Containing (social) justice? rights, EU law and the recasting of Europe’s ‘social bargains’

Concluding remark: If the EU legal system is indeed an essential prerequisite for transnational economic liberalisation in Europe then both its existence (on the one hand) and its contested character and limited scope (on the other) suggest that liberalisation was far from an automatic consequence of a general dynamic or process, such as globalisation. Moreover, the on-going re-negotiation of aspects of the regime of socio-economic regulation means that its final form may not yet be settled. There is certainly little reason to believe that the character of the EU reflects any clear and effective preference for economic liberalism on the part of European ‘states’ as liberal intergovernmentalists seem to believe, nor even on the part of the peoples of Europe as today’s ‘modified neofunctionalism’ might suggest. Nonetheless, the structure of Europe’s supranational institutions may tend to bend social forces to this end, even when they clearly intend to move in a different direction.