Unorthodox Competences and the Functional Architecture of EU Social Law

EU social policy encompasses a wide range of fields, including, above all, labour and welfare rights. While primarily framed under Title X TFEU (‘Social Policy’), these matters also surface across other policy domains with no explicit social embedding, notably internal market, free movement and migration. This paper explores a selection of key legislative instruments adopted in these policy areas, aiming to reconstruct the legal, functional, and constitutional rationale behind the pursuit of social objectives beyond the traditional legal framework. Through a detailed mapping and comparison of the selected measures, situated within both their original and current operational contexts, the analysis reveals how different legal bases influence the articulation and scope of social entitlements. By situating these developments within the broader architecture of EU governance, the paper offers an insight into the evolving modalities of the Union’s social action and into the tensions arising from the reliance on non-social legal foundations for the advancement of social aims.