Fundamental Social Rights and the EU Charter in Times of Crisis : Reality and Prospects

The core aim of this chapter is to explore the potential of the EU Charter in developing social protection in times of poly-crisis. In the past, EU Member States have gone through a number of events that have been termed as crises, calling for a paradigm shift in EU governance (economic, migration, and more recently health crises). While the effects of these crises are still felt, the EU is faced with a war at its borders, a rule-of law-crisis within the EU, and an energy crisis. Looking ahead, it becomes hard to imagine that EU will soon return to ‘normal’ – that is, to the adoption of policies and legislation that will not be framed around a prevailing crisis discourse. Against this background, we use the term poly-crisis to refer to the situation of multiple crises taking place in parallel at local and regional European levels and which are interlinked with EU policy making. By understanding the present through the lens of a poly-crisis, we explore how social-rights protection appears in current EU law and policy, and offer alternative theoretical models to drive change that can foster stronger protection of social rights.