Mich "Towards a Just Europe ? Discussing Labareda's Sufficientarian Theory of EU Justice"

Mardi intime de la Chaire Hoover par Pietro Intropi

Which principles of justice should make up a theory of distributive justice for the European Union? And what should be the role of the EU, vis à vis that of its member states, in realising justice in the EU? In this paper I discuss a theory of EU distributive justice that Joao Labareda defends in his book Towards a Just Europe. Labareda’s theory revolves around two duties: a duty of economic reciprocity, and a democratic duty. Reciprocity especially entails pre-distributive measures (e.g. setting common standards of labour rights across the Union); though it also supports redistributive measures, mainly defended by Labareda on democratic grounds – e.g. the provision of a basic minimum that guarantees that EU citizens have sufficient means for democratic participation and to resist arbitrary power. In the talk I take issue with a distributive minimalist perspective that characterizes the book (the view that EU justice involves a limited role for redistribution): for example, I criticize Labareda’s distributive sufficientarianism, arguing that EU justice implies more demanding (and quasi egalitarian) duties of distributive justice.