A community of equality? The emergence of European and national anti-discrimination norms against the background of legal, social and economic conditions in France and Germany 1944-1994

PhD Project

Compared to competences that are clearly assigned to the European Union, employment and social affairs may be less tangible areas of EU law; at the same time, however, they are essential elements of social cohesion within the EU. Although labour law lies within the competence of the member states, large parts of national labour legislation today are affected by European regulations. A study of labour law is thus able to offer different insights into the actual processes and effects of European legal integration than the existing literature focusing on the EU’s exclusive competences. This PhD project focuses on protection from discrimination in labour law. On the one hand, it explores how the development of anti-discrimination measures was influenced by international and national actors and debates; on the other, it evaluates to what extent European primary and secondary legislation has shaped the national legal basis for equal pay and equal treatment of working women and men.

The existing literature on European labour and social law examines it from a legal perspective, putting it in the context of the broader European development from functional integration to a value-oriented community. In contrast to such approaches, which mainly focus on legal development and interpretation by the ECJ, this project places protection from discrimination in labour law in the legal, economic and socio-political context of the Member States France and Germany as well as within national and European institutional discourses. On the basis of an analysis of the legal development and of the French and German political debates in the legislative processes, the thesis explains what influence the motives, actors and institutions of Member States have had on the formation of legal norms and how legal developments on the European level have affected both countries’ public discourses on labour law.

By analysing and historically contextualising the interaction of national and European anti-discrimination norms on the basis of legislative discourses, the work described here is to be understood as part of the debate on European integration through law.