ΑΛΛΗΛΕΓΓΥΗ ΣΤΗΝ ΕΕ: ΕΞΕΛΙΞΕΙΣ ΣΤΟ ΠΕΔΙΟ ΤΗΣ ΠΡΟΣΦΥΓΙΚΗΣ ΠΡΟΣΤΑΣΙΑΣ ΚΑΙ ΠΡΟΚΛΗΣΕΙΣ ΣΤΗΝ ΕΕ ΚΑΙ ΣΤΗΝ ΕΛΛΑΔΑ

20 The concept and dimensions of solidarity tallization of a concept is not just a reflection of our specific response to the po- litical present. It delimits our political imagination and future aspirations. Yet this is not necessarily a lost battle. Unearthing the intricacies of concept formation may serve exactly the opposite end. It may open up a whole vista of new political possibilities. In a nutshell, political struggles and agonistic claims could hardly be meaningful, if the conceptual premises upon which they are founded, and from which they strive to depart, are not properly interrogated. This chapter sees itself as a minor contribution to this painful yet significant task. Solidarity is the concept under scrutiny here; and it is an essentially contested concept. At the realm of praxis, confusion is often greater and its practical ap- plications are at least problematic. Look at Europe, for example. EU responses to both the economic and the refugee crises attest to that. 1 I hold however that the core problem with solidarity is neither that we have lost our faith in it, nor that we have come to believe that we no longer have the luxury of investing our hopes in it. The core problem is that even when we appeal to the obligations it gener- ates, we mean something so different from and distant to what we once thought solidarity stands for. It may suffice to note here that —to the surprise of the unac- quainted— the last article of Chapter IV of the Charter of the Fundamental Rights of the European Union, a Chapter titled “Solidarity”, is dedicated to consumer protection. This introductory chapter will not serve as a literature review on solidarity. To the contrary, it will attempt to unsettle some of the assumptions that are axiomati- cally taken for granted by the existing literature. My major complaint with many available accounts of solidarity is that they rather neglect its historical and cultural specificity, following a rather essentialist approach to the term. As a result, with some notable exceptions, 2 critique is often focused either on our deviation from the original, or on the hypocritical evocation of the term. Some of them 3 correctly point out the fallacies of a state-centric approach to the matter, typical of the English 1. See Óscar García Agustín and Martin Bak Jørgensen, Solidarity and the ‘Refugee Crisis’ in Europe , New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. Evidence shows however that similar ten- dencies have been present before those crises erupted. See, for example, Jack Hayward and Rüdiger Wurzel (eds.), European Disunion: Between Sovereignty and Solidarity , Lon- don and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. 2. Lillie Chouliaraki, The Ironic Spectator: Solidarity in the Age of Post-Humanitarianism , Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013. 3. See, for example, Martin Weber, “The concept of solidarity in the study of world politics: Towards a critical theoretic understanding”, Review of International Studies , Vol. 33, Issue 4, 2007, pp. 693-713.