Safeguards and Opportunities for the Protection of Fundamental Rights Within the EU Single Market. Small Opportunities are Often the Beginning of Great Enterprises

In this paper in honour of Ulf Bernitz, who has always been one of the most prominent supporters in Sweden of the European integration process and an esteemed scholar in the field of EU Single Market law, I will briefly explore the relationship between the EU Single Market and fundamental rights and will examine, not only how EU Single Market law offers sufficient guarantees, but also opportunities for the protection and further elaboration of fundamental rights at EU level.
The topic of the EU Charter has been a mutual interest to Ulf Bernitz and me, and thanks to Ulf and to Stephen Weatherill, it became possible to organize two conferences on the EU Charter, after my stay in Oxford in 2010 .
Ever since I first met him in 1993, when I was an exchange Master student at Stockholm University, Ulf has been a permanent example for me due to his capacity to overview the main aspects of European substantive law and to provide for a critical, well founded opinion on important and recurring themes of European law and competition law, without loosing faith in the European project.