politics, economy and employment & labour
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.
The headline in my latest article for The Independent may seem like a wild exaggeration. But if we are talking about a crisis that impacted on unemployment in the entire Eurozone (except Germany) rather than just the periphery, then I think it is reasonable. It was German policy makers that insisted that the Eurozone embark on general […]
The global agreement reached in Paris last week is actually the third climate agreement reached in the past month. The first happened at the end of November, when a group of billionaires led by Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos announced the creation of a $20 billion fund to back clean-energy research. On the […]
Well, that’s OK then. The second round of France’s regional elections has seen the clear winner of the first, Marine Le Pen and her Front National, leave empty-handed. The FN, top in six of the 13 regions on December 6, won none. It came third in the overall poll on 27.4% compared with 40% for […]
The aggressive tax avoidance by multinational corporations (MNCs) where they are now paying virtually no tax was highlighted recently by the takeover of “Irish” company Allergan by Pfizer in a blatant tax-avoidance move. Such tax avoidance by these companies is facilitated by sovereign nations in their “tax wars” between each other, vying for foreign investment. They […]
Most post-WWII conflicts are sparked and fuelled by geopolitics though many a European citizen has little knowledge about this. True, the influx of people from Syria and elsewhere into Europe is unprecedented in recent history. This has brought about bitter political standoffs between governments and political parties. Territorial governance for frontier countries such as Turkey, […]
The Front National secured the largest share of the vote in the first round of the French regional elections on 6 December and will aim to follow this up with success in the second round of voting on 13 December. Ben Margulies writes that while the Front National is often regarded simply as a far-right party, Marine […]
In mid-December, the United Nations will launch the latest of its annual landmark Human Development Reports. This year’s report focuses on the nature of work: how the way we earn a living is being transformed by economic globalization, new technologies, and innovations in social organization. The outlook for developing countries, in particular, is decidedly mixed. For most […]
The Islamic State’s attack in Paris in November was the latest crisis to delay Britain’s bid to renegotiate its membership in the European Union, ahead of a planned referendum on whether to maintain the relationship. First Greece, then refugees, and now terrorism have dominated the diplomatic agenda instead. On December 3, Conservative Prime Minister David […]
Poland’s new right-wing government has prioritised implementation of the expensive social spending pledges that were critical to its election victory. However, its determination to radically reform the Polish state has drawn accusations of authoritarianism from the opposition while the new prime minister has yet to stamp her authority on the administration. Aleks Szczerbiak assesses all of the main […]
Heated debates have been sparked in some of the EU’s key recipient countries on the alleged adverse effects of free movement of labour, including in particular “welfare tourism”. These began in the wake of the economic and financial crisis and accelerated before the restrictions on free movement of Romanian and Bulgarian citizens were lifted in […]
In what I described over a year ago as the untold story of the Eurozone crisis, Germany held nominal wage increases below the level of other core Eurozone countries, gradually gaining a large competitive advantage over them. This had a number of consequences, but perhaps the most important is that when the Great Recession hit, Germany was […]
Ten or 20 years ago, the existential question facing the European Union was whether it still had a purpose in a globalized world. The question today is whether the EU can respond effectively to major external shocks. Europe’s neighborhood is poor and dangerous. South of Gibraltar, income per capita drops more than fivefold. War has […]
