Social rights in our backyard: 'Social Europe' between standardization and economic crisis across the continent

The outbreak and the continuing economic crisis and recession stress the difficul emergence of socila rights both within and outside national borders. Welfare policies have undergone profounb changes, inextricably linked to the economic crisis. Even as the legal protection of social rights in national and EU laws have been expanded and the concept of 'social Europe' has come to occupy a prominet place in the rethoric of European institutions, the European welfare states have ceased to develop. The ausdterity measures that many European governments have introduced in response to the economic crisis of 2008 emphasize the gradual erosion of the European welfare states and threat the EU social model.