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Publishers Abstract:
A widely accepted narrative tells that the fight against discrimination led by the European Communities and then by the European Union started with a market-driven logic and only later developed into a broader social justice and fundamental rights agenda. Thus, the initial prohibition of discrimination on the basis of nationality and the equal pay provisions between men and women both contained in the original EC Treaties and some of the early secondary European legislation only served to guarantee fair and equal access to a united European market. A major step towards a model that would include elements of social justice to these early non-discrimination policies occurred with the 1997 Amsterdam Treaty which authorized the Council to take appropriate action to combat discrimination based on sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation. The European Court of Justice was not simply a silent bystander to these developments.
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