This collection of essays examines the promise and limits of social rights in Europe in a time of austerity. Presenting in the first instance five national case studies, representing the biggest European economies (UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain), it offers an account of recent reforms to social welfare and the attempts to resist them through litigation. The case studies are then used as a foundation for theory-building about social rights. This second group of chapters develops theory along two complementary lines: first, they explore the dynamics between social rights, public law, poverty and welfare in times of economic crisis; second, they consider the particular significance of the European context for articulations of, and struggles over, social rights. Employing a range and depth of expertise across Europe, the book constitutes a timely and highly significant contribution to socio-legal scholarship about the character and resilience of social rights in our national and regional constitutional settings.
Table of Contents:
List of contributors
Acknowledgements
Table of cases
PART I Introduction
1 Social rights, the Welfare State and European austerity
Stefano Civitarese Matteucci and Simon Halliday
PART II European case studies
2 France
Diane Roman
3 Germany
Ulrike Lembke
4 Italy
Alessandra Albanese
5 Spain
Dolores Utrilla
6 UK
Jed Meers
7 Austerity, conditionality and litigation in six European nations
Michael Adler and Lars Inge Terum
PART III Theoretical discussions
8 Should a minimum income be unconditional?
Stuart White
9 The social dimension of fundamental rights in times of crisis
Francesco Ferraro
10 Social rights and welfare reform in times of economic crisis
Jeff King
11 The political economy of European social rights
Emilios Christodoulidis and Marco Goldoni
12 Economic crisis and territorial assymetrical effects on the guarantee of social rights within the European Economic and Monteary Union (EMU)
Francesco Bilancia
13 Free movement of persons and transnational solidarity in the European Union (EU): a melancholic eulogy
Stefano Giubboni
Index
About the Author :
Stefano Civitarese Matteucci is Professor of Public Law at the University of Chieti-Pescara, Italy.
Simon Halliday is Professor of Socio-Legal Studies at the University of York, UK, and Professor of Law at the University of New South Wales, Australia.
