Para saír do menosprezo dos direitos sociais na UE em crise

E se forçássemos a União Europeia a levar a sério os seus compromissos com os direitos fundamentais? Robbie Pye e Owen Parker, da Universidade de Sheffield, ajudam a pensar como a Europa podia ser diferente na crise. Indispensável ler por quem quer estar na UE e não quer que a UE seja o que está a ser. Na sua proposta, bastaria voltar aos compromissos fundamentais e, como faz o Conselho da Europa com a Carta Social Europeia, levar a sério os compromissos sociais:

Our paper suggests that a constitutional basis for a rebalancing towards more social goals already exists in the EU, in the form of the EU’s stated commitment to fundamental rights, including social rights. The EU has a Charter of Fundamental Rights (EUCFR) that includes social rights and the European Commission has said that it wishes to be an ‘exemplary actor’ when it comes to rights. While the EU itself (including the case law of the European Court of Justice) has not established clear or substantive standards on social rights, another European institution has done so: namely, the European Committee of Social Rights (EC R), which operates under the auspices of the Council of Europe and provides oversight of the implementation of the European Social Charter (ESC) (established in 1961). The ESC is not alien to the EU: it is referred to in the EU treaties, it has been drawn upon by the ECJ, and it has inspired many of the social rights in the EUCFR.

In the context of its recent economic governance the EU has been far from ‘exemplary’ on rights and certainly not on social rights. Not only have these not been systematically considered in the context of this governance (as they arguably should have been), such governance has in fact eroded social rights in national contexts. In our paper we suggest that the EU can and should be held to its own commitments by incorporating the standards of the ECSR into all aspects of its governance and, in particular, its European semester.

Ou seja, um dos caminhos a percorrer é fazer com que não haja uma União Europeia assente só no seu pé direito, o dos mercados, mas consciente dos seus dois pés. Infelizmente, nos dias que correm, o outro pé tem muito pouca força. Mas a acção política pode mudar as coisas.