The EU Constitution of Social Governance in an Economic Crisis in Defence of a Transnational Dimension to Social Europe

Abstract

Conventional wisdom has it that the EU is unable to promote viable social integration, which contrasts with its commitments to improving working and living conditions and to social values and goals such as solidarity, social protection and social inclusion. This article challenges two different standpoints: on the one hand, competitive neoliberalism demands that the EU focuses on economic integration through legally binding internal market and competition rules even if Member States can only maintain a limited commitment to social inclusion, while authors defending the social models unique to the continent of Europe demand that the EU rescinds some of its established legal principles in order to make breathing space for Member States to maintain market correcting social policies. Both positions convene that there should be no genuine social policy at EU level. This article uses scenarios of widely discussed rulings by the Court of Justice to illustrate that legally enforceable economic integration would prevent most Member States from achieving sustainable health services, labour relations and free university education on the basis of national closure. Since the EU has limited legislative competences to create EU level institutions to balance inequalities, it derives a Constitution of Social Governance from the EU's values, proposing that the Court of Justice develops its jurisprudence into an instrument for challenging European disunion induced by new EU economic governance.