PhD Thesis

The subject of this thesis is the clash of fundamental trade union rights with the EU economic freedoms. The study shows how a legal tension is manifested when the above rights and freedoms collide with each other, focusing on the relevant jurisprudence of the CJEU. In this vein, we attempt to prove that mainly through judicial interpretation, but also through other interventions of the EU institutions, trade union rights are per se subordinated to EU economic freedoms, following a immutable hierarchical order of principles. In this hierarchical order that the EU appears to adopt economic freedoms lie over and above social rights. Articulating systematically strong critical discourse against this position and illuminating the most important aspects of the conflict between trade union rights and EU economic freedoms, the study proposes alternative solutions to the problem each of which aims at reversing a different aspect of the problem. Thus the proposals touch upon issues relating either to the judicial interpretation, or to the legislative initiatives of the Union and eventually to the overall political architecture of the EU. The ultimate aim of the proposals is to promote social protection and self-protection of workers as a stable parameter of socioeconomic life.

The thesis is divided into six chapters. The first chapter reflects the legal and political framework of the research subject, by analyzing on the one hand EU's relationship with the field of social policy, on the other hand EU's relationship with fundamental rights. In the second part of the first chapter the study outlines the methodological framework of the confrontation between fundamental rights and freedoms. The second chapter of the thesis thoroughly discusses the Laval and Viking judgments of the CJEU, which seal the dominant settlement of the collisions between trade union rights and EU economic freedoms. The study also shows the consolidation of the CJEU case law, which led to a drastic reduction of the scope of exercise of fundamental collective labor rights.

In the third chapter the study focuses on the legal and jurisprudential treatment of the posting of workers in the framework of the provision of services as a characteristic field where the tension between fundamental trade union rights and EU economic freedoms manifests itself. In the fourth chapter of the study we analyze crucial aspects of the conflict of trade union rights with the rules of free movement as clear expressions of the EU economic freedoms. The fifth chapter investigates the influence of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights on the tension between fundamental trade union rights and EU economic freedoms, especially after the Charter has become legally binding. The sixth and final chapter of this study illuminates aspects of the main subject that are linked to the status of trade union rights in the EU legal order, through the prism of the interventions made by the EU through the MoUs in the field of Greek collective labor law during the recent financial crisis.