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Political theorists aiming to articulate normative standards for the EU have almost entirely focused on whether or not the EU suffers from a 'democratic deficit'. Almost nothing has been written, by contrast, on one of the central values underpinning European integration since at least the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), namely solidarity. What kinds of principles, policies, and ideals should an affirmation of solidarity commit us to? Put another way: what norms of socioeconomic justice ought to apply to the EU? This is not an empirical or narrowly legal question. We are not trying to gauge the degree of attachment there currently is in the EU by, for example, citing the latest Eurobarometer poll. We are also not attempting to state the implicit rationale followed by the Court of Justice in its recent 'solidarity' jurisprudence, let alone trying to fix what the Commission might mean by it. In this article, I ask the more fundamental question underlying both the legal and the empirical questions: What principles of social solidarity ought to apply between states and citizens of the emerging European polity? This question has rarely been asked or answered by political theorists in an EU context, so we are entering largely uncharted territory. The article develops a tripartite model of EU solidarity in Section 2, and then applies it to the case of free movement of persons in Section 3.

The demand for social justice, especially in the context of the welfare state, is often framed as a demand of solidarity. But it is not clear why: in what sense, if any, is social justice best understood as a demand of solidarity? This article explores this question. There are two reasons to do so. First, very little has been written on the concept of solidarity, and almost nothing on why and how solidarity can both give rise to and be the target of a moral obligation.1 The first aim of the article is to fill this gap.The second aim of the article is to explore the normative implications of this account of solidarity for the commitment to social justice at the heart of the welfare state, and in so doing, to put into question the idea that shared experience or shared identity are either necessary or sufficient bases for social justice qua solidarity. Shared Experience, Shared Identity, and Shared ActionSolidarity is a peculiarly modern concern. While one can trace the term to its roots in Roman law -where an obligation in solidum was a joint contractual obligation in which each signatory declared himself liable for the debts of all together -its use as a term denoting a type of broadly social (rather than narrowly legal) relation only becomes prevalent in Europe -and especially in France -during the 19th century. Why then? As any cursory glance at the major early texts (e.g. Fourier, Leroux, Comte, Durkheim) will reveal, the language of solidarity emerges as a response to growing anxiety regarding the expansion of commercial society, large-scale industry, and the perceived collapse of traditional communities.2 From this perspective, it is no surprise that a language of solidarity emerges in France, where the upheavals of the Revolution and its aftermath had first placed the ideal of republican fraternité firmly on the map. If societies are to hold together in the presence of the centrifugal, individualistic pull of markets, then bs_bs_banner Journal of Applied Philosophy

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