In our ‘Europe2025’ series, Jan Zielonka offers a vision of a normative, not a technocratic, Europe, driven by the values of democracy and equality.
Columns & Interviews
Facebook’s Libra must be stopped
After years of disregarding privacy, exploiting user data and failing to control its platform, Facebook has unveiled a cryptocurrency and payment system that could take down the entire global economy.
The gender pay gap: where to start?
The gender pay gap in the EU remains stubbornly wide. Unpacking it highlights its wide social ramifications.
East versus west? The battle within the far right in Germany
Three decades after the fall of the Wall, there is still a ‘wall in the head’ in German politics—and it goes through the party of the far right.
New UK regulations aim to end gender stereotypes in adverts—but could go further
Advertisers still often hit consumers with gender stereotypes. And so they often miss—at their own business expense.
Older and wiser?—when governments get it wrong on pensions reform
Greater dependency ratios may imply pensions reform—but not that it be unfair.
The Danish election: a red wave with black undercurrents
The large swing to the left in the Danish election could lead to a long period of opposition for the right. Unless, that is, the social democrats revert to their ‘third way’ approach when last in government.
This time is different
Marx once wrote of the temptation, confronted with a new historical situation, to summon up the ‘borrowed language’ of the past. He’s still right.
Big Data and its enclosure of the commons
Digital dystopias are overdone but inequality is rising. The answer lies in treating data as a commons and Big Data as a collective-action problem.
An industrial policy for good jobs
Competition by public authorities to attract large companies with tax breaks or other subsidies is not the route to good jobs. An iterative dialogue with firms offers a better way.
Blogs
Beyond the EU budget zero-sum game
Discussion of the EU budget brings strife between supposed net contributors and beneficiaries. Yet the picture is more complex and Europe-wide taxation offers a way out.
Social imbalances in the EU
Despite the economic recovery of recent years, persistent social imbalances—such as those affecting women and young people—must be taken into account in the debate on Europe’s future.
ICT-enabled flexible working—all plain sailing?
Tech-based flexible working conjures up the independent consultant tapping on her tablet with a latte to hand. But the picture may not be so positive.
Redefining austerity: a lesson from Greece
What can an elected left-wing European government do when faced with imposed austerity? Redefining austerity can bring a turnaround.
Structural crisis and robotisation require more Europe, less austerity
The Great Recession, as with the Great Depression, is proving to be a structural crisis, which only a Euro-Keynesian programme of public investment can tackle.
Modern monetary theory: a simple macroeconomic model
Why has modern monetary theory come out of the academy? Because it helps model the current economic predicament and how to get out of it.
Sovereign spreads and the frailty of the eurozone
The failure to provide for risk-sharing in the eurozone architecture has sustained chronic mistrust, reflected in sovereign spreads.
The Celtic Tiger leaves Irish workers scarred
Workers in Ireland are still bearing the brunt after the Celtic Tiger’s demise—but with a modest gain against the precarisation of work.
