Human Rights Discourse in the EU

In the absence of this social Europe that social Democrats once dreamed of or of popular democratic control over the economy, what purpose does human rights discourse serve in the EU? I don't profess to have an answer to what role that kind of hypocritical discourse plays in Europe. In terms of the brutality of the European border is unfortunately not quite different from the brutality at the Australian border or at the Indian borders throughout the world. There's this element of hypocrisy that permeates the entire thing that Europe tries to be a beacon of humanity but somehow ends up as not being able to treat people with human dignity.