Cleaners and security workers belong at the heart of the political agenda in the forthcoming European elections.The European Commission’s latest Employment and Social Developments in Europe … Read More
Columns & Interviews
Europe’s destiny is at stake
Léonce Bekemans initiates a ‘Europe 2025’ series on Social Europe, which will look beyond the May elections to the challenges in the next term, with a call for a mobilising vision.Throughout … Read More
EU drive for trade liberalisation adds to tensions in Tunisia
The European Union’s disproportionate pressure for trade liberalisation risks exacerbating political strains in the last democracy of northern Africa.Tunisia is the only country in northern … Read More
How the market is betraying advanced economies
The idea that ‘the market’ must be the organising principle for collective decision-making should be abandoned.Despite ever-improving conditions for millions of people around the … Read More
Does Zuzana Čaputová’s victory signal a new politics in Slovakia?
Zuzana Čaputová emerged as the winner from Slovakia’s presidential election. Although viewed as a step away from populist and nationalist politics, the battle for the country’s political future is … Read More
Power in Austria: from labour to capital
A series of changes in Austria’s labour-market regime by its right-wing government have tilted the balance of power.During its European Union presidency in the second half of 2018, the … Read More
The sustainability imperative—how really to assess the European economy
The European Semester process of macroeconomic country analysis by the European Commission has been driven by economic orthodoxy in support of austerity—when sustainability should be the … Read More
It’s time to bring menstrual awareness to workplaces
Menstruation clearly makes for a substantial part of life, so why is it still taboo in discussions of work environment and work-life balance?In 2018, the Swedish organisation MENSEN—forum för … Read More
The new spirit of postcapitalism
Capitalism emerged in the interstices of feudalism and Paul Mason finds a prefiguring of postcapitalism in the lifeworld of the contemporary European city.Raval, Barcelona, March 2019. The streets … Read More
‘Full and good employment’ and reviving the European ideal
The logic of a Euro-Keynesian recovery, towards socially useful full employment, leads inexorably to a rediscovery of wider European political ambition.Within the Democratic Party in the … Read More
Blogs
Modern monetary theory: the dose makes the poison
Can government deficits be financed directly by central banks, as modern monetary theory suggests? The question should not be if but how much.All things are poison, and nothing is without … Read More
The future of manufacturing—is it in Europe?
Europe can remain a manufacturing hub if it ensures early adoption of game-changing technologies, engages with global supply chains and manages the green transition.Manufacturing is dead, they … Read More
Emissions inequality—a gulf between global rich and poor
When it comes to responsibility for global greenhouse-gas emissions, some are more equal than others.The American congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently shook up environmental … Read More
Restoring trust in Europe—wage rises and workplace democracy
Flatlining wages, denial of workplace voice and precarity are undermining trust in Europe—and assisting the siren calls of the populists.Europe’s economy has been expanding for six straight … Read More
It is time to restore the wage share
The wage share has been falling across the world as inequality has increased in recent decades. A co-ordinated rise is needed, starting in Europe, to reverse that.Old economic ‘truths’ are … Read More
Why top rates of income tax should be much higher
The new US congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has kickstarted a debate on taxation. Arguments for high income tax rates are not punitive—but they are political as well as pecuniary.When … Read More
Why weak competition can increase inequality in Europe
Like many other advanced economies around the world, the Eurozone is experiencing a productivity slowdown. Data from the ECB show that labour productivity growth has practically halved over the last … Read More
Germany sticks to its mercantilist model
In a recent LSE blog, (reproduced here), Donato Di Carlo presents empirical evidence for what he considers a ‘quiet rebalancing’ of the German economy. Using 2010 as a reference point, he bases his … Read More
