Il saggio riprende e rielabora l’introduzione al Convegno I diritti sociali dopo Lisbona. Il ruolo delle Corti. il caso italiano. Il diritto del lavoro fra riforme delle regole e vincoli di sistema, Reggio Calabria, 5 novembre 2011.

This paper deals with the controversial relationship between fundamental social rights and European economic crisis, focusing on the role of fundamental social rights in the evolution of the European legal system. In the first sections, the A. analyzes the root causes of the weakness of fundamental social rights in the project of European integration and, in this context, the effects of anti-crisis measures taken by Eurozone countries. Particular attention is devoted to collective social rights: the decisions of the European Court of Justice (the “Laval quartet”) clearly demonstrate the primacy of free movement  as a privileged instrument of economic integration. The "downgrading" of fundamental social rights is combined with the precarious democratic legitimacy of the new economic governance and with growing inequalities among European countries, while deregulation policies determine restrictive effects on social rights at national level. On the other hand, the degree of resistance of the rights guaranteed by the Charter of Rights is extremely precarious. The A. examines the "doctrine" of the European Court on free movement and finds out that only a new EU regulation can limit its dominance on collective rights (and social rights in general). According to the A. a quite different approach to the protection of collective rights can be observed under the European Convention of Human Rights: the degree of rights protection guaranteed by the Courts strictly, he concludes, depends on the system where rights are embedded.