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Austerity and European Social Rights: How Can Courts Protect Europe's Lost Generation?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Anastasia Poulou

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The European financial crisis has called many of the assumptions of the constitutional structure of the European Union (EU) into question. The market-based model of the European Monetary Union (EMU) led to an improper assessment of the borrowing capacity of the euro-area Member States and a mispricing of their default risk. Another design flaw of the EMU that has been exposed by the crisis was the weakness of the existing framework for economic policy coordination. The factual interdependence of the participating economies in the monetary union was so strong that the denial of some form of assistance to the debt-distressed countries triggered a domino effect in the Eurozone as a whole. The quest for instruments to address the sovereign debt crisis brought a European constitutional crisis to the forefront: the EU did not possess the appropriate mechanisms to help the states in need and to guarantee financial stability in the EMU.

Type
Special Section: Europe and the Lost Generation
Information
German Law Journal , Volume 15 , Issue 6 , 01 October 2014 , pp. 1145 - 1176
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 by German Law Journal GbR 

References

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135 On the democratic legitimacy of judicial review, see John H. Ely, Democracy and Distrust: A Theory of Judicial Review (1980); Dahl, supra note 134, at 188; Christopher F. Zurn, Deliberative Democracy and the Institutions of Judicial Review 236 (2007).Google Scholar

136 See Eur. Comm. Soc. Rights, Decision on the Merits: Federation of employed pensioners of Greece (IKA-ETAM) v. Greece, Complaint No. 76/2012 para. 83 (Dec. 7, 2012); Eur. Comm. Soc. Rights, Decision on the Merits: Panhellenic Federation of Public Service Pensioners (POPS) v. Greece, Complaint No. 77/2012 para. 79 (Dec. 7, 2012); Eur. Comm. Soc. Rights, Decision on the Merits: Pensioners' Union of the Athens-Piraeus Electric Railways (I.S.A.P.) v. Greece, Complaint No. 78/2012 para. 79 (Dec. 7, 2012); Eur. Comm. Soc. Rights, Decision on the Merits: Panhellenic Federation of pensioners of the Public Electricity Corporation (POS-DEI) v. Greece, Complaint No. 79/2012 para. 79 (Dec. 7, 2012); Eur. Comm. Soc. Rights, Decision on the Merits: Pensioners' Union of the Agricultural Bank of Greece (ATE) v. Greece, Complaint No. 80/2012 para. 79 (Dec. 7, 2012).Google Scholar

137 Regulation 472/2013, art. 8.Google Scholar

138 The Greek Civil Servants' Confederation ADEDY launched an action for annulment against Council Decisions 2010/320/EU and 2011/57/EU including financial assistance conditionality (art. 263 TFEU). The General Court held that the challenged provisions were indeterminate and left a margin to the Greek state as to the way of their implementation and thus could not themselves directly affect the applicants. As a result both actions were rejected as inadmissible. See ADEDY et al. v. Council, GC Case T-541/10 (Nov. 27, 2012), http://curia.europa.eu/; ADEDY et al. v. Council, GC Case T-215/11 (Nov. 27, 2012), http://curia.europa.eu/.Google Scholar

139 Two Portuguese courts referred to the CJEU, asking whether radical reforms in national labour law where compatible with the Charter of Fundamental Rights. The inadequately drafted order for reference failed to express the links between national reforms and EU conditionality. As a result, the CJEU did not perceive domestic austerity measures as part of a European assistance package and declined to go into the merits of the case. See Sindicato dos Bancários do Norte and Others v. BPN - Banco Português de Negócios, SA, CJEU Case C-128/12 (Mar. 7, 2013), http://curia.europa.eu/; Sindicato Nacional dos Profissionals de Seguros e Afins v. Fidelidade Mundial, CJEU Case C-264/12 (Jun. 26, 2014), http://curia.europa.eu/.Google Scholar

140 See Symboulio tis Epikrateias [StE] [Supreme Administrative Court] 1285/2012 and 1286/2012, para. 21 (Greece).Google Scholar

141 On the Portuguese constitutional court, see Christina Akrivopoulou, Striking Down Austerity Measures: Crisis Jurisprudence in Europe, Blog Int'l J. Const. L. (June 25, 2013), http://www.iconnectblog.com/2013/06/striking-down-austerity-measures-crisis-jurisprudence-in-Europe/; Gonçalo de Almeida Ribeiro, Judicial Activism Against Austerity in Portugal, Blog Int'l J. Const. L. (Dec. 3, 2013), http://www.iconnectblog.com/2013/12/judicial-activism-against-austerity-in-portugal/; Roberto Cisotta & Daniel Gallo, The Portuguese Constitutional Court Case Law on Austerity Measures: A Reappraisal in Social Rights in Times of Crisis in the Eurozone: The Role of Fundamental Rights’ Challenges 85 (EUI Working Paper No. 2014/05).Google Scholar

142 See Acordão No. 396/2011 (Portugal); Acordão No. 353/2012, July 5, 2012 (Portugal); Acordão No. 187/2013, Apr. 5, 2013 (Portugal).Google Scholar

143 For the classical argument on the alternatives of voice and exit, see Albert O. Hirschman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States (1970).Google Scholar

144 See Symboulio tis Epikrateias [StE] [Supreme Administrative Court] 2192-96/2014 (Greece).Google Scholar

145 See Elegktiko Synedrio [ES] [Court of Audit] 2/2013 (Greece).Google Scholar

146 See Symboulio tis Epikrateias [StE] [Supreme Administrative Court] 2705/2014 (Greece).Google Scholar

147 See also Symboulio tis Epikrateias [StE] [Supreme Administrative Court] 574/2014 and 575/2014 (Greece).Google Scholar

148 See Symboulio Epikrateias [StE] [Supreme Administrative Court] 2307/2014, para. 23 (Greece).Google Scholar

149 Eur. Comm. Soc. Rights, supra note 100, para. 65.Google Scholar