Spain’s labour reform: less transience, more balance
While still subject to political negotiations, the labour-market reform agreed by Spain’s social partners should bring more security.
Economy
Social Europe is an award-winning digital media publisher driven by the core values of freedom, sustainability, and equality. These principles guide our exploration of society’s most pressing challenges. This archive page curates Social Europe articles focused on economic issues, offering a rich resource for innovative thinking and informed debate.
Higher public debt = lower growth?
The pandemic-induced crisis has seen fiscal policy relaxed. Ill-evidenced orthodoxy must not be allowed to reinstate austerity.
Digitalisation and telework—the ‘new normal’?
New working arrangements could hold out more self-determination for workers. Too often they have meant more stress.
The ECB needs a better narrative
Giving the public impression that inflation is ‘too low’, Peter Bofinger writes, is not a good look for the bank.
The dark side of the logistics boom
Online shopping is simple and convenient for customers. But the logistics workforce may pay the price.
EU strategic autonomy must mean fairer trade
If ‘strategic autonomy’ is to define the EU’s relation to the world, linked trade deals must not mean dependence for workers.
A better deal for the world’s workers
Boosting earnings and the dignity of work requires strengthening bargaining power and supplying good jobs to those who most need them.
Will European recovery ever be co-determined by social actors?
The EU’s plan for recovery offered an opportunity for meaningful involvement of social actors. The outcome? Patchy.
European Commission takes the lead in regulating platform work
The draft directive published today is already breaking the united front of the platform companies.
EU borrowing—time to think of the generation after next
Financing post-pandemic recovery via EU borrowing has proved remarkably straightforward. So why keep it temporary?
Regulating digital work: from laisser-faire to fairness
The proposal for an EU directive on platform work about to emerge is welcome, yet insufficient—and no substitute for national action.
The ‘freedom’ to work for nothing
Irregular pay is one of the criticisms levelled at platform companies. But some of the time there is no pay at all.
Monitoring of workers’ personal data via entrance control systems
Preventing 1984-style monitoring of workers requires a rebalancing of workplace power, based on legal regulation and human dignity.
Structural solutions for structural inequalities—a trade union perspective
Responses to the pandemic have upended the idea that ‘there is no alternative’ to macroeconomic policies engendering widening inequality.
Reimagining care
Many regard caring for the Earth and others as a means to an end. Everything changes if we view care as an essential set of relationships.
Raising the resources to open the European sluice-gates
The growing challenges facing Europe, beyond recovery from the pandemic, require a budget to match.
Reversing the procurement race to the bottom
Companies must be denied contracts if they refuse to respect workers’ rights.