The Enduring Legacy of the Euro-crisis on Constitutional Social Rights: A Case Study of the decent standard of living in Greece

The euro-crisis was a major disruption for constitutional social rights in Europe. Accounts trying to make sense of its impact on the legal protection of social rights typically focus on courts and the adjudication of rights in times of crisis. A rather neglected question is how the euro-crisis affected the textual foundations of these rights, that is, the constitutional provisions that enshrine and protect them. To reflect on this issue, I use the case-study of a 2019 constitutional amendment that incorporated in the Greek Constitution a state guarantee on the decent standard of living to be materialized through minimum income policies. I show that this constitutional change was shaped by the euro-crisis. It mirrors, as I show, both a shift in the Greek welfare state driven by financial assistance conditionality (minimum income) and a concept that emerged in the Greek crisis jurisprudence of apex courts (decent standard of living). I further argue that this development not only mirrors, but further embeds the outcomes of the euro-crisis, signaling a shift to minimalism for social rights constitutionalism in Greece.