The item of the protection against unfair dismissal in the EU legal order is faced by the author reading Article 30 of the Nice Charter in a dynamic way and taking into account what the other supranational sources of law state on the matter, particularly the 1996 European Social Charter (revised) and the case law of the European Committee of Social Rights which has the competence to monitor its implementation by the adherent States. This makes possible to contradict the consolidated interpretation of the Charter’s provision for which it simply states that dismissal should be justified, without imposing any limitation to State’s power to regulate the kind of justifications and the applicable sanctions. In the last part of the article the author analyses the issue of the individual dismissal within the ambit of the new economic European governance, considering (with reference to the Italian system) how it has influenced the recent reform process ended with Law No. 92/2012. This also in order to evaluate if and to what extend the Nice Charter inspired the action of the European Institutions and the National Governments.
Keywords: Dismissal; European Union Law; Nice Charter; European Social Charter; European Economic Governance