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Wolfgang Kowalsky

Wolfgang Kowalsky is a policy adviser working in the trade union movement in Brussels.

Wolfgang Kowalsky

Spitzenkandidaten, transnational lists and more Brussels-bubble ideas

Wolfgang Kowalsky 24th September 2019

The Spitzenkandidaten system was meant to enhance the democratic legitimacy of the European Parliament. But that wasn’t why more citizens voted in May.

The Next Crisis Will Be Worse Than The Financial One

Wolfgang Kowalsky 12th September 2018

Economists have been pretty silent over the summer. It has probably been too hot to come up with new ideas. Generally speaking, most of them are more passionate about 2% inflation or ½% growth and other economic key figures than about the 2% rise in the Earth’s temperature. This summer, wildfires spread all over Europe […]

Business Takes All – Or Win-Win?

Wolfgang Kowalsky 8th June 2018

The new European Commission company mobility package is unbalanced. It aims at establishing European rules for business mobility in three areas: company conversions, mergers and divisions (corporate break-ups). On one side, there is a threefold delivery to the business community in terms of replacing national by European rules to facilitate cross-border company activities. But, on the […]

Europe On The Move Again?

Wolfgang Kowalsky 28th March 2017

While Europe found itself in a new triangular relationship and holding more and more divergent views with the USA’s Trumpism on one side and Russia’s Putinism on the other, the composition of fish fingers and chocolate spread became a popular discussion topic in the press and amongst EU Member States. The increasingly tense global debates […]

The French Right Might Pave The Way For The Extreme Right: Sleepwalking Towards Frexit

Wolfgang Kowalsky 29th November 2016

The French ‘patronat’, the business lobby group aka Medef, had for a long time the reputation of being the most stupid in the world. Today, the French political right is on the way to taking its place. Even a superficial analysis of the Brexit referendum and the US elections shows that the losers of unfettered […]

Time To Turn The Page Of Platform Capitalism?

Wolfgang Kowalsky 28th November 2016

Tech giants like to be regarded as unicorns. Since the late 1300s, the unicorn has been the national animal of Scotland. Believed to be the natural enemy of the lion – a symbol that the English royals adopted around a century earlier –it is clear to every Scot that the mythical animal is stronger. Tech […]

Twilight Of The Gods: The Globalisation Losers Hit Back

Wolfgang Kowalsky 14th July 2016

True believers in globalisation can be recognised by the following simple characteristic: They are convinced that it benefits all. This credo is being queried since Brexit, and some intelligent authors now recognise that the UK vote may well be linked to the fact that many people see themselves as losers of globalisation who are now […]

What A Wonderful New World: The Sharing Economy

Wolfgang Kowalsky 13th June 2016

The European Commission has just issued a communication on “A European agenda for the collaborative economy” (02.06.2016). The Commission considers this term ‘collaborative economy’ as interchangeable with the term ‘sharing economy’. It will, according to them, create fantastic new opportunities and in particular new employment opportunities. This economy is growing rapidly and therefore the Commission […]

Scenarios For A Digital Europe

Wolfgang Kowalsky 29th April 2016

A lot of hype has built up around digitalisation, in some Member States as well as in Brussels. On one side, the over-enthusiastic camp bases its assumptions on wishful thinking: digitalisation will bring a circular economy with less waste, better use of resources, fantastic opportunities for information, communication, connectedness and transparency, easier reconciliation of life […]

Is There A Future For Europe?

