Does Solidarity Shape 'The People' or Do 'The People' Shape Solidarity? A Critical Analysis of the Italian Case within the European Union

Building on the notion of solidarity that allows for bringing together unfamiliar persons and heterogeneous interests, creating a collective responsibility, and “allows for thinking individuals in a collective dimension” (Supiot, 2015:7), the paper investigates and critically analyzes whether solidarity as a legal concept can contribute to create and strengthen social cohesion in the context of the Italian legal and socio-political system. In particular, the paper discusses the enforcement of the value of solidarity in the fields of immigration/asylum, disability and unemployment at the time of the economic crisis in the framework of the EU policies, currently facing a crisis, also in view of the construction of a “brand-new” notion of transnational solidarity. Against the background of the constitutional provisions and of the most relevant national and EU legislation, the discussion will focus on the impact of solidarity as an antidote against the fission of interests, through the triangulation of socio-political data with the Italian Constitutional court’s jurisprudence, with the aim of discussing the relevance of the national and supranational law and case-law as vectors for social change.