From Recurring Reference to Identity Trait: the Emergence of Social Justice in the Political Discourse of the European Communities (1950-1986)

Although the ECSC and the EEC were originally endowed with a narrow social dimension, in the 1950s references to both Communities as promoters of social justice were rather common in the European Parliament, especially in the speeches of Christian Democratic and Socialist members. In the following years, the progressive implementation of the social legislation of the two treaties, the first discussions on the launch of a regional policy, and the signing of the first association agreements with third countries, contributed to further spreading the idea of a peculiar European sensitivity to solidarity, fairness and inclusion. Widely shared in the European Parliament from the late 1960s, the perception of the Community as a natural bearer of social justice soon began to also permeate the statements of the other institutions, and was then formalized by the Declaration on European Identity approved by the Copenhagen summit of December 1973. From that moment on, the idea of social justice as a guiding principle of the entire European project was echoed in all solemn occasions, to be finally inserted in the founding treaties in 1986 by the Single European Act.