Il presente scritto, con alcune modifiche, è destinato al volume Lavoro e diritti sociali nella crisi europea di prossima pubblicazione.

This paper deals with the guidelines of European courts issued during the recent economic crisis. More precisely, it is focused on courts’ decisions concerning Member States measures implying restrictions to social rights. 
In the first part of the work, the A. describes the new normative framework resulting from “European Stability Mechanism” and “Fiscal compact”. The A. evaluates the “Pringle” judgement of the European Court of Justice and the jurisprudence of the other European courts, and comes to the conclusion that the “strict conditionality” imposed to “weak” countries cannot be judged on the ground of compliance with fundamental rights of the U.E..
In the second part, the A. examines the decisions of member states courts in some countries deeply hit by the economic crisis. It is showed that the courts adopt both “proportionally” and “equality” principles in order to ensure that Member States measures be in line with fairness, but they do not directly counteract the restrictive policies resulting from the commitments undertaken with Europe. Fundamental social rights do not prevent from applying  conditionality, and the interventions of Member States governments are generally considered  consistent with internal constitutional constraints by a large majority of the jurisprudence examined.
A summary of the main results achieved and a bibliography complete the paper.