Since the EU treaties constitute solidarity as one of the EU’s fundamental values (Articles 2, 3 (2) TEU). In a community of law, the validity of this value depends on its capacity as a legal principle. This chapter asks what, if anything, the case law of the Court of Justice (ECJ) contributes to the discursive exegesis of solidarity as a principle of EU Constitutional Law. In order to answer this question, it offers an empirical analysis of the Court’s case law framing the notion of solidarity, providing a unique database evaluating all 122 cases elaborating on the concept. The analysis distinguishes three categorial types of solidarity (solidarity as charity, as mutual obligation and as risk mitigation) and three functional types of solidarity (embedding individual rights, embedding the Internal Market, rejecting limiting effects of national solidarity). The chapter identifies a number of missed opportunities, and a high degree of inconsistency. A more assertive and consistent approach to solidarity could, however, contribute to supporting a more inclusive constitutional discourse on European integration than the mere reliance on liberal constitutional principles.

Introduction

Tensions between the economic and the social dimensions of European integration are being perceived as increasing, and so is the potential for conflict between national and European levels of policy-making. Both are well illustrated by a highly controversial line of Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) cases on industrial relations: Viking and Laval have become symbols for the continuing dominance of the economic over the social dimension of European integration and for an increasing tendency of the EU to diminish national autonomy. As one consequence, demands to protect Member States’ social policy choices from EU law pressures arise. For such demands to be tenable, isolation of national and EU policy-making and of economic and social dimensions of European integration would have to be possible. This is arguably not the case. Economic and social dimensions of integration will thus have to be reconciled across EU and national levels, if the EU and its Member States are to maintain the ability of enhancing social justice against the pulls of economic globalisation.

Preface

This book results from a ‘Multilateral Jean Monnet Research Group’ called ‘European Economic and Social Constitutionalism after the Treaty of Lisbon: an Interdisciplinary Perspective’, which took up its work in September 2008. The idea for the group originated in collaborations between Hildegard Schneider and Dagmar Schiek within the framework of the IUS COMMUNE research school, where both had attempted to establish a research focus ‘Economic and Social Constitutionalism’, as well as in the contacts between Ulrike Liebert and Dagmar Schiek, who had been working at neighbouring universities for quite a while, often noticing that they had some overlap in research interests, but not succeeding in teaming up for research.

This introduction contextualises the hypothesis of the two-year research project on which this book is based, and explains how the single chapters relate to this hypothesis. The reader will see that we are opening a new debate with new questions, which still await definite answers.