The Lisbon Treaty and Social Europe

On December 1, 2009 the Treaty of Lisbon entered into force. Although often described as primarily technical, it significantly amended the Treaty on the European Union (TEU) and the old EC Treaty (now the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, TFEU). This book explores what the Treaty means for social law and social policy at the European level. The first part of the book considers in detail how the general framework looks, at a time of financial crisis, for new foundations for Europe's social market economy. It questions the balance between fundamental social rights and economic freedoms, analyzes the role of the now binding Charter of Fundamental Rights, maps the potential impact of the horizontal clauses on social policy, and addresses the possibilities for social partners to enlarge their role in labor law and industrial relations. The second part, on the social framework of the Treaty, focuses on the development of the EU's competences. It evaluates the consequences of the new general framework on social competences, analyzes the evolution of the principle of subsidiarity and its impact in the new Treaty, looks at the coordination of economic policies in the light of fundamental rights, and discusses the adoption in the Treaty of a new architecture for services of general interest.

Niklas Bruun is Professor of Private Law at the University of Helsinki. He is the Director of the research programme Regulating Markets and Labour (ReMarkLab), Stockholm University, and member of the Centre of Excellence in the Foundations of European Law and Polity, University of Helsinki.Klaus Lorcher is former Legal Adviser to the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) and former Legal Secretary of the Civil Service Tribunal of the European Union.Isabelle Schomann is senior researcher at the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI).They are all members of the Transnational Trade Union Rights Experts Network of the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI).