Amsterdam Treaty (Social Charter)

HC Deb 24 November 1997 vol 301 cc403-4W

Mr. Streeter

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assessment he has made of the legal effect of the references in the preamble to the new Article 117 set out in Article 2 (22) of the Treaty of Amsterdam to the European Social Charter of 18 October 1961 and the 1989 Community Charter of the Fundamental Social Rights of Workers. [17226]

Mr. Doug Henderson

These references indicate a political attachment to the rights identified in the Charters, the provisions of which will not become justiciable before the European Court of Justice.