L’impatto sociale della politica di condizionalità nel contesto della crisi nell’area euro: profili giuridici

The Social Impact of Conditionality in the Context of the Euro Area Crisis: A Legal Appraisal The European sovereign debts crisis forced EU Member States to adopt new assistance and stabilization mechanisms. In this context, financial assistance has been made conditional to structural adjustment programmes and austerity measures. The resulting new legal framework is fragmented, due to the recourse to various types of legal instruments, some having a fully-fledged EU nature, others having an intergovernmental character. This was due both to legal reasons, such as the absence of a EU competence to establish a financial assistance mechanism for Euro Area Member States, and to political ones. The situation improved with the establishment of the European Stability Mechanism, that began to operate on November 2012 and that will soon replace other temporary instruments. Furthermore, in November 2011 the Commission presented a Proposal for a regulation establishing a single conditionality instrument that should apply to all financial assistance mechanisms. Doubts remain as to the compatibility of conditionality, at least in the way it has been applied by the abovementioned instruments, with some key elements of the European economic constitution. In particular, most of the conditions attached to the financial assistance packages for Greece, Portugal and Ireland seem to encroach upon the exercise of national social competences and, at the same time, they appear inconsistent with the EU social objectives defined by the Treaties, and with some of the social rights enshrined in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.