{"title":"An AI-generated metaphor (unlabelled): In this issue","authors":"Karine Caunes","doi":"10.1111/eulj.70007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/eulj.70007","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47166,"journal":{"name":"European Law Journal","volume":"31 1-2","pages":"2-5"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-07-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144635129","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"European rights for non-EU citizens – ‘Integration through rights’","authors":"Sonia Morano-Foadi, Dora Kostakopoulou","doi":"10.1111/eulj.70001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/eulj.70001","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Integration is a problematic concept when applied to migrants but could be effective if guided by equality, non-discrimination, and fundamental rights as in Article 2 TEU. This article argues for a transformative rights-centric shift in integration. It reviews the EU’s evolving approach to integration and the status of long-term resident third-country nationals (TCNs) over the decades, highlighting the shift from accommodating State interests in migration control to adopting a rights-based perspective. The Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) bridges gaps between legally residing TCNs and EU citizens, limiting Member States’ discretion under EU migration law while broadening individuals’ rights. The proposed recast Long-Term Residence Directive (2003/109) contains provisions to further enhance TCNs’ rights and transform them into rightful actors in European integration. However, the EU Council’s decision to halt negotiations temporarily blocks progress, showing that TCNs’ full inclusion in the European polity remains a difficult challenge.</p>","PeriodicalId":47166,"journal":{"name":"European Law Journal","volume":"31 1-2","pages":"114-129"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-07-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/eulj.70001","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144635130","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mind the gap: The power of social norms in gender inequality in Europe—When law is not enough","authors":"Carolina Fernández Blanco, M. Victoria Kristan","doi":"10.1111/eulj.70004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/eulj.70004","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Gender disparities persist across all EU Member States, despite legal frameworks that formally guarantee equality between women and men. This article explores how deeply entrenched social norms can undermine the efficacy of legal norms, focusing in particular on the domain of gender equality. Grounded in legal theory, the analysis argues that legal noncompliance is often not the result of institutional failure alone, but of conflicting social expectations that remain deeply internalised and largely unchallenged. The first section clarifies the conceptual distinction between the efficacy and effectiveness of legal norms, with attention to their design and conditions of enforcement. The second develops a typology of ways in which social norms obstruct the implementation of gender-equality law, illustrated with examples from EU Member States. The third section provides an analytical overview of how conflicting social norms undermine the efficacy of gender-equality law. Finally, the article adopts a static theoretical lens to examine how law might respond to such conflicts—not by prescribing specific reforms, but by identifying the conceptual conditions under which legal intervention can become both normatively justified and practically feasible.</p>","PeriodicalId":47166,"journal":{"name":"European Law Journal","volume":"31 1-2","pages":"6-21"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-07-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/eulj.70004","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144635114","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Bridging the last mile towards a European social citizenship: The case of the Equality Bodies and the European Labour Authority","authors":"Ane Aranguiz, Francesco Corti","doi":"10.1111/eulj.70006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/eulj.70006","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The European Pillar of Social Rights revamped the debate on Social Europe, simultaneously sparking conversations about a European social citizenship, although this remains negatively conceived as primarily reserved for (active) mobile citizens. We argue that the current approach to European social citizenship is biased by a justiciability axiom, which displays a disappointing social scene at the EU. Whereas we do not disagree with this, we argue that an important bulk of what makes rights ‘rights’ is being overlooked: instrumental resources that act as facilitators for accessing social entitlements. We illustrate this point with two examples: the European Equality Bodies and the European Labour Authority. We find that the EU plays a greater role than often accounted for in ensuring that social rights are accessible. While these channels alone are not sufficient for a fully-fledged social citizenship, they can still play an important role in the construction of Social Europe.</p>","PeriodicalId":47166,"journal":{"name":"European Law Journal","volume":"31 1-2","pages":"81-97"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-07-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/eulj.70006","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144635110","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Unlocking the potential of the EU Charter to ensure equal treatment and non-discrimination between children in childcare leave","authors":"Alicia Hendricks","doi":"10.1111/eulj.70003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/eulj.70003","url":null,"abstract":"<p>EU childcare leave law and policy have traditionally been shaped by concerns relating to gender equality and work–life balance. Conversely, the rights of the child remain largely marginalised in this context, which may result in unequal access to childcare leave among children. Against this normative backdrop, the present paper explores the meaning of equality and non-discrimination between children in relation to childcare leave. It argues for a robust and purposive application of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights to ensure that children's rights are mainstreamed in all the acts of the EU institutions as well as those of the Member States when they are implementing EU law. In particular, Articles 20 and 21(1) are important to secure equal access to childcare leave for all children.