| dc.description.abstract | Although often neglected by legal and policy analysis of the Eurozone crisis, an increasingly central dimension of that crisis and its management are important, sometimes dramatic, changes to social rights and entitlements. These include rights relating to work as well as rights relating to a wide range of welfare entitlements such as housing, health, education and social assistance. At the same time, fundamental rights, including fundamental social rights, from different sources can be a means to contest the crisis-imposed changes to social rights. The aim of the collective research published in this special issue is accordingly threefold. It analyses, firstly, what has happened to social rights in a number of the Eurozone Member States most affected by the crisis. Secondly, it explicitly links two, sometimes rather disconnected discussions of ‘social rights’ by looking at both labour (and employment) rights and a broader range of social rights. Thirdly, it looks at the content, location and background of any fundamental rights challenges made to crisis-imposed changes to work and welfare rights. In this introductory contribution we explain each of these choices more fully and provide some interesting comparative findings and further puzzles arising from this project on social rights in crisis in Europe. | en |