The paper is intended to develop the idea that the growing number of rules on universal services allows for the introduction of a debate about whether these rules contain the nucleus of a new social European private law. This is all the more important as the European Community will change the...

My hypothesis, which I try to present in this paper can be broken down into three different affirmations: The ECJ is developing, on the basis of the acquis communautaire, a European Social Framework, not a fully-fledged European Social Model. The ECJ’s Social Model is based on access justice...

The European Work Council is a transnational actor which represents the workers in European firms. The paper identifies the difficulties and obstacles which limits the powers of EWC (legitimacy in question, content of constitutive agreement, link with national bodies, transnational coordination...

Europe continues to search for its – 'European' – social model and the, search seems to become increasingly urgent. It is no longer just the 'democratic deficit', but also and alongside it, the 'social deficit' of the EU which needs to be cured. That new concern is, in fact, a rejection of...

This paper examines the main questions raised by the accession of the European Union to the Revised European Social Charter, under the new architecture of the Union provided by the Treaty establishing a European Constitution. The paper is divided in five parts. The historical background is...