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In Europe, the rising tensions between economic integration and social disintegration challenge our understanding of social justice. In times of economic growth Member States were the unquestionable guardians of our social security. A few crises down the stream, their capacity to assure the full range of services provided by a comprehensive welfare state is, arguably, eroded. In this framework, we ask: does the coming to maturity of the single market challenge our conception of social justice? How would market integration and the States' degrading capacity to conduct independent economic and social policies impact on the assumption of a States' tailored theory of justice as fairness? We begin this essay with an analysis of some consequences of economic integration on the social circumstances of the European population. In this context, we identify the link between trade liberalization and raising inequalities amongst citizens. Yet, while Member States should provide efficient welfare policies to address these inequalities, we observe that they are in fact increasingly constrained by economic and legal pressures. Considering these phenomena, our contention in this work, is that the traditional conception of social justice fails to account for the institutional transformation in progress within the European polity. Discussing Rawls' theory of justice, we show how the classical conception of a nation-state's modulated justice is questioned by new socio-economic developments. In our re-consideration of Rawls' theory of justice as fairness, we propose the original concept of cooperative justice that, allegedly, gives a better account of the multi-nodal basic structure constituted by the EU and national polities for the implementation of the principles of justice. Ultimately, we claim that cooperative justice offers the conceptual framework in which we should consider social justice in the EU.