Fraczyk, James --- "EU fundamental rights and the financial crisis" [2017] ELECD 986; in Douglas-Scott, Sionaidh; Hatzis, Nicholas (eds), "Research Handbook on EU Law and Human Rights" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 468

Book Title: Research Handbook on EU Law and Human Rights

Editor(s): Douglas-Scott, Sionaidh; Hatzis, Nicholas

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781782546399

Section: Chapter 22

Section Title: EU fundamental rights and the financial crisis

Author(s): Fraczyk, James

Number of pages: 24

Abstract/Description:

An instructive focal point for analysing EU fundamental rights law is the financial crisis in which Europe is currently embroiled. It is within that context that this chapter analyses such law – primarily the Charter of Fundamental Rights. The chapter commences by offering an analysis of the 2008 financial crisis, and the euro crisis that ensued as a result, prompting numerous EU legislative and political responses. An overview of the mechanics of EU fundamental rights law is then offered, paying particular attention to those provisions most relevant to the crisis (for example the Charter’s solidarity rights). Afterwards, a third section outlines the specifics of how natural and legal persons have attempted to invoke the Charter in the crisis, usually as a means of challenging austerity measures imposed by the member states. Unfortunately for such litigants, the story of the Charter has, to a significant extent, been an unspoken one in that the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has repeatedly refused to apply the Charter to numerous financial instruments born of the crisis. The section examines why such reticence has occurred, the extent to which the Charter has applied and how the Charter might be utilised in the future. The financial crisis is, arguably, a crisis of globalisation itself. It amounted, in human terms, to a cardiac arrest in the global financial system, caused by large-scale panic and insufficient liquidity – hence the term ‘credit crunch’.