distributive justice which can
be used in creating, interpreting and applying all European policies. In this sense, such a social
contract does not necessarily require, for example, an immediate system of taxation and social
security. It requires above all, a reconstruction of all current policies (directly re-distributive or
not) in light of that overall criterion of distributive justice among European citizens and not
21
States. Only this transformation will give the Union the legitimacy basis for the political powers
which it is currently acquiring.
Simply stated, Europe must, as Kierkegaard would say, discuss its identity. It can no
longer remain with the intellect of a child and the body of an adult. As it now stands, and in
Kierkegaard’s terms, it faces despair: the despair of wanting to be oneself and the despair of not
wanting to be oneself. I do not know the resolution but I believe that future developments of the
Union depend on a discussion of this identity or, perhaps better, on a discussion of its
underlying social contract. The content of that social contract will both define and be defined by
the model and ideal of European integration adopted and, in general, our preferences with
regard to efficiency and distributive justice. There are two basic dilemmas that intersect each
other in this issue: the first concerns the choice between wealth maximisation and distributive
justice; the second is to do with whether we favour a model of economic integration or a model
of political integration for Europe. What is clear is that the present status quo is no longer viable
as it no longer fits with the impact of European integration. The erosion of national powers and
Europe’s impact on the exercise of national redistribution policies will bring increased pressures
in favour of the assumption of a re-distributive function at the European level. This claim will
be reinforced by the need to complement the wealth maximisation brought about by economic
integration with some form of distributive fairness. Furthermore, the coming institutional
developments of the Union are bound to reinforce its majoritarian and supra-national
characteristics, thereby increasing the re-distributive impact of European policies. This
institutional development can only be fully legitimised and accepted if its re-distributive effects
are guided by a socially agreed criterion of distributive justice.
To ignore this “social identity question” in the forthcoming constitutional debates of the
European Union may well correspond to the dangerous path of which Kierkegaard warned:
“The biggest danger, that of losing oneself, can pass off in the world as quietly as if it were
nothing; every other loss, an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc., is bound to be noticed.”
1
S. Kierkegaard, The sickness unto death: a Christian psychological exposition for edification and
awakening/ by Anti-Climacus (ed. S. Kierkegaard; trans. A. Hannay) (Harmondsworth, Penguin Books,
1989).
2
Kierkegaard, above n.1 at 43.
3
See P. Davies, “Market Integration and Social Policy in the Court of Justice” (1995) 24 Industrial Law
Journal, 49 at 49.
4
See M.P. Maduro, We The Court, The European Court of Justice and the European Economic
Constitution (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 1998).
5
See the Sunday Trading cases, notably, Case C-145/88 Torfaen Borough Council v. B&Q plc. [1989]
ECR 3851.
22
6
Case C-179/90 Merci Convenzionali Porto di Genova SpA v. Siderurgica Gabrielli SpA [1991] ECR I-
5889.
7
Case C-41/90 Höfner & Elser v. Macroton GmbH [1991] ECR I-197 and Case C-134/95 USSL v. INAIL
[1997] ECR I-195.
8
See, for example, Case 65/75 Tasca (Ricardo) [1976] ECR 291; Cases 88-90/75 Sadam, [1976] ECR
323; Case 13/77 GB-INNO-BM v. ATAB [1977] ECR 2115; Case 82/77 Openbaar Ministerie v. Van
Tiggele [1978] ECR 25.
9
See the various examples given by Davies, above n.3, mainly at 58 ff.
10
E.B. Haas, The Uniting of Europe, (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1968) (first published 1958), at
516.
11
D. Trubeck, Social Justice “After” Globalization - The Case of Social Europe (mimeo, November
1996), at 5.
12
See, notably, Article 137 EC.
13
See Articles 138 and 139 EC.
14
I. Moebius and E. Szyszczak, “Of Raising Pigs and Children” (1998) YEL 125.
15
The expression belongs to M. Everson, “The Legacy of the Market Citizen” in J. Shaw and G. More
(eds.), New Legal Dynamics of European Union (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995) at 73.
16
See, for example, Case C-55/94 Gebhard [1995] ECR I-4165, at para. 34.
17
Joined Cases C-267 and C-268/91 Keck and Mithouard [1993] ECR I-6097.
18
See Maduro, above n.4, at 61-68.
19
See Davies, above n.3.
