Kirsty Hughes

Kirsty Hughes is a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. She was the founding director of the Scottish Centre on European Relations and has been European director at Chatham House and a senior fellow at Friends of Europe and the Centre for European Policy Studies.

Kirsty Hughes

The EU must rise to the enlargement challenge

Kirsty Hughes 11th January 2024

A host of obstacles to realising the enlargement perspective of the summit in December can be surmounted with political will.

The UK’s European question is far from over

Kirsty Hughes 4th January 2021

‘Brexit’ stemmed from the takeover of the Tory party by its Eurosceptic fringe, whose prejudices will now collide with reality.

An inclusive Green New Deal: the EU must raise its ambition, confidence and determination

Kirsty Hughes 30th July 2019

In our ‘Europe2025’ series, Kirsty Hughes argues that a Green New Deal can gel the domestic and neighbourhood policies of the union.

How can Europe adapt to an ageing workforce?

How can Europe adapt to an ageing workforce? What impediments do older workers face at the workplace? How are changing technologies and job quality influencing the retention of older workers on the labour market?

This episode of the Eurofound Talks podcast series sets out to answer these questions in the context of changing demographics in Europe and the need to make work more sustainable.

Listen to the episode for free. Also make sure to subscribe to Eurofound Talks so you don’t miss an episode!

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The Spring issue of The Progressive Post is out!

Since President Trump’s inauguration, the US – hitherto the cornerstone of Western security – is destabilising the world order it helped to build. The US security umbrella is apparently closing on Europe, Ukraine finds itself less and less protected, and the traditional defender of free trade is now shutting the door to foreign goods, sending stock markets on a rollercoaster. How will the European Union respond to this dramatic landscape change? .

Among this issue’s highlights, we discuss European defence strategies, assess how the US president's recent announcements will impact international trade and explore the risks  and opportunities that algorithms pose for workers.

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WSI European Collective Bargaining Report 2023/2024

Real wages in the European Union continued their decline in 2023—despite an acceleration in nominal wage growth and falling inflation rates. For the current year, there are only tentative signs of a slow recovery in the purchasing power of wages.

A resumption of real wage growth would stabilize the functional distribution of income and strengthen domestic demand. However, even under this benign scenario, the crisis is far from over from workers' point of view. They have borne the brunt of real income losses associated with the energy-price shock resulting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The lingering reduction in real wage levels means that wage policy still needs to catch up to contribute to a fairer distribution of the burden between labor and capital.

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This new book published by Oxford University Press presents the findings of the multiannual ERC research project “Researching Precariousness Across the Paid/Unpaid Work Continuum”,
led by Valeria Pulignano (KU Leuven), which are very important for the prospects of a more equal Europe.

Unpaid labour is no longer limited to the home or volunteer work. It infiltrates paid jobs, eroding rights and deepening inequality. From freelancers’ extra hours to care workers’ unpaid duties, it sustains precarity and fuels inequity. This book exposes the hidden forces behind unpaid labour and calls for systemic change to confront this pressing issue.

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The EU must rise to the enlargement challenge

The UK’s European question is far from over

An inclusive Green New Deal: the EU must raise its ambition, confidence and determination

Social Europe

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