Blurring Boundaries: From the Danish Welfare State to the European Social Model?

Abstract

This paper builds on the results obtained in the so-called Blurring Boundaries project which was undertaken at the Law Department, Copenhagen Business School, in the period from 2007 to 2009. It looks at the sustainability of the Danish welfare state in an EU law context and on the integration of welfare functions into EU law both from an internal market law and a constitutional law perspective. The main problem areas covered by the Blurring Boundaries project were studied in sub-projects on: 1) Internal market law and welfare services, 2) Fundamental rights and non-discrimination law aspects, and 3) Services of general interest. In the Blurring Boundaries project, three aspects of the European Social Model have been particularly highlighted:• the constitutionalisation of the European Social Model, • its multi-level legal character, and • the clash between market access justice at EU level and distributive justice at national level.

Resistance against the Court of Justice of the European Union

“…Rather, it held that the Danish trade unions had an ‘evident and strong’ interest in ensuring that work in Denmark is done under the conditions of Danish collective agreements, even where that work is carried out by foreign companies employing foreign workers 17 . The Danish court also saw no necessity to refer the question to the CJEU, since it found the relevant EU law sufficiently clear (Neergaard and Nielsen, 2010, pp. 458–459).…”