| Budget Amount *help |
¥3,000,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,000,000)
Fiscal Year 2006: ¥1,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,300,000)
Fiscal Year 2005: ¥1,700,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,700,000)
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| Research Abstract |
The original aim of the project was to analyze the evolving EU polity in the two different perspectives of policy governance and legal order, focusing on the 'Open Method of Co-ordination' (OMC), by means of which a series of European social policies have recently been addressed. Yet, in order to locate the European social policies in the evolution of the EU, their emergence itself needs explanation in the first place ; the European integration started primarily as the economic integration, while social policies remained within the prerogative of the member states. Therefore, introducing an additional aspect of the balance between economic freedoms and social rights, the project advanced the investigation along the following three lines. 1) What are the mechanisms for social rights to be realized in opposition to the predominant principle of four freedoms of movement? Attention was focused thereby on the three elements, namely, 'positive integration' among the member states in contrast to the 'negative integration', judicial rulings by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), and the transformation of national constitutional orders. 2) How have the member states and the ECJ built up the coordination regime between the nationally bounded social schemes and the border-transcending movement of labor and services? 3) How have the European social policies been compromised afterwards with the other existing economic policies, and how has the ECJ adjusted the legal norms to the codification of citizenship rights, the adoption of Charter of fundamental rights as well as to the draft Constitutional Treaty? Investigation was further extended to the implication of the balance between these two norms for the democratic legitimacy of the EU polity.
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