Fundamental rights as sources of social and economic goals of the European Union

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to present the ongoing process of reorientation of the European Union’s objectives resulting from changes in its axiological bases, now founded on the assumption of equivalence between economic growth and maintenance of social cohesion. The basic task of the article is to address the issue whether the economic and social goals set forth in the Treaty of Lisbon have equal status from the point of view of legal instruments ensuring their implementation and coherence, in other words from the perspective cohesion of the social policy’s regulation and the achievement of sustainable economic growth as an example of social and economic fundamental rights.