Boundaries within EU policies – Common Foreign and Security Policy – EU external relations – Management of boundaries – Institutional interpretation – External action objectives – Linking policies to objectives – Restrictive measures – Area of Freedom Security and Justice – Securitisation of migration – Energy policy – Development – Multilateral diplomacy – Global strategy

Impact of fundamental rights on the social ‘acquis’ – Limited extension of social rights from the integration of the ‘acquis’ into the Charter of Fundamental Rights – How the Charter contributed to the renewed force of the economic freedoms – Shift from fundamental rights to ‘essential principles’ of uncertain nature in the European Pillar of Social Rights – Possible transformation in the approach to social issues through interdisciplinarity

EU law – Investigating the displacement of Social Europe at moments of EU enlargement – Sweden as an example of how Social Europe can be displaced – Enlargement of 1995 and austerity policy – Enlargement of 2004 and posted workers – Enlargement of 2007 and ‘vulnerable’ EU-migrants

Social and economic interests of ‘new’ and ‘old’ Member States along centre and periphery axis – Judicial and legislative developments concerning the posting of workers – Continuous deepening of the divide between centre and periphery – Lack of placement of new Member States’ social interests at the EU level – The need to place social interests firmly in the EU (internal market) structure – Developing meaningful common social standards to mitigate the centre/periphery divide

Social Europe – Case law of the Court of Justice – ‘Real’ and ‘apparent’ displacement – Court’s interpretive task more complex and contested – Directives based on ‘flexicurity’ policy – Cases in which workers have competing interests, e.g. age discrimination – Viking and Laval – Re-framing of employers’ interests as fundamental rights under Article 16 EU Charter – Declining relevance of the Court in labour law – Challenges for EU labour lawyers

Critical-contextual analysis of case law of the European Court of Justice on employers’ contractual freedom – Fundamental right to be immunised against the alleged disproportional protection enjoyed by employees – Progressive ideological overthrow of the original constitutional assumptions of the founding treaties – Prominent example of ‘displacement of social Europe’ – Court of Justice’s case law on the relationship between freedom to conduct a business and labour law – Neoliberal understanding of the freedom of enterprise – Alternative interpretation of Article 16 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights