Social security in the fundamental rights case law of the CJEU

The right to social security and social assistance found its way into the EU legal order through the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (CFREU, Article 34) in 2000. This document, originally non-binding, became legally binding in 2009.

The CFREU was innovating on several points, especially with regard to social rights. Such rights were traditionally perceived as second-rate rights, lacking enforceability. With the inclusion of social rights in the CFREU, the EU wished to further strengthen the social dimension of the EU and marked a new step in the EU integration, according to several legal scholars. However, questions about the role and the enforceability of the social rights already emerged during the conception of the Charter and were not fully resolved when this document was adopted. It was particularly unclear what the role of social rights should be in areas where the EU competences to act were limited or bound to certain restrictions and/or when the EU had not exercised its competences by enacting legislation, such as in the domain of social security and social assistance. Clarification about the content and the role of the right to social security and social assistance was (and to a large extent still is) much needed.

In this contribution, I first explore the current status of the right to social security and social assistance in Article 34 CFREU, as well as the existing obstacles and difficulties concerning the content and enforceability of this provision. This overview also examines whether social security rights are protected (indirectly) in the EU via other fundamental (civil and political) rights. Secondly, I examine how the right to social security and social assistance in the CFREU and the European Pillar of Social Rights (EPSR, as adopted in 2017) interrelate. To conclude, this contribution looks ahead and will explore how the right to social security and social assistance in Article 34 CFREU can be further developed.