Wolfgang Kowalsky 18th December 2015

Brexit is marginal; the real danger for Europe lurking around the corner would be Frexit. Marine Le Pen’s Front National was stopped at the regional elections but she got the highest number of votes ever: 6.8m. Will she be stoppable in the race to the presidential elections? She has promised to organise a referendum on […]

The European Digital Agenda: Unambitious And Too Narrow

Wolfgang Kowalsky 6th July 2015

The first industrial revolution was based on the transition from manual production methods to machines and the use of steam power (from 1800), the second industrial revolution was based on mass production and electrification (from 1840/60), and the third referred to computerisation (lean-production, kaizen). The new challenge is the digital revolution, in other words: fourth […]

Twelve Brussels Myths… And Why They Are Wrong

Wolfgang Kowalsky 9th June 2015

1. A more business friendly environment is needed. In reality, thanks to the manifold activities of the Barroso Commission and the “better regulation” agenda, the balance between stakeholders has shifted substantially in recent years in favour of the business side. The Barroso Commission even proposed a new company form for Europe called the SUP which […]

Understanding The European Union’s Facade Democracy

Wolfgang Kowalsky 14th April 2015

It is quite amazing that the European Commission has never really addressed the question of European democracy. Neither a White Paper nor a Green Paper has been issued to reflect upon the concept of supranational democracy that has been under discussion since the very foundations of the European Community/Union. The issue of a democratic deficit […]

Where Now For The Europe 2020 Strategy?

Wolfgang Kowalsky 18th March 2015

Does the Commission take unemployment as a serious challenge? What future for the Europe 2020 strategy? A few comments on European Commission: “Results of the public consultation on the Europe 2020 strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth” This new note from the European Commission is clearly a step further down the road towards marginalising […]

Do We Need A Single-Member Private Limited Liability Company (SUP)?

Wolfgang Kowalsky 28th July 2014

The European Commission has once again issued a legislative proposal which jeopardises workers’ rights. The proposal for a “single-member private limited liability company” (SUP in European jargon) would create a 29th regime in company law. It goes down the same road as those previous company law proposals (like the European Private Company) which bypass rules […]

Is Europe Back On Track?

Wolfgang Kowalsky 16th July 2014

After the European elections, the World Cup became the new hot topic. Only insiders were interested enough to follow closely the selection process of the new Commission President. Nevertheless, there were some quite interesting developments which are worth noting: the European elections were the most European in the history of the directly elected European Parliament […]

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The macroeconomic effects of re-applying the EU fiscal rules

Against the background of the European Commission's reform plans for the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), this policy brief uses the macroeconometric multi-country model NiGEM to simulate the macroeconomic implications of the most relevant reform options from 2024 onwards. Next to a return to the existing and unreformed rules, the most prominent options include an expenditure rule linked to a debt anchor.

Our results for the euro area and its four biggest economies—France, Italy, Germany and Spain—indicate that returning to the rules of the SGP would lead to severe cuts in public spending, particularly if the SGP rules were interpreted as in the past. A more flexible interpretation would only somewhat ease the fiscal-adjustment burden. An expenditure rule along the lines of the European Fiscal Board would, however, not necessarily alleviate that burden in and of itself.

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The report analysis the evolution of the real total wage bill from 2019 to 2022 to show how its different components—employment, nominal wages and inflation—have changed during the COVID-19 crisis and, more recently, during the cost-of-living crisis. The decomposition of the total wage bill, and its evolution, is shown for all wage employees and distinguishes between women and men. The report also looks at changes in wage inequality and the gender pay gap to reveal how COVID-19 may have contributed to increasing income inequality in different regions of the world. Together, the empirical evidence in the report becomes the backbone of a policy discussion that could play a key role in a human-centred recovery from the different ongoing crises.


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Eurofound’s head of information and communication, Mary McCaughey, its senior research manager, Agnès Parent-Thirion, and research manager, Jorge Cabrita, explore the findings from the recently published European Working Conditions Telephone Survey (EWCTS) in an #AskTheExpert webinar. This survey of more than 70,000 workers in 36 European countries provides a wide-ranging picture of job quality across countries, occupations, sectors and age groups and by gender in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. It confirms persistent gender segregation in sectors, occupations and workplaces, indicating that we are a long way from the goals of equal opportunities for women and men at work and equal access to key decision-making positions in the workplace.


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