ABSTRACT
Social rights are embedded in institutional histories and are associated with a particular set of legal and political orders; in Europe the Welfare State emerged in particular form, was stabilised in the second post-war period and spread across the Western part of the Continent. For Fernando Atria, social rights, unlike individual rights, are particularly sensitive to cooperation in a way that cannot be easily reduced to their individual content. The trajectory of European integration, in the decisive way in which it encroaches on social rights, has been punctuated by two key moments. The first, providing the imprint to the European Community itself, the legal DNA, so to speak, of the European project is market integration, with competition law its linchpin. The second decisive moment is the launch of the single currency project with the Maastricht Treaty. The chapter examines how the modality of ad hoc responsiveness and under the sign of emergency, urgency and necessity are treated as interchangeable.
