General aspects concerning social policy

• Author: Florian Radu-Gheorghe
• Position: AGORA University, Law and Economics Faculty
• Pages: 92-103

GENERAL ASPECTS CONCERNING SOCIAL POLICY

PhD Lecturer Radu-Gheorghe Florian

AGORA University

Law and Economics Faculty

raduflorian@rdslink.ro

Abstract: Social policy at European Union level represents a fundamental and indirect

aspect of the final regulation of the internal market.

Thus, the closer it is to achieving a harmonisation at the level of European Community of

certain principles such as that of non-discrimination based on any arbitrary criterion, of the

principle of social welfare within labour relations, respectively of the principles governing the

matter of social security, the more it contributes to fulfilling the objective of the European Union,

which is to establish a single market that presupposes, among other things, the freedom of services

and the free circulation of people.

The aim of the present work is to explain the level of protection ensured at present by the

regulations of Community law in the matter of labour relations, of the observance of the non-

discrimination principle as an essential component in increasing competitiveness, respectively the

way in which social security for the insurance holders included in the social security scheme of the

member states is ensured.

Key words: the labour legal relation in Community law, the principle of non-

discrimination, the social security scheme in the EU.

1. Evolution of the Community Social Policy

Social policy did not represent, unfortunately, a preoccupation among the founders of the

three European Communities in the 6

th

decade of the 20

th

century. Thus, the ECSC treaty (Treaty

establishing the European Coal and Steel Community signed on 18

April 1951 in Paris), as well as

the Treaties establishing the European Economic Community (EEC) and the European Atomic

Energy Community (EAEC or EURATOM), signed on 25 March 1957, did not include any

provisions regarding a European social system, the speculation being, as shown by the doctrine, that

economic integration would in time ensure an optimal social system

1

.

Subsequently, the actions of some Member States, particularly France, whose national law

is more generous as concerns workers’ protection, determined the development up to a certain

degree of a social policy at Community level, but an uneven one, against the background of other

states’ conception that either had a national law which was less protective towards workers or

considered social policy as integrated part of national sovereignty and wanted to maintain it within

the sphere of national competences.

In The Treaty establishing the European Community (TEC), social policy is regulated in

articles 117-125 (current articles 136-148), of which the most important for the evolution of social

policy is article 119 (current article 141) of TEC, which sanctions equality between men and

women in the world of work, a principle that has been promoted first and foremost in order to avoid

a price distortion due to differences in the costs of production.

As, after the establishment of the European Communities, France was the only member

country that granted by law equal pay to workers, it insisted for the implementation of this principle

among the other Member States for fear that its business environment might become more

expensive than that of the other Member States.

Consequently, a deadline was established for enforcing article 119, which was prolonged

until year 1964, but, as an uneven application of this principle was noticed, a directive was adopted

with regard to this, namely the Council Directive no. 75/117/EEC of 10 February 1975 on the

1

T. Ştefan, B. Andreşan-Grigoriu, Community Law, Publis hing House C.H.BECK, Bucharest, 2007, p. 639.