3) Horizontality and the Charter's effectiveness need to be reimagined as the Charter turns 25 💭! To me, there's promising steps that can be taken, but with a differently oriented jurisprudence.
A big thank you to Christina Hießl for this, and all other, times of working together 😉
The article has three central arguments:
1) Plamaro sidelines the Charter's indivisibility relegating (many) EU labour/social rights to a category of ineffective provisions 3️⃣.
2) Textual formality is inappropriate for this Charter. Its legal history can be key to this view 🗝️.
Horizontality of EU Charter Rights:
Technical ⚙️? Political 🗳️? Certainly important 🤔!
The same holds true for EU labour rights ✊.
I analyse (and critique their current state) in ELLJ with regard to the most recent addition to the case-law in *C-196/23 Plamaro* 📑:
tinyurl.com/7f9wf7sc
The Traineeship Directive will be a crucial test case for the direction of EU youth employment regulation .
Give the WP a look 👀!
It has been one of my most exciting research projects of this past year 🌞! Thank you @karabadjieva.bsky.social and @wzwysen.bsky.social
Second, (b) I assess and critique the current EU governance infrastructure for youth employment built upon the EU Youth Guarantee.
Third, I seek to (c) transform youth employment regulation via concrete examples. Work transitions should ensure quality in access to work and in work.
In the working paper, I contextualise how (a) youth employment has been individuated, ie placing the primary responsibility for work transitions on young individuals and transforming public institutions and social partners in skill-building providers.
Interested in youth employment 🧒? EU Youth Guarantee or a Traineeship Directive ☝️? Labour law, EU economic governance or EU funding 📒?
For young people to be a force of transformation, access to work should not be pitted against work quality 🙌! Go look at the ETUI working paper.
Since the sovereign debt crisis, the EU has focused on regulating young people’s transitions to work. A new paper by Marc Steiert proposes guiding principles into the regulation of these work transitions. etui.org/ZLf
www.blaetter.de/ausgabe/2025...
Sollte sich der EU Generalanwalt durchsetzen, wird der EU Skeptizismus wachsen. Viele werden nicht verstehen, warum unsoziale #EU Interventionen zu Lohnkürzungen legal sind, eine soziale Richtlinie zu angemessenen #Mindestlöhnen jedoch nicht. @blaetter.bsky.social
Very interesting all of it! I am really looking forward to the discussion 😊
Workers excluded from a transposing act. Incompatibility was rather evident since Rodriguez Mayor (long ago), yet no infringement. 30's essence could be a right to a regulatory framework for dismissal, which the CRD does establish (no comp or scope issues). I think exclusion could be about essence.
The point on essence is particularly intriguing! Plamaro denies Art 30 to carry substance as such. To a labour lawyer that must be stunning given its rich normative input and realization in EU law. I'd actually argue that Plamaro is/was/could have been about essence.
Plamaro also has an impact on the CFR's indivisibility by extending AMS to 30 CFR, which unlike 27 is phrased like Art 28, or the infamous Art 16. So it may tie into the cases subjecting social rights to lesser importance in EU law...
Plamaro is ofc a technical decision, or at least presented by the CJEU as such (no AG, 2nd Chamber). Nonetheless, it's a sensitive horizontality issue somewhat ditched in the reasoning and by who adjudicated it (ie first time not the Grand Chamber). That is intriguing to me!
This is some really interesting thoughts! Of course, it's up to each of us (influenced by some volumes) to define what is a 'landmark'. Was it only decisions like Van Gend en Loos? I'd say this classification also depends on our degrees of generalism and specialisation in (an area of) EU law.
If you have a different view, want to know more and/or discuss with us, come along!
It extends the infamous decision in AMS to Art 30 CFR (although by the 2nd Chamber only), thereby entrenching a category of CFR provisions with little to no effect.
It returns to CFR social and labour rights being second-class rights.
Have you heard of C-196/23 Plamaro?
If not, come discuss this landmark case gone missing in 2024 at European University Institute (and online) on 7 May at 4pm: tinyurl.com/y45249yp.
This case is a brick, yet step back in the case-law on the CFR's #horizontality and EU labour right protection.
🔥
This judgment undoubtedly constitutes a landmark ruling.
Its significance lies not only in the outcome—which, contrary to Advocate General Collins’s Opinion— finds Malta in breach of EU law, but also in several important aspects of the Court’s reasoning.
1/6
@eui-law.bsky.social @eui-history.bsky.social @eui-euarchives.bsky.social @eui-adgcentre.bsky.social @etuc-ces.bsky.social @etui.bsky.social
The working paper is also thought as a resource to find relevant documentation for researchers interested in EU treaty-making and social policy! 🔍🔎
More on ShaPE at tinyurl.com/33vv6pzy
Interested in EU social policy, social dialogue, past and present of EU Treaty-making or contestation of EU law? 🗯
We have something for you! 👋
Check ShaPE's working paper on preparation, drafting and implementation of the European social dialogue procedure in 153-155 TFEU: tinyurl.com/2s3sw5pd 📖
Join us today at 2pm online or at the EU's Villa Salviati!
EU law and history friends, join us for this intriguing, interdisciplinary workshop ! All online and in presence 🎥
I am really looking forward to chairing this event !
The Alcide De Gasperi Research Centre is now on Bluesky!
Born as a joint initiative of @eui-history.bsky.social and @eui-euarchives.bsky.social, we are unique research hub on European cooperation and integration
Follow us to get the latest on our projects, opportunities, events and initiatives
And feel free to get in touch if you want to know more about the documents and methods we used! 🙌
@eui-eu.bsky.social @eui-law.bsky.social @etuc-ces.bsky.social @euwatch.live @ec.europa.eu @socialistsanddemocrats.eu @greens-efa.eu @eppgroup.bsky.social @euractiv.com @consilium.europa.eu @eucourtnews.bsky.social
All in all, an inadequate Opinion on adequate minimum wages. The pay exclusion should be narrow. The EU lawmaker carefully balanced it drafting the AMWD. Precedent shows the importance of the CJEU safeguarding the effectiveness of EU social policy competences.
The AMWD must be maintained ⚖️.
3) Context 💭:
The AG inadequately depicts social Europe as context. He neglects its constitutionalization ever since the Rome Treaty, at least since 1975 Defrenne. He neglects the EU regulating for pay retrenchment in the euro-crisis and misunderstands the raison d'etre of the social policy title.
2) Precedent ⚖️:
The AG misconstrues EU competence to regulate with indirect effects on pay. We show the many EU instruments that have already regulated pay in a way which the AG would consider prohibited. The case-law has so far accepted or even strengthened them.
