Social Europe articles on politics

Donald Trump is winning Republican presidential primaries at such a great rate that he seems likely to become the next Republican presidential nominee and perhaps the next president. Democrats have little understanding of why he is winning — and winning handily, and even many Republicans don’t see him as a Republican and are trying to […]

Mario Draghi’s proposal to create a European Treasury Ministry is the first step (after the euro) towards genuine European integration and another renunciation of national prerogatives. It confirms what sociologists have been saying for some time: in a globalised world, national sovereignty is ineffective and obsolete. But it also represents an attempt to restore power […]

The European Project finds itself at its worst point since its creation. First came the disastrous management of The Great Recession and the consequent loss of legitimacy of European institutions. Now, the management of the refugee crisis has overwhelmed Berlin and Brussels and turned the Mediterranean into one of the most deadly borders in the […]

While comparisons between Donald Trump and Mussolini or Hitler are overwrought, Trump’s rise does illustrate how democratic processes can lose their way and turn dangerously toxic when there is intense economic frustration and widespread apprehension about the future. This is especially the case when some previously respected leaders scurry to make peace in a new […]

Slovak general elections do not usually get attention beyond the immediate neighbourhood. However, with the SK EU Presidency approaching and a controversial stance on the migration crisis, questions arise on what might change after this Saturday. Predicting elections has become a precarious business. Since last summer things seemed to be quite clear in Slovakia. The […]

Nowadays we all know that long or excessive working hours may have serious negative impacts on a person’s health and wellbeing. Eurofound‘s new report “Working time developments in the 21st century” suggests that if working time standards are mainly left to legislation or to be set unilaterally by employers, people will still tend to work […]

Among the multiple existential challenges facing the European Union this year – refugees, populist politics, German-inspired austerity, government bankruptcy in Greece and perhaps Portugal – one crisis is well on its way to resolution. Britain will not vote to leave the EU. This confident prediction may seem to be contradicted by polls showing roughly 50% […]

The pistol has now been fired for so many debates we are so badly prepared for. The future of Britain, the future of Europe, the future of Britain in Europe and maybe the future of both without each other. For once in over 40 years the people of Britain, all of its people, are being […]

In her policy statement to the Bundestag prior to the EU summit last week, Angela Merkel gave an insight into her progress in the search for a joint EU approach to the refugee crisis. The main question for Germany at the summit was: “Have we made so much progress with our European-Turkish approach within the framework of […]

In recent weeks, Germany has put forward two proposals for the ‘future viability’ of the EMU that, if approved, would radically alter the nature of the currency union. For the worse. The first proposal, already at the centre of high-level intergovernmental discussions, comes from the German Council of Economic Experts, the country’s most influential economic […]

It took Spain’s political parties a staggering 44 days to properly react and face head-on the outcome of the general election on 20 December. In a country hardly accustomed to tight election results and coalition talks, the aftermath of the vote left the political class not only in dismay but, more worryingly, in stasis. Two months […]