Legal and policy responses to the European debt crisis disrupted the protection of constitutional social rights such as social security and health care in Europe. Analyses of this challenge typically focus on courts and the adjudication of rights in times of crisis. A neglected question is how the European debt crisis affected the textual foundations of these rights, that is, the constitutional provisions that protect them. This lecture will examine a 2019 amendment to the Greek Constitution incorporating a provision for a decent standard of living to be achieved through minimum-income policies. It will argue that the European debt crisis shaped this change and discuss what it signals for the protection of social rights in Greece. 

Respondent: Kim L. Scheppele, Department of Sociology

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Image: ​'The official document of the Constitution of 1975' [Library of the Greek Parliament]