20
Note that the two examples of social rights given do not require any type of legislative action (as
normally happens with social rights of a programmatic character) and could be established simply by
judicial recognition.
21
It is sufficient to think of the arguments, regarding Article 28 (ex Article 30), used to challenge national
regulations which prohibited shops from opening on Sundays, prevented certain marketing and
advertising methods. or imposed the use of recyclable bottles.
22
See Article 95.
23
Keck and Mithouard above n.17. In this decision, the Court restricted the scope of application of what
was then Article 30 with regard to national measures regulating “selling arrangements” and which do not
discriminate against imports (no longer considered as capable of restricting trade in the context of the free
movement of goods). The traditional interpretation of Article 30 is, however, maintained with regard to
national measures on product characteristics. On Keck see: S. Weatherill, “After Keck: Some Thoughts on
How to Clarify the Clarification” (1996) 33 CMLRev., 885; Gormley, “Two Years After Keck” (1996) 19
Fordham International Law Journal; M. Mattera, “De l’arrêt “Dassonville” à l’arrêt Keck: l’obscure
clarité d’une jurisprudence riche en principes novateurs et en contradictions” (1994) Revue du Marché
Unique Européen; D. Chalmers, “Repackaging the Internal Market – The Ramifications of the Keck
Judgment” (1994) 19 ELRev. 385; M. Lopez Escudero, “La jurisprudencia Keck y Mithouard: Una
Revision del Concepto de Medida de Efecto Equivalente” (1994) Revista de Instituciones Europeas, 379;
23
N. Bernard, “Discrimination and Free Movement in EC Law” (1996) 45 International and Comparative
Quarterly, 82; Higgins, “The Free Movement of Goods Since Keck” (1997) 6 IJEL; and M.P. Maduro,
“Keck: The End? The Beginning of the End? Or Just the End of the Beginning?” (1994) 1 IJEL, 30.
24
Case C-415/93 Bosman [1995] ECR I-4921.
25
That has not been the case up to now. In this sense, see E. Szyszczak, “Future Directions in European
Union Social Policy Law” (1995) 19 ILJ, at 31.
26
In the words of Carlos Ball, “The Court of Justice has interpreted Community Law provisions that
provide individuals with justiciable economic rights in a way that prohibits Member States from treating
their own citizens better than the citizens from other Member States working within their borders. This
has contributed significantly to the formation of a European social citizenship”, in “The Making of a
Transnational Capitalist Society: The Court of Justice, Social Policy, and Individual Rights Under the
European Community’s Legal Order” (1996) 37 Harvard International Law Journal, 307 at 314.
27
Case C-85/96 Martínez Sala [1998] ECR I-2708, paras. 62-64.
28
The Court established two conditions: that the facts of the case must fall within the scope ratione
materiae and ratione personae of the Treaty. The latter is linked to the interpretation to be given by the
Court to the general right of free movement of persons established in Article 8a EC (now Article 18)
which the Court considered unnecessary to consider in this case (see below).
29
It is not required for specific Community rules to address an issue for it to come under its scope of
application. Otherwise, the Court would not need to independently apply Article 6.
30
See J. Shaw and S. Fries, “Citizenship of the Union: First Steps in the European Court of Justice”
(1994) 4 European Public Law 533
31
See paras. 58-59.
32
G. Peebles, “A Very Eden of Innate Rights of Man? A Marxist Look at the European Union Treaties
and Case Law” (1997) 22 Law & Soc. Inquiry 581.
33
Ibid. at 586-587.
34
See Case C-249/96 Grant v. South West Trains [1998] ECR I-62. The Court has however accepted a
partial extension of the prohibition to discriminate on the basis of sex to cover transsexuals in Case P.
complete citation.
35
See Ball, above, n.26, at 315.
36
See the discussion below.
37
See, for example, Case C-246/96 Magorrian and Cunningham v. Eastern Health and Social Service
Board and the Department of Health and Social Services [1997] ECR I-7153; Case C-191/94 AGF
Belgium [1996] ECR I-1859; Case T-135/96 UEAPME [1998] ECR II-2335. See also Szyszczak, above,
n.25, at 31 and references therein.
38
See B. Hepple, “Social Values and European Law” (1995) 39 Current Legal Problems; R. Blanpain, B.
