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Social Europe Articles on Ecology

Social Europe is an award-winning digital media publisher that publishes content examining issues in politics, economy, society and ecology. This archive brings together Social Europe articles on ecology.

green recovery

Driving the next stage of European green recovery

by Brian O'Callaghan and David Tritsch on 6th April 2021

Amid much rhetoric of a green recovery, only about a quarter of associated spending in Europe fits the bill—despite the benefits.

Katharina Pistor.png

Green markets won’t save us

by Katharina Pistor on 24th March 2021

Markets are an unreliable guide for navigating a problem as large and complex as climate change.

decarbonisation,energy transition

Europe’s decarbonisation challenge? ‘Wir schaffen das’

by Adam Tooze on 22nd March 2021

Adam Tooze writes on the roadmaps to net-zero by 2050. Is a just transition for Europe realistic?

venture capital,VC

Venturing the green transformation?

by Franziska Cooiman on 16th March 2021

Under the European Green Deal, venture-capital firms are expected to play a vital investment role—one for which they are singularly ill-suited.

Deregulation,Better Regulation,one in one out

Leaving behind the EU’s deadly addiction to deregulation

by Patrick ten Brink on 3rd March 2021

Better regulation is benevolent and participatory, cognisant of complexity and future-oriented. Deregulation it is not.

adaptation strategy

Managing the unavoidable impact of climate change

by Ludovic Voet on 22nd February 2021

While doing all it can to arrest climate change, the EU must place workers and their concerns at the heart of its adaptation strategy.

Can we change the climate on climate change?

by Karin Pettersson on 22nd February 2021

Karin Pettersson is impressed by a fictional account of the existential challenge humanity faces.

renewable-energy directive,von der Leyen

Ursula von der Leyen’s mission ‘to the moon’

by Michael Davies-Venn on 16th February 2021

The European Green Deal rests on the commitment of the 27 member states. The fate of the renewable-energy directive shows the scale of that challenge.

deforestation,EU-Mercosur

EU-Mercosur free-trade pact risks irreversible destruction

by Muhammed Magassy on 9th February 2021

With environment issues rising quickly up the EU agenda, it’s time to get trade and ecological policies into coherent alignment.

biofuels,biomass,wood pellets,palm oil

Green intentions, brown outcomes

by Rianne ten Veen on 9th February 2021

If the EU does not address its role in domestic deforestation it will never reach its goal of carbon neutrality.

Paris climate agreement,Paris agreement,COP26

No time to spare for the Paris climate promise

by Mary Robinson on 12th January 2021

Having squandered past opportunities and shirked previous commitments, we now must start making up for lost time.

free trade, trade deals

Legal hurdles facing a green and just transition

by Ingo Venzke on 24th November 2020

The irony of genuinely ‘free trade’ is only regulation enables it. Europe cannot lead the ecological transition without recognising this.

public development banks

How public development banks can help nature

by Elizabeth Mrema and Carlos Manuel Rodriguez on 17th November 2020

Public development banks will be critical to global efforts to ‘build back better’. They should complement their climate investments with nature-based goals.

union strategies, jobs versus environment

Trade unions and climate change: the jobs-versus-environment dilemma

by Adrien Thomas and Nadja Dörflinger on 12th November 2020

Unions can be torn between mitigating climate change tomorrow and saving jobs today. A significant Just Transition Fund could ease that dilemma.

executive remuneration, remuneration packages

Supporting the transition to post-pandemic sustainability

by Denis Gregory and Maarten van Klaveren on 9th November 2020

Executive remuneration packages not only drive a race to the top but do not account for companies’ environmental ‘externalities’. This needs to change.

Social Europe Publishing book

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

Renewing labour relations in the German meat industry: an end to 'organised irresponsibility'?

Over the course of 2020, repeated outbreaks of Covid-19 in a number of large German meat-processing plants led to renewed public concern about the longstanding labour abuses in this industry. New legislation providing for enhanced inspection on health and safety, together with a ban on contract work and limitations on the use of temporary agency employees, holds out the prospect of a profound change in employment practices and labour relations in the meat industry. Changes in the law are not sufficient, on their own, to ensure decent working conditions, however. There is also a need to re-establish the previously high level of collective-bargaining coverage in the industry, underpinned by an industry-wide collective agreement extended by law to cover the entire sector.


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ETUI advertisement

Social protection during the pandemic: freelancers in the creative industries

This working paper identifies some key areas of policy intervention for advancing socially sustainable and fair solutions for freelancers working in the creative industries, who are among those who have suffered the most from the economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic. In particular, the authors focus on those who work entirely on their own account, without employees (ie the ‘solo self-employed’), and who undertake project- or task-based work on a fixed-term basis.


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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

#Care4Care!

It took us a global pandemic to realise that we depend on care. Despite all the clapping from the balconies, care workers continue to work in precarious and vulnerable conditions. Women, who represent 70% of the care workforce, continue to suffer from a severe lack of recognition for both their paid and unpaid care work. It’s time for a care revolution! It’s time to #Care4Care! The Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS), together with the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES), has been intensively working since 2019 to monitor the EU gender equality policy agenda through a progressive lens focusing particularly on its care dimensions.


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