Social Europe Series - Böcker

The position of non-EU migrants in social security is problematic. Many European states reduce access to social benefits for categories of migrants whose presence is not desired. At the same time the scope of application of the national systems is becoming more confined to the national borders, as, for example, countries take measures to reduce the exportability of benefits. These two trends of exclusion and retrenchment particularly affect irregular immigrants and persons moving between Europe and developing countries who are not protected by any bilateral social security agreements. The background of these trends can be traced back to the way social security interacts with immigration and civic integration policies. This book addresses this interaction and contains contributions on the social security position of irregular migrants, on the reception of asylum seekers, on income requirements in immigration law, on civic integration, on informal social security protection of formally excluded migrants and on social protection and voluntary return. These separate contributions lead to an overall analysis on the position of excluded migrants.Knowing that the exclusion of certain immigrants from social security is legitimate from the point of view of national policies or even from the point of view of the logics of social security itself, what alternative strategies can be developed in order to give protection to excluded migrants without undermining these policies and logics?

This book deals with active ageing and labour law and is dedicated to professor Roger Blanpain at the occasion of his 80th anniversary. For the European Union, active ageing means growing old in good health and as a full member of society, feeling more fulfilled in our jobs, more independent in our daily lives and more involved as citizens. For labour law, it covers a wide variety of issues, such as age discrimination in recruitment and selection, seniority rules, pay and working conditions, or modern concepts such as work-life balance, involving working time regulations and adjustments made for older people in order to allow them to stay on the labour market. In this book, leading scholars share their insights on the role of labour law in an ageing society. The book has a focus on Europe, both the European Union as well as the Member States. However, in the tradition of Blanpain's school of thought, a global mindset is used, including comparative work, a perspective from the United States, as well as an interdisciplinary understanding of labour law and active ageing.

This book explores the complicated relationship between the EU legal framework for posting of workers and collective labour law. It examines this topic from the perspective of EU law and of international labour law. In doing so, it builds upon a solid interdisciplinary foundation, which looks at sociological and economic aspects of the posting phenomenon, taking also into account issues related to industrial relations. However, the immediate focus of the present book is on the creation and evolution of the said EU legal framework. Hence, it provides an in-depth analysis of the drafting process of the Posting of Workers Directive (96/71) as well as an exhaustive examination of the case law of the Court of Justice of the EU dealing with posting of workers.This evolving legal framework is subsequently considered in its broader context. Two tensions are thus identified. On the one hand, the book investigates the growing conflict between the EU framework for posting of workers and the international protection of social rights. It argues that, as regards the relationship here at stake, the EU is presently violating the standards set by the Council of Europe and by the International Labour Organisation. On the other hand, the book critically considers the impact of the trend towards decentralisation of collective bargaining on the application of collective agreements to posted workers. In particular, it analyses the so-called "New Economic Governance" of the EU, and its role in fostering such a trend. The author outlines the far-reaching implications of the lack of coherence between the action of the EU institutions involved in the "New Economic Governance" and the case law of the Court of Justice dealing with posting of workers.

This volume considers the important and timely question of criminal justice as a method of addressing state violence committed by non-democratic regimes. The book's main objectives concern a fresh, contemporary, and critical analysis of transitional criminal justice as a concept and its related measures, beginning with the initiatives that have been put in place with the fall of the Communist regimes in Europe in 1989.The project argues for rethinking and revisiting filters that scholars use to interpret main issues of transitional criminal justice, such as: the relationship between judicial accountability, democratisation and politics in transitional societies; the role of successor trials in rewriting history; the interaction between domestic and international actors and specific initiatives in shaping transitional justice; and the paradox of time in enhancing accountability for human rights violations. In order to accomplish this, the volume considers cases of domestic accountability in the post-1989 era, from different geographical areas, such as Europe, Asia and Africa, in relation to key events from various periods of time. In this way the approach, which investigates space and time-lines in key examples, also takes into account a longitudinal study of transitional criminal justice itself.

The economic unification of Europe has created a lot of victims. The realization of the single market has taken place without any adjusting or accompanying economic and social policies. Its effects on social and human relations go far beyond the economic and commercial areas its authors had in mind. It has in fact led to changes in European society that are so far-reaching that they could very well be characterized as mutations. This book looks at the phenomenon of social dumping in the wider context of liberalized social competition as steered by the European Union. It contains a number of testimonies by people who actively fight social dumping, with special attention paid to the harrowing dumping practices in the road transport sector. Some of the authors also examine the phenomenon of social dumping in relation to compliance with the fundamental right of all workers to respect for their dignity as human beings. In this respect, the underlying question is whether, by tolerating legislation that allows human dignity to be violated by social dumping, the European and national legislators in fact infringe on this key fundamental right.This book is intended for practitioners, academics, researchers and policy-makers working in the area of social policy.

Where do I belong? This is a question all mobile persons are bound to ask themselves at one time or another. When crossing borders, individuals establish links with States, which can be the basis for legal claims against these States.This book discusses the issue of these links and, more specifically, the question of how EU law defines the link needed to obtain the right to reside in a Member State and the right to social and employment protection in that State. When it comes to claiming rights from States, traditionally nationality is the answer to the question where a person belongs. However, in the context of European integration and the development of an EU legal framework of internal market rules, citizenship rights and immigration rules, different answers to these questions have been developedFrom this perspective the various chapters of this book examine instruments such as the Citizens Directive 2004/38, the Family Reunification Directive 2003/86, the Long-term Residence Directive 2003/109, the Social Security Coordination Regulation 883/2004, the Rome I Regulation 593/2008 and the Posting of Workers Directive 96/71. The case-law of the Court of Justice on these issues is of course a central element therein.The analyses of scholars from different legal disciplines in the fourteen chapters of this book show that EU law gives a multitude of answers to the question which link is necessary and sufficient to create an individual's right vis--vis a State. The definition of this link, the criteria used and the legal consequences differ according to the legal framework the individual finds himself/herself in and the legal instrument he/she invokes. Moreover, the criteria used in legislation and case-law continue to be the subject of problems of interpretation and application, which in turn leads to legal uncertainty or even confusion.