Hepple, S. Sciarra and M. Weiss, Fundamental Social Rights: Proposals for the European Union,
(Leuven, Walter Lëen Fonds, 1996). See also the Molitor Group Report, Section on labour law, Proposal
1, (Agence Europe/Documents, Nº 1947, 4 August 1993).
24
39
Thus, the degree of incorporation of EU fundamental rights in national legal orders would not be
changed.
40
Article 13 EC as introduced by the Treaty of Amsterdam.
41
See Case 149/77 Defrenne v. Sabena [1978] ECR 1365; Case 170/84 Bilka-Kaufhaus v. Weber von
Hartz [1986] ECR I-1607; Case 126/86 Gimenez Zaera v. INSS [1986] ECR I-2261, para. 13.
42
The expression is drawn from Peebles, above n.32.
43
Everson, above n.15 at 76, talks about a conceptual obscurity which raises two contrasting possibilities:
“First, Union citizenship may relate to a common but limited European society, which does not supersede
but exists alongside its national counterparts. Secondly, Union citizenship may yet be associated with
national societies.”
44
An application of Marshall’s theory to the European Union has recently been attempted by Duarte Bué
Alves.
45
Ibid.
46
In this sense, see J. Shaw, “Twin-track Social Europe - the Inside Track” in D. O’Keeffe and P.
Twomey (eds.), Legal Issues of the Maastricht Treaty (London, Chancery, 1994) at 295.
47
See C. Mestre and Y. Petit, “La cohésion économique et sociale après le Traité sur l’Union
européenne” (1995) 31 RTD eur. 207.
48
See Shaw above n.46 at 305.
49
Hepple, above n.38 at 40.
50
Ibid., mainly at 40-44, 52 ff. and 60.
51
As the sum of national demos, the constituency of European citizens is a community identified by
history or other factors.
52
53
See Mestre and Petit, above n.47 at 241.
According to S. Weber and H. Wiesmeth, “an international regime (…) provides a political
environment that naturally promotes issue linkage: by affecting ‘transaction costs’, the costs associated
with acts of non-co-operative behaviour, it makes it easier to link particular issues and to negotiate sidepayments that allow some actors to extract positive gains on one issue in return for the favours expected
on another”, in “Issue Linkage in the European Community” (1991) 25 JCMS 258.
54
Coleman, speaks of the distinction between teleological (or consequentialist) modes of justification and
consensual modes of justification. See: J.L. Coleman, “The Foundations of Constitutional Economics” in
R.B. Mckenzie (ed.), Constitutional Economics - Containing the Economic Powers of Government,
(Lexington, Mass., Toronto, Lexington Books) at 141 ff.. See also the description of Pareto superiotity,
Pareto optimality and Kaldor-Hicks efficiency at 143-144.
55
See Haas, above n.10, at xxiv.
56
In this sense, Jean-Claude Piris, “ Does the Europe Union have a Constitution? Does it need one?”
(1999) 24 ELRev., 557 at 564.
57
R. Dehousse, “European Institutional Architecture After Amsterdam: Parliamentary System or
Regulatory Structure?” (1998) 35 CMLRev., 595 at 599.
58
Ibid. at 624.
25
59
A. Hirschman, Exit, Voice and Loyalty – Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations and States,
(Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1970).
60
In a different sense from that argued here but also claiming that “the Union’s social policy now stands
at a crossroads (and) requires courageous decisions” at the risk of creating “a policy vacuum and leading
to the disenchantment among those very citizens who have had their expectations awakened”, see C.
Barnard, “EC ‘Social’ Policy”, in P. Craig and G. de Búrca (eds.), The Evolution of EU Law (Oxford,
OUP, 1999), 47, at 511.
61
For Habermas, “the only kind of democratic process that will count as legitimate, and that will be able
to provide its citizens will solidarity, will be one that succeeds in an appropriate allocation and a fair
distribution of rights”, in The Postnational Constellation, (Polity Press, 2000, forthcoming).
62
See above n.61.
63
On the problems and virtues of competition among states and competition among rules see Maduro,
above n.4 at 126 ff.
64
See Shaw and Fries, above n.30 at 533.
65
See S. Sciarra, “European Social Policy and Labour Law – Challenges and Perspectives”, Collected
Courses of the Academy of European Law, Volume IV Book 1, Academy of European Law (The Hague,
Kluwer Law International, 1996) 301 at 310.
26