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Man — author portrait, Social Europe. Nicola Countouris

Nicola Countouris is professor of labour and European law at University College London.
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Amazon’s office mandate: The hidden power play behind workplace control

Nicola Countouris and Valerio De Stefano

Amazon’s office mandate exposes workplace power dynamics and the need to rethink employer control.

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Social Europe needs a new concept of ‘worker’

Nicola Countouris, Valerio De Stefano and John Hendy

The distinction between employed and self-employed is becoming incoherent and outdated.

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Platform-work directive: the clock is ticking

Antonio Aloisi, Silvia Rainone and Nicola Countouris

The ‘gig’-economy directive, a critical legacy of social rights from this EU term, is being held up by some member states.

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Reconstruction: time for transformative ideas

Kalina Arabadjieva, Nicola Countouris, Bianca Luna Fabris and Wouter Zwysen

As the world inches back to normality, the Covid-19 crisis highlights deep structural inequalities and the urgent need for bold, systemic solutions to tackle climate change, social injustice, and economic precarity.

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Europe needs a social compass

Esther Lynch, Nicola Countouris and Philippe Pochet

Europe is undergoing multiple transitions. For these to succeed, social dialogue to build consensus will be essential.

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Making labour law fit for all those who labour

Nicola Countouris, Mark Freedland and Valerio De Stefano

EU anti-discrimination law applies to all ‘personal work’—not just employment contracts—the Court of Justice has ruled.

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Working from a distance: remote or removed?

Nicola Countouris and Valerio De Stefano

Remote work will outlast the pandemic. But workers must be inoculated against the risks.

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The Metaverse is a labour issue

Valerio De Stefano, Antonio Aloisi and Nicola Countouris

The Metaverse has been talked about only in terms of gee-whiz technologies.

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Regulating digital work: from laisser-faire to fairness

Nicola Countouris

The proposal for an EU directive on platform work about to emerge is welcome, yet insufficient—and no substitute for national action.

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Structural solutions for structural inequalities—a trade union perspective

Luca Visentini, Nicola Countouris and Philippe Pochet

Responses to the pandemic have upended the idea that ‘there is no alternative’ to macroeconomic policies engendering widening inequality.

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The ‘long Covid’ of work relations and the future of remote work

Nicola Countouris and Valerio De Stefano

The pandemic made us all familiar with ‘social distancing’. Employers are starting to glimpse a future where ‘contractual distancing’ is normalised.

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Collective-bargaining rights for platform workers

Nicola Countouris and Valerio De Stefano

The pioneering Danish collective agreement on platform-based domestic workers has been vitiated by a misguided ruling by its competition authority.

S&D Group in the European Parliament Advertisement

S&D conference The Middle East at crossroads: A progressive vision, 9 September 2026, European Parliament, Brussels

S&D conference “The Middle East at crossroads: A progressive vision”

The S&D Group is pleased to invite you to our conference “The Middle East at crossroads: A progressive vision” on Wednesday, 9 September, from 14:30 to 18:30, in the European Parliament in Brussels as well as online, where we will discuss the geopolitical changes taking place in the Middle East.

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ETUI Advertisement

Cover of the ETUI and OSE book Social policy in the European Union: state of play 2025.

New Edition - Social policy in the European Union: state of play 2025

Can Europe preserve its distinctive social model while simultaneously rearming, reindustrialising, and reorganising its economy in a more conflictual and competitive world? This is the central question raised in this new edition of the Bilan social, a reference publication released every spring for more than 25 years by the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) and the European Social Observatory (OSE).

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Eurofound Advertisement

EurofoundTalks podcast with Mary McCaughey and Eszter Sandor: Is financial resilience and trust in Europe faltering?

Is financial resilience and trust in Europe faltering?

In this episode of Eurofound Talks, host Mary McCaughey and senior researcher Eszter Sandor unpack the results of the 2025 Living and Working in the EU e-survey. While headline inflation has stabilised at 2.1%, the data reveals a continent gripped by chronic precariousness, with 57% of respondents now at risk of depression. Mary and Eszter explore how this economic insecurity is impacting institutional trust and democratic engagement.

LISTEN HERE

FEPS Advertisement

Cover of The Progressive Post issue 31, Summer 2026: The Mediterranean, a crowded sea.

The Summer issue of The Progressive Post is out! 

The EU is belatedly awakening to a changing Mediterranean sea, where more assertive regional powers are reclaiming a role.

The new issue of the magazine also reflects on how we struggle to keep pace with AI innovations, examines the uncertainties surrounding the execution of the Pact on Migration and Asylum and the risk to human rights posed by the Return Regulation, and focuses on the EU Commission's newly proposed Industrial Accelerator Act.

READ THE MAGAZINE

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

WSI Industrial Action Report 2025 cover page with red and white design.

The 2025 collective bargaining year in Germany was once again characterised by numerous strikes. The WSI recorded 261 industrial disputes in 2025. For the first time, the WSI has also quantitatively analysed the trade unions` industrial action objectives for 2025.

READ THE REPORT

FES Advertisement

Cover of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung analysis The Capability State: A Progressive Vision for the 21st Century by Henning Meyer.

“What is the actual purpose of the state?” – this central question is the focus of the analysis. At a time when bureaucratic processes are making life difficult for citizens, the paper proposes a three-part model. It aims at a conception of the state as a platform that helps society build the capabilities it needs to address its problems effectively.

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