ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the development of Community social policy and the entrenchment of legal and social rights in the European Union. It shows that these processes have given rise to channels for the exercise of secondary political rights. The chapter focuses on the initiation of primary political rights for individuals and a form of the right of self-determination for regions. It argues that people have a more complicated sense of themselves than is acknowledged in narrow conceptions of citizenship and by the those who are sceptical or cynical about the prospects for European citizenship. The chapter shows that workers' and welfare rights can, contrary to Raymond Aron, be considered part of citizenship rights and, therefore, that their regulation at the common level does represent, even prior to the Maastricht Treaty, an element of European citizenship. It provides an indication of the role of the Court in giving substance to common standards.
