Synergies between the European Union and the European Social Charter, at the time of the European Pillar of Social Rights

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to focus on the way the Council of Europe, a European organization dedicated to the protection of human rights and, in particular, to social rights, has sought to exert a substantial influence on the way the European Union conceives and intends to revalue the place of social rights in its institutional structure (more specifically, in the Eurozone as one of its integral parts). To this end, the European Union adopted, in November 2017, the European Pillar of Social Rights. The purpose of the Council of Europe aimed, precisely, to normalize and, a fortiori, to rationalize the relations between, on the one hand, the European Social Charter and, Union Law, on the other. With this approach, on the basis of the proposal of the Council of Europe on the impact of the Pillar, this contribution outlines the most conducive path, in view of the consolidation of social rights protection in Europe, associated to the desired rapprochement by the Court of Justice of the European Union and its case-law to the European Social Charter, as interpreted and applied by the European Committee of Social Rights.