“Solidarity is the glue that keeps our Union together. The word solidarity appears 16 times in the Treaties which all our Member States agreed and ratified. Our European budget is living proof of financial solidarity. […] The euro is an expression of solidarity. Our development policy is a strong external sign of solidarity. And when it comes to managing the refugee crisis, we have started to see solidarity. I am convinced much more solidarity is needed. […] When the Portuguese hills were burning, Italian planes doused the flames. When floods cut off the power in Romania, Swedish generators turned the lights back on. When thousands of refugees arrived on Greek shores, Slovakian tents provided shelter“.

(Jean-Claude Juncker)

The combination of wrong policies, increasing disagreements among European Union Member States and their unwillingness to allocate enough resources to implement positive measures contribute to the current lack of internal cohesion and solidarity. Despite these difficulties, the Principle of Solidarity continues to be one of the potential solutions to many of the current challenges: management of migrations, refugees, natural and man-made disasters, terrorism and climate change. With this background in mind, this Jean Monnet Module, entitled ‘Solidarity in EU Law (SoEULaw)’, has the objective to gather interest in the critical analysis of the legal obligations and justiciability questions that the Principle of Solidarity introduces. The module aims to attract different target groups and increase the dialogue between different Jean Monnet communities to debate the functions and challenges of the Solidarity clause. By promoting academic and non-academical interest, the Module seeks to fill in the awareness and knowledge gap.