The Charter draws a distinction between rights and principles. Article 51(1) of the Charter says that rights must be ‘respected’ whereas principles must merely be ‘observed’. The question is how to tell whether a provision in the Charter contains a right or a principle and what implication this has for social rights – which in a number of national Constitutions are traditionally seen as principles, not rights, and thus not directly enforceable. However, for EU citizens this is not satisfactory; why is something described as a right in fact not a right? In this article I wish to argue that while it was originally intended that social rights should in fact be principles, the Court is beginning to adopt a more nuanced approach to this question.

中文翻译：

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是社会的“权利”权利吗？

《宪章》在权利和原则之间作了区分。《宪章》第51条第1款规定，必须“尊重”权利，而原则只能“遵守”。问题是如何判断《宪章》中的一项规定是否包含权利或原则，以及这对社会权利有什么影响？在传统上，在许多国家宪法中，社会权利被视为原则，而不是权利，因此不能直接执行。但是，对于欧盟公民而言，这并不令人满意。为什么描述为权利的东西实际上不是权利？在本文中，我想指出，虽然原本打算将社会权利实际上是原则，但法院已开始对这一问题采取更为细微的处理方式。