L'Europa e il lavoro. Solidarietà e conflitto in tempi di crisi. By Silvana Sciarra. Roma/Bari, Italy: Laterza, 2013. VII + 130 pp. Pb. €15.00.

• Date: 01 May 2014
• Published date: 01 May 2014
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/eulj.12081
• Author: Giuseppe Martinico

BOOK REVIEW

L’Europa e il lavoro. Solidarietà e conf‌litto in tempi di crisi.By Silvana Sciarra.

Roma/Bari, Italy: Laterza, 2013. VII + 130 pp. Pb. €15.00.

This new book by Silvana Sciarra represents a fresh and instructive account of the EU

employment strategy in times of economic crisis, trying to explore the new dimension

acquired by solidarity and conf‌lict in this context. The book was published in the

series ‘Libri del Tempo’ by Laterza, a leading publisher in Italy. The series aims to

introduce readers to complex and topical issues and covers very different areas

(politics, law and economics). Indeed the range of issues touched upon by this

short book is huge; as impressive is the ability to treat them in an accessible way

by the author. This is not a surprise since the author is very distinguished in this

f‌ield.

The work is divided into f‌ive chapters plus a premise and a f‌inal chapter. The

‘premise’ (‘Il lavoro e il mercato nel Rapporto Monti del 2010. Una premessa’) intro-

duces the reader to the most important points of the Monti Report, dated 9 May

2010, presented to the President of the European Commission J. M. Barroso and

entitled ‘A New Strategy for the Single Market’. That report, among other things,

stressed that the f‌inancial and economic crisis risks increasing two trends: ‘an “inte-

gration fatigue”, eroding the appetite for more Europe and for a single market; and

more recently, a “market fatigue”, with a reduced conf‌idence in the role of the market.

The single market today is less popular than ever, while Europe needs it more than

ever’. According to Sciarra, these two forces may make the distance between the EU

and its citizens bigger and more evident and the author indeed starts from the

insuff‌iciency of that ‘holistic vision of the market’ (p. IX) which cannot overcome—if

not accompanied by other factors—the current crisis.

The book reviewed tries to put employment and social policies issues at the heart of

the debate, moving from the conviction that employment policies are crucial but that,

at the same time, she is also aware that the need for social protection can raise barriers

that are sometimes perceived as obstacles to the goal of growth in a globalised

economy.

Chapter 1 (‘L’Europa in tempi di crisi’) begins by recalling the fundamental role

played by social partners (in many of the 28 legal orders at least) in the building of

national identities. It is notorious that, at the EU level, a fully f‌ledged welfare state is

missing and this is a consequence of what Mancini called the ‘social frigidity’(G. F.

Mancini, ‘Principi fondamentali di diritto del lavoro nell’ordinamento delle Comunità

europee’, in AA.VV. (eds), Il lavoro nel diritto comunitario e l’ordinamento italiano,

Atti del Convegno di Parma (Padova, Italy: CEDAM, 1985), at 30–31, 23 ff.) of the

Treaties. After having recalled the institutional framework and the most important

novelties introduced by the Lisbon Treaty in the f‌ield of social policy, Sciarra gives an

account of the f‌irst strategies adopted by the EU in order to face the crisis. In a

context of cooperative federalism—like that of the EU—in order to face the crisis, it

is necessary to adopt a common strategy aimed at involving public and social forces,

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European Law Journal, Vol. 20, No. 3, May 2014, pp. 436–438.

© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK

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