Social Europe articles on politics

Since the hateful attacks in Paris last Friday there has been a lot of soul-searching about the type of Islamist terrorism we are confronted with and what can be done about it. A lot of commentary, including on Social Europe, has identified Western policies as a root cause of the problem. Western actions over recent […]

Visiting the UK, after eighteen months in Eastern Europe, I have been struck by the easy-going multiculturalism that is Britain. Whether in London, Bristol or Liverpool, the three cities on my itinerary, recent immigrants from the European Union – from France and Spain as well as Poland and Romania – mingle comfortably with Black, Asian […]

A new Dutch survey signals the need for moderate forces to reinvent themselves in order to halt growing dissatisfaction with the political and democratic process. The societal tensions that have come to the surface in many European countries as a result of the refugee crisis are a symptom of a wider systemic crisis. Our postwar […]

The terrorist slaughter in Paris has once again brought into sharp relief the storm clouds gathering over the twenty-first century, dimming the bright promise for Europe and the West that the fall of communism opened up. Given dangers that seemingly grow by the day, it is worth pondering what we may be in for. Though […]

It has not been an easy ride for Uber in Europe. Despite being bolstered by copious amounts of venture capital, the company has faced stiff opposition from government regulators and taxi companies across the continent. Last month, Uber’s Amsterdam HQ was raided for the third time in 2015 by Dutch authorities pursuing a criminal investigation […]

Europe has delivered considerable benefits to its citizens. Even so, rather than resting on our laurels, and at a time of insecurity and disillusion, we need to reboot the European idea: how better to do this than by strengthening the EU’s social dimension? One of the major tasks faced by the EU will be to […]

Our Facebook portraits are draped in the tricolore, special twibbons adorn our Twitter profiles, public buildings are splashed blue, white and red, we “pray for Paris,” we sing the Marseillaise, Nous sommes tous des parisiens: the aftermath of Friday evening’s pitiless slaughter of scores of mainly young friends enjoying themselves has seen an outpouring of […]

In 2013, youth unemployment rates in Europe reached the highest level ever recorded in the history of the EU and in the majority of the Member States (MS). More than 5.5 million young people aged 15-24 were unemployed (now more than 4.5m), with a huge sense of crisis and the fear that the youth unemployment […]

In the Bloomberg speech of 2013 in which he promised a referendum on British EU membership by the end of 2017, David Cameron promised to carry out ‘renegotiations for fundamental change’ of Britain’s terms and conditions of their EU membership. In a speech at Chatham House today, he spelt out in more detail precisely what […]

When Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) defied pundits and pollsters by regaining a parliamentary majority in the country’s general election on November 1, financial markets cheered. The next day, the Istanbul stock exchange rose by more than 5%, and the Turkish lira rallied. Never mind that one would be hard pressed to find anyone […]

The radical restructuring of Greek collective bargaining was right from the beginning one of the core demands of the Troika of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Under the first two Memoranda, Greece was forced to agree to far-reaching changes in the legal framework of collective bargaining which led […]