Social Rights and Policies in the European Union new Challenges in a Context of Economic Crisis

This book intends to be a useful tool for both students and researchers. As far as students are concerned, it presents social rights in the EU as a kind of pilot block not only to approach an essential set of fundamental rights, but also to better understand the complexity of the EU legal sources (primary and secondary law), the difficult distribution of competences between the EU and the Member States (through social policy) as well as the complicated functioning of the EU insti-tutional system. In relation to the researchers, this monograph shares likewise a profound reflection (in terms of European Constitutional Law and multilevel constitutionalism) on the current challenges for the effectiveness of social rights under a critical economic and financial scenario, by taking into account the most recent developments as well as synergies and joint efforts of the Council of Europe and the EU.