L'autonomie de L'individu Européen Et la Question Du Statut

Résumé du livre

A powerful narrative exists in European Union Law that argues that the Union and its main legal actor, the European Court of Justice, have placed the individual at the centre of the European project. The creation of the European individual (worker/consumer/producer/employer...) is largely the result of a legal technique which consists in granting individuals with subjective rights opposable to the Member States. EU legislation and jurisprudence are replete with such rights. In the past two decades, the language of market rights has developed in the grammar and semantic of citizenship rights. This paper is an attempt to address some of the shortcomings of this construction by relying on the concept of status. A concept of status has recently emerged in the case law of the European Court of Justice. The paper argues that, beyond its purely rhetorical value, the concept may be constructed in normative terms so as to offer a new conceptualization of individual autonomy at the EU level. A conception that preserves the emancipatory character of EU law but is more sensitive to the protection of affected interests.