Professor Dr Rafael Leal-Arcas, Jean Monnet Chair in EU International Economic Law at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), will present his research at an international conference at Granada University, 24-25 May. The conference will discuss ‘The International Regulation of Markets and the Erosion of the European Social and Political Model’.
‘The technical regulation of markets is not objective and responds to an ideological approach that has social consequences. Both International and European law strongly condition the legal framework regulating markets and limit the sovereign powers of States to regulate them. This situation has been exacerbated by the measures imposed by the EU to alleviate the economic crisis, which have had important consequences for the respect of political and social rights in the European Union.
The objective of this conference is to examine the European political and social model understood in a broad sense: the deterioration of economic and social rights, the exploitation of citizens as hostages of credit institutions, a decrease in the capacity of citizens to decide their own destiny through democratic elections with a clear impact on the concept and meaning of European citizenship and the rule of law, the relaxation of environmental standards to reduce energy dependence or by imposing the rules that regulate international trade or the marginalization of democratic conditionality and human rights in the commercial and financial relations of the EU with third countries. These measures have come to question structural elements of the constitutional framework of the Member States and to raise tensions with the fundamental rights of citizens. The Congress will try to determine whether there has really been such a general erosion of the European social and political model, and to what extent the international legal framework reinforces this trend. Ultimately, our objective consists of identifying what is the position of the individual, and of its citizenship rights, vis-à-vis the markets.’