EU ANTITRUST: HOT TOPICS & NEXT STEPS

Prague, Czechia

EU ANTITRUST: HOT TOPICS & NEXT STEPS 2022

quality public goods. According to A. Müller-Armack, its aim is “on the basis of a competitive economy to link free initiative with social progress already secured by the achievements of the market economy”. The main assumptions of social policy are equal opportunities and justice. In order to implement this concept, the state may intervene in the economy with an appropriate policy of competition and market supplementation in order to counteract its ineffectiveness (Biliński, Żurawik, 2018, pp. 20 – 21). As pointed out by Smejkal and Saroch, the Treaty on European Union (TEU) in Art. 3 para. 3 requires the EU to pursue the goal of a highly competitive social market economy. Both the authors highlight that the stress is pointed at a socially oriented market rather than market-oriented economy (Smejkal, Saroch, 2014, p. 393). The aim of the social market economy is to “order a balancing test between the economic and the social at any occasion when rights arising from either economic freedoms or social protection come into clash. (…) Social market economy means a compromise between free markets and protected social rights.” (Smejkal, Saroch, 2014, p. 407). Also in the Polish Constitution, a social market economy is a constitutional principle of the economic system. While implementing the principle of the social market economy, the state must pay attention to the principle of social justice (Art. 2) and the principle of inviolability of human dignity (Art. 30). By using various instruments (not only of a legal nature, but also using subsidies, taxes, etc.), it should ensure the observance of social justice in the course of economic development and should properly steer economic processes so that it is possible to achieve the social goals defined by them. At the same time, it must guarantee, but only within the framework of the law it enacts, the basic elements of a market economy. Their catalog may be defined in various ways, but on the basis of the literature on constitutional law, it can be stated that it certainly covers the minimum, which include: private property, economic freedom and the related freedom of contract, free competition, price formation through market mechanisms, freedom of work and free movement of workers, capital and services, freedom and independence in making economic decisions (Banaszak, 2012). Freedom of economic activity determines the framework of employee rights, requiring, inter alia , taking into account the contractual nature of the employment relationship. Partnership and solidarity require balancing the interests of employees and employers. It is necessary, in particular, to take into account the economic situation of the employer and balance it with the obligatory scope of employee benefits. The function of the state should be, inter alia , creating “a social structure of the enterprise, which recognizes the dignity of an employee as a human being and collaborator, gives him the right to co-decide without limiting the initiative and responsibility of the entrepreneur”. The juxtaposition of these elements shows

405