La Carta sociale europea presa sul serio

The European Social Charter (ESC), adopted by the Council of Europe in 1961 and revised in 1996, is usually considered the “poor step-sister” of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), also because of the weaker control system provided therein. It is however unquestionable, though often disregarded, that only an integrated understanding of the two treaties may fully comply with the principle of human rights’ “indivisibility”. From this standpoint, EU accession to the ECHR (art. 6(2) TUE), but not even to the ESC, looks like an implicit restatement in the integration process of the existing divide between economic freedoms and social justice, reflecting a sort of “constitutional squint”. Yet, the ESC’s guardian – the European Committee of Social Rights – has been amongst the European bodies the most activist in protecting “social” rights over the past decades, standing nowadays as the only European (quasi-)judicial branch specialized in the matter.Through a description of the concrete advantages arising from the double control system provided for in the ESC and by a comparison between the Committee’s decisions and the European Courts’ rulings on three hard cases (the austerity measures imposed to Greece by Troika, the Laval saga and the protection of unlawful immigrants), the paper aims at positively contributing with reasons and arguments to a relaunch of the Charter system, especially in a EU “constitutionalizing” perspective.