</p>","PeriodicalId":47166,"journal":{"name":"European Law Journal","volume":"31 1-2","pages":"42-62"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-07-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144635127","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Towards a common EU-abortion policy? The European Parliament's resolutions on abortion as a human rights issue","authors":"Lourdes Peroni, Marta Bucholc","doi":"10.1111/eulj.70005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/eulj.70005","url":null,"abstract":"<p>While abortion regulation may formally escape European Union competence, EU self-restraint may be under growing pressure. An EU common abortion policy may not be far-fetched, as impulses that trigger interest in abortion increase in Europe and beyond. In examining a recent series of European Parliamentary resolutions on abortion, this article shows how abortion has moved from the margins to the centre owing to increasing triggers coming from inside and outside the EU. In pushing abortion higher up the agenda, the European Parliament has framed abortion in human rights language and, most recently, called for abortion to be included as a right in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. The article argues that in adopting these resolutions, the Parliament may be exercising internal cultural diplomacy in human rights and, at the same time, projecting an image of EU unity while marking a binary division of the world: one moving towards more liberal abortion rules and the other towards greater restrictions.</p>","PeriodicalId":47166,"journal":{"name":"European Law Journal","volume":"31 1-2","pages":"63-80"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-07-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/eulj.70005","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144635098","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From critical theory to litigation strategy: Can intersectionality transform EU equality law?","authors":"Raphaële Xenidis","doi":"10.1111/eulj.70002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/eulj.70002","url":null,"abstract":"<p>While legal scholarship has consistently lamented the lack of recognition of intersectional discrimination in courts, the question of whether intersectionality features in lawyers' litigation strategies remains in a blind spot. Although a growing body of interdisciplinary scholarship probes how legal mobilisation shapes the construction of EU law, the role of critical theory in EU legal entrepreneurship has attracted relatively little attention. This article thus displaces the focus from the judicial reception to the <i>litigation</i> of intersectionality. Through a series of interviews and doctrinal analysis, it examines the mobilisation of critical epistemologies in the framing and litigation strategies of norm entrepreneurs in the field of EU equality law. It explores how intersectionality is seized by legal practitioners, transformed as it enters the repertoire of law and rights, and incorporated in litigation strategies to contest, transform and construct non-discrimination law before the Court of Justice of the EU.</p>","PeriodicalId":47166,"journal":{"name":"European Law Journal","volume":"31 1-2","pages":"22-41"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-07-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/eulj.70002","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144635115","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Posted work in the European Union: Towards a highly competitive social market economy?","authors":"Marta Lasek-Markey","doi":"10.1111/eulj.70000","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/eulj.70000","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper examines the EU's legal framework on the posting of workers—most notably Directive 2018/957—in light of the broader structural tension within European integration between economic freedoms and social protection. It argues that, although the revision marks a shift towards a more worker-oriented approach, the underlying legal and political conflicts remain unresolved. Through an analysis of case-law, legislative developments and empirical trends, the paper shows how the posting regime, while seemingly narrow in scope, acts as a magnifying glass for deeper questions about the EU's identity, legitimacy and capacity to realise the vision of a ‘highly competitive social market economy’ enshrined in Article 3 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU). The paper concludes that while recent reforms represent a step forward, they also reveal the limits of EU-level regulation in balancing market integration with effective labour protections.</p>","PeriodicalId":47166,"journal":{"name":"European Law Journal","volume":"31 1-2","pages":"98-113"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2025-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/eulj.70000","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144635625","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What future for EU foresight? A critical perspective on the institutionalisation of foresight","authors":"Brigitte Gaïti, Didier Georgakakis","doi":"10.1111/eulj.12528","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/eulj.12528","url":null,"abstract":"<p>What are the potential strengths and weaknesses in the current reconstruction of foresight at the EU level? In questioning foresight's institutionalisation processes from both a historical and a political sociology perspective, the article claims that charting the future is an issue of political power and that, hence, foresight's institutionalisation can never be taken for granted. More precisely, we identify two factors that determine how such process plays out. First, it depends on the definition and importance of the future according to specific contexts (war, economic or health crisis, periods of growth, etc.). Second, this changing definition intertwines with socio-institutional structures and agents that are crucial for this institutionalisation to be sustainable. The analysis is twofold. First, we provide an overview of past international experiences of projections into the future (both foresight and forecast). Second, we illustrate how these issues may resurface and rebound within the EU’s unique power context.</p>","PeriodicalId":47166,"journal":{"name":"European Law Journal","volume":"30 3","pages":"443-463"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2024-10-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/eulj.12528","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142540990","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Hungary's attacks on human dignity: Article 2 TEU and the foundations of democracy in the European Union","authors":"Catherine Dupré","doi":"10.1111/eulj.12526","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/eulj.12526","url":null,"abstract":"<p>While in Poland the October 2023 elections led to a government halting the rule of law crisis, in Hungary the political situation continues to deteriorate. Focusing on European Parliament resolutions, this article analyses Hungarian developments from the prism of human dignity, the EU's first foundational value under Article 2 TEU. First the article discusses the key features of human dignity with reference to the original commitment to human dignity under the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to the EU Charter. Secondly, it uses these key features as an analytical grid for evidencing the construction of a counter-model of human beings made to live in a society of inequality and exclusion. Finally, this paper outlines five reasons why human dignity as the first Article 2 value is breached by the Hungarian regime and why the EU Commission's decision not to trigger Article 7(2) is so problematic.</p>","PeriodicalId":47166,"journal":{"name":"European Law Journal","volume":"30 3","pages":"260-283"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2024-10-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/eulj.12526","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142540956","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}