The paper begins with a critical insight of the rhetoric of “freeµ individual choice and with a problematization of its characters. Then it proposes a conception of freedom as personal condition, as a prerequisite of a real free choice. A conception that extends freedom as a collective value – supported by the law – from the public to the private sphere. Such a conception is directly linked to the European tradition of freedom as a status and as an actual situation of non-domination by either public and private powers. But it is also consistent with those contemporary theories underlining substantive aspects of freedom and the need of a public engagement for their realization. Finally, the paper argues that a normative ideal of freedom as a personal condition should be a value protected and promoted by the European institutions.