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About Susanne Wixforth

Susanne Wixforth is head of unit in the Europe and International Department of the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB). She was formerly senior legal and economic adviser on European affairs in the Austrian Chamber of Labour (AK Vienna).

digital tax, tax burden

How can the EU achieve a fair distribution of the tax burden?

by Susanne Wixforth on 10th November 2020

Falling corporate taxation has been matched by a rising contribution from labour. But there are ways to redress the balance between citizens and companies.

digital tax, tax burden

Material concerns about posting of workers

by Susanne Wixforth on 8th January 2020

Legal arguments over the EU posting of workers directive raise the issue of which is to prevail: workers’ rights or unregulated markets?

GAFA

Welcome to GAFA land—where the winner takes it all

by Susanne Wixforth on 30th May 2019

The Big Tech platforms have established monopolies which disempower their competitors as well as their workers. EU competition law can be used by unions seeking to bring them to heel.

GAFA

The Celtic Tiger leaves Irish workers scarred

by Susanne Wixforth on 9th May 2019

Workers in Ireland are still bearing the brunt after the Celtic Tiger’s demise—but with a modest gain against the precarisation of work.

Susanne Wixforth

The European Hydra: Wages And Social Dumping – Competition Law As A Way Out

by Susanne Wixforth on 20th November 2018

Fighting against transnational social dumping can best be compared to Heracles’ struggle against the Hydra of Lerna – the multi-headed serpent in Greek mythology. This struggle is highly uneven because every time a head is cut off, the monster regenerates two new ones to replace it. Similarly, when trade unions succeed in revealing a case […]

Susanne Wixforth

The New EU Budget Under The Constraints Of Brexit And The Debt Brake

by Susanne Wixforth on 13th July 2018

The UK’s exit from the EU means a contributions gap of an estimated €10-14 billion per year, around 7 percent of the EU Budget. Thereby, the discussion about the multi-annual financial framework has already set off in one direction: How do we fill the gap rather than how do we reform the budget? At the […]

Susanne Wixforth

The Future Of Europe – A Space For The Social Policy Avant-Garde

by Susanne Wixforth on 31st January 2018

On March 1 2017, the European Commission set out a White Paper on the Future of Europe. There was none of the fierce debate that might have been expected after the UK’s Brexit vote and application to leave: the European Union simply remained trapped in its daily routine. Brexit negotiations, the row about refugee quotas […]

ETUI advertisement

Benchmarking Working Europe 2020

A virus is haunting Europe. This year’s 20th anniversary issue of our flagship publication Benchmarking Working Europe brings to a growing audience of trade unionists, industrial relations specialists and policy-makers a warning: besides SARS-CoV-2, ‘austerity’ is the other nefarious agent from which workers, and Europe as a whole, need to be protected in the months and years ahead. Just as the scientific community appears on the verge of producing one or more effective and affordable vaccines that could generate widespread immunity against SARS-CoV-2, however, policy-makers, at both national and European levels, are now approaching this challenging juncture in a way that departs from the austerity-driven responses deployed a decade ago, in the aftermath of the previous crisis. It is particularly apt for the 20th anniversary issue of Benchmarking, a publication that has allowed the ETUI and the ETUC to contribute to key European debates, to set out our case for a socially responsive and ecologically sustainable road out of the Covid-19 crisis.


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Eurofound advertisement

Industrial relations: developments 2015-2019

Eurofound has monitored and analysed developments in industrial relations systems at EU level and in EU member states for over 40 years. This new flagship report provides an overview of developments in industrial relations and social dialogue in the years immediately prior to the Covid-19 outbreak. Findings are placed in the context of the key developments in EU policy affecting employment, working conditions and social policy, and linked to the work done by social partners—as well as public authorities—at European and national levels.


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Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

Read FEPS Covid Response Papers

In this moment, more than ever, policy-making requires support and ideas to design further responses that can meet the scale of the problem. FEPS contributes to this reflection with policy ideas, analysis of the different proposals and open reflections with the new FEPS Covid Response Papers series and the FEPS Covid Response Webinars. The latest FEPS Covid Response Paper by the Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, 'Recovering from the pandemic: an appraisal of lessons learned', provides an overview of the failures and successes in dealing with Covid-19 and its economic aftermath. Among the authors: Lodewijk Asscher, László Andor, Estrella Durá, Daniela Gabor, Amandine Crespy, Alberto Botta, Francesco Corti, and many more.


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Social Europe Publishing book

The Brexit endgame is upon us: deal or no deal, the transition period will end on January 1st. With a pandemic raging, for those countries most affected by Brexit the end of the transition could not come at a worse time. Yet, might the UK's withdrawal be a blessing in disguise? With its biggest veto player gone, might the European Pillar of Social Rights take centre stage? This book brings together leading experts in European politics and policy to examine social citizenship rights across the European continent in the wake of Brexit. Will member states see an enhanced social Europe or a race to the bottom?

'This book correctly emphasises the need to place the future of social rights in Europe front and centre in the post-Brexit debate, to move on from the economistic bias that has obscured our vision of a progressive social Europe.' Michael D Higgins, president of Ireland


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Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

The macroeconomic effects of the EU recovery and resilience facility

This policy brief analyses the macroeconomic effects of the EU's Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). We present the basics of the RRF and then use the macroeconometric multi-country model NiGEM to analyse the facility's macroeconomic effects. The simulations show, first, that if the funds are in fact used to finance additional public investment (as intended), public capital stocks throughout the EU will increase markedly during the time of the RRF. Secondly, in some especially hard-hit southern European countries, the RRF would offset a significant share of the output lost during the pandemic. Thirdly, as gains in GDP due to the RRF will be much stronger in (poorer) southern and eastern European countries, the RRF has the potential to reduce economic divergence. Finally, and in direct consequence of the increased GDP, the RRF will lead to lower public debt ratios—between 2.0 and 4.4 percentage points below baseline for southern European countries in 2023.


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