The Social Constitution of Europe in the National Courts: The Case of Cyprus

The Eurozone crisis has prompted the institutionalisation of austerity through the new European economic governance, thereby intensifying the already existent collapse of social protections into the Union’s market logic. The Thesis will examine the way European economic constitutionalism may interfere with social constitutional elements, by placing at the heart of the particular thematisation the crisis-hit Cyprus. For the realisation of this task, the study will use as a methodological tool the schema of the many European constitutions offered by Kaarlo Tuori and Klaus Tuori in ‘The Eurozone Crisis: A Constitutional Analysis’. The distinction between the Economic and the Social Constitutions of Europe will be particularly employed to illuminate the two constitutions’ relationships and interactions, while the consideration of the constitution of the Republic of Cyprus will be undertaken to offer a picture that better reflects the wider European Social Constitution. Hence, the historical development of Cyprus’ social constitutional dimension will be considered, as well as domestic litigation on anti-crisis measures and relevant CJEU cases. The focus on the judicial protection of fundamental rights in the context of the Cypriot financial crisis will offer the possibility of tracing patterns between EU crisis law and the Social Constitution that are not common in all EU Member States, while contrary to Tuori and Tuori’s belief that the power of the social constitutional dimension is diminished due to its reliance on the Member States, the Thesis will support that the Social Constitution of Europe can still rely on domestic courts, as they can be attentive to the substantial content of domestic social and labour protections