Social Europe articles on politics

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

A basic-income floor should be part of a recovery programme

by Stewart Lansley on 17th June 2020

With the UK’s social safety net full of holes, support has grown for a basic income to underpin a mean and means-tested benefits system.

Europe needs a new Youth Guarantee

by Dennis Tamesberger and Johann Bacher on 16th June 2020

The Youth Guarantee has failed to deliver on its promise. The deepening economic crisis makes a well-functioning guarantee even more imperative.

Why recovery needs to have children at its centre

by Reka Tunyogi on 16th June 2020

The pandemic and the lockdown have had serious effects on children’s wellbeing. The EU recovery plan must ensure their specific needs are addressed.

A European public-health facility

by Alberto Quadrio Curzio and Francesco Saraceno on 11th June 2020

Public health should be recognised as a public good, whose provision, beyond the pandemic, requires a new European agency.

Sweden, the pandemic and precarious working conditions

by Lisa Pelling on 10th June 2020

Most commentary on the Covid-19 death toll in Sweden has been on the absence of lockdown, yet privatisation and precarity in eldercare should really be in the spotlight.

Sweden must be ready to support an ambitious recovery fund

by Markus Kallifatides on 10th June 2020

Rather than locate itself in the ‘frugal four’, Sweden should support a progressive recovery plan at the coming European Council.

Stop EU money for labour exploitation in agriculture

by Johan Danielsson, Paolo De Castro, Agnes Jongerius, Per Hilmersson and Kristjan Bragason on 9th June 2020

EU funding for the agricultural sector must be used to end the mistreatment especially of migrant labour.

Science and politics: a new alliance?

by Valerio Alfonso Bruno on 9th June 2020

The pandemic has brought science and expertise to the fore in the public sphere, as an anchor of trust—and put the populists on the back foot.

American traumas

by Karin Pettersson on 8th June 2020

Karin Pettersson explores the deep faultlines of unexpurgated racism tearing the United States apart.

Artificial intelligence, healthcare and the pandemic

by Selin Sayek Böke on 5th June 2020

The coronavirus crisis demands a regulatory framework for the application of AI to protect public health without jeopardising human rights.

A European way towards sustainable AI

by Reinhard Messerschmidt and Stefan Ullrich on 5th June 2020

Once we recognise the human was never outside of artificial intelligence, we can use it to help create a digital society for the common good.

A citizens’ conference on the future of Europe

by Marta Cillero Manzano on 4th June 2020

With agreement lacking on the future of Europe—even about the conference on that theme—it’s time to look to a European Citizens’ Assembly.

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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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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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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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.

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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