The paper seeks to explore the different meanings attached to the notion of “solidarity” in the current EU context, as the ongoing sovereign debt crisis illustrates both the necessity and the limits of a more far-reaching, financial solidarity between member states.
It argues that the multiple – and even potentially contradictory – understandings of “solidarity” in the European/EU context, as they are being articulated, notably, in the discourse of EU institutions, member states and semi-institutionalized actors (such as European social partners), as well as in the wording of EU treaties, exacerbate the intrinsic ambiguity of the notion of “solidarity” , making it even more obscure – and prone to multiple instrumentalization strategies – than at the domestic level.
