Soziale Grundrechte in den "neuen" Mitgliedstaaten der Europäischen Union

This new book edited by Julia Iliopoulos-Strangas continues and, for the time being, concludes her examination of fundamental social rights as an integral part of the constitutional frameworks of the EU’s Member States, which she has conducted for many years. Her first anthology in French entitled ‘La protection des droits sociaux fondamentaux dans les Etats membres de l’Union européenne – Étude de droit comparé’ was followed in 2010 by her first book in German entitled ‘Soziale Grundrechte in Europa nach Lissabon – Eine rechtsvergleichende Untersuchung der nationalen Rechtsordnungen und des europäischen Rechts’ (Fundamental Social Rights in Europe after the Treaty of Lisbon—A legal comparative examination of national legal systems and EU law). According to Klaus Stern in the book’s foreword, through this study Iliopoulos-Strangas had enriched the academic world and political and legal practice with an unrivalled work. This new book contains contributions by renowned legal experts from all the ‘new’ EU Member States, namely from the former Eastern bloc, Malta and Cyprus. In part 1, reports on each country reveal the extent to which the individual constitutions of the ‘new’ EU Member States have upheld basic social rights. Part 2 is comprised of a critical legal comparison and survey by the editor, which collates important findings on the protection of fundamental social rights in the aforementioned 13 new EU Member States that have as yet been unavailable in such a form. As the European Court of Justice has taken recourse to the constitutional traditions of the EU’s Member States, the legal comparison the book conducts in this respect appears to be essential for the development of EU law.