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Fundamental Social Rights in the European Union

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Fundamental Social Rights in the European Union E-LEARNING NATIONAL ACTIVE CHARTER TRAINING SOCIAL AND NON-DISCRIMINATION PROVISIONS IN THE EMPLOYMENT FIELD IN THE CHARTER MARCH 2019 VERSION Project implemented with financial support from the European Union’s Justice Programme. Emmanuelle Bribosia Louise Fromont Areg Navasartian Isabelle Rorive 1 Foreword The ULB team which wrote this handbook would like to extend their gratitude to the European University Institute, the Institut d’Études Européennes of the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and the members of the working group for their help and their contributions to the casesheets: Cécile Barbier, associated researcher at the Institute for European Studies, Saint-Louis University, Belgium Isabela Delia Popa, attorney-at-law, Romania Elise Dermine, professor at ULB and attorney-at-law, Belgium Daniel Dumont, professor at ULB, Belgium Felicia Rosioru, associated professor, Babes-Bolyai University, Romania Jean-François Neven, professor at ULB and Chamber President of the Labour Court of Brussels, Belgium Maribel Pascual, professor at Pompeu Fabra University, Spain Agathe Rivière, PhD researcher at Strasbourg University, France Aida Torres, professor at Pompeu Fabra University, Spain This handbook has been created for the purposes of the e-NACT project. It consists of three parts: a state of play, a selection of case law relating to the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the social rights it contains, and a set of hypotheticals that were discussed during the e-NACT workshop on social rights held on 4-5 October 2018 at the Institut d’Études Européennes of the Université Libre de Bruxelles. The workshop was an occasion to comment on and amend a draft version of the handbook. This handbook does not claim to amount to a scientific paper but instead serves a pedagogic purpose. A selected bibliography of pertinent sources pertaining to the different subjects broached can be found at the beginning of the handbook. All rights reserved. © This handbook was funded by the European Union’s Justice Programme (2014-2020). The content of the report only represents the views of the e-NACT consortium and is its sole responsibility. The European Commission does not accept any responsibility for use that may be made of the information it contains. 2 Table of contents Selected bibliography ........................................................................................................................ 5 Part I: State of play ........................................................................................................................... 7 I. Introduction ..................................................................................................................................................... 7 II. A brief history of fundamental social rights in the EU .................................................................................... 7 A. From the Treaty of Rome to the Single European Act (1985) .................................................................... 7 B. The Community Charter on the Fundamental Social Rights of Workers ................................................. 10 C. The nineties: The Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties............................................................................. 11 D. From the drafting of the Charter of Fundamental Rights to the Treaty of Lisbon .................................... 13 1. The Charter of Fundamental Rights ..................................................................................................... 13 The Nice and Lisbon Treaties .................................................................................................................... 14 2. .................................................................................................................................................................... 14 Effects of the Charter of Fundamental Rights on the CJEU’s case law ..................................................... 15 3. .................................................................................................................................................................... 15 E. The financial crisis and the European Pillar of Social Rights ................................................................... 17 III. Overview and analysis of the social rights in the Charter: distinction between rights and principles, social rights, horizontal application and general principles of EU law ............................................................................. 22 A. Introduction ................................................................................................................................................... 22 B. Case law of the CJEU relating to the distinction between rights and principles ............................................ 23 IV. Judicial interaction on matters of social rights .......................................................................................... 34 A. Relations between the European Social Charter (CoE) system and the EU framework ........................... 34 B. Relations between the European Convention on Human Rights (CoE) system and the EU framework in social rights matters ............................................................................................................................................ 37 1. Social rights in the system of the European Convention on Human Rights ......................................... 38 2. Evolution of Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights ............................................... 38 The European Court of Human Rights and the Financial Crisis ................................................................. 39 3. .................................................................................................................................................................... 39 Judicial dialogue between the CJEU and the ECtHR in social cases .......................................................... 40 4. .................................................................................................................................................................... 40 Part II: Selection of cases ................................................................................................................ 42 Introductory remarks ............................................................................................................................................... 42 Selection of cases .................................................................................................................................................... 43 The social rights in the Charter in relation to national constitutions ....................................................................... 44 Casesheet No. 1: The Spanish Constitution ........................................................................................................ 44 Casesheet No. 2: The Romanian Constitution .................................................................................................... 46 Articulation between the right to collective bargaining and other considerations................................................... 49 Casesheet No. 3: Lex Laval ................................................................................................................................ 49 Casesheet No. 4: Demir and Baykara ................................................................................................................. 53 Casesheet No. 5: Alemo-Herron v. Parkwood .................................................................................................... 56 Individual dismissals ............................................................................................................................................... 59 Casesheets nos. 6-9: Hungarian Act No. LVIII of 2010 on the status of public servants ................................... 59 Freedom of thought, conscience and religion in the workplace .............................................................................. 63 Casesheet No. 10: Achbita v. G4S Secure Solutions .......................................................................................... 63 Casesheet No. 11: Bougnaoui v. Micropole SA ................................................................................................. 67 Casesheet No. 12: Egenberger v. Evangelisches Werk für Diakonie und Entwicklung eV ............................... 70 Casesheet No. 13: Daniela v. Acciona Airport Services .................................................................................... 73 Casesheet No. 14: G. and A. v. asbl PSE ........................................................................................................... 76 Protection of social rights in times of financial crisis ............................................................................................. 80 Casesheet No. 15: Florescu ................................................................................................................................ 80 Casesheet No. 16: Koufaki and ADEDY ........................................................................................................... 83 Casesheet No. 17: IKA-ETAM v. Greece .......................................................................................................... 85 Part III: hypotheticals ....................................................................................................................
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