The European Social Model and the Constitutional Treaty of the European Union

This chapter analyses the work of the Convention for the Future of Europe and its Draft Constitutional Treaty as modified by the Intergovernmental Conference of June 2004. These documents represent an important and necessary step in the constituting of a political and social counter-weight to the hegemony of market dynamics on the old continent, a form of solidaristic ‘cement’ between the citizens of the European Union, even though it may be neither sufficient nor conclusive. The European Constitution as a project and as a process can only prevail if it gives birth to a ‘European social model’ that invites the involvement of the radical collective and political subjects of the old continent in a struggle for the constitution. The analysis of the distribution of competence as foreseen by the constitutional treaty needs to be radically critical. The important improvement in the level of legal protection of individual and collective rights is insufficient for the take-off of a ‘social model’.