Social Europe articles on politics

The future of Europe now depends on something apparently impossible: Greece and Germany must strike a deal. What makes such a deal seem impossible is not the principled opposition of the two governments – Greece has demanded a debt reduction, while Germany has insisted that not a euro of debt can be written off – […]

With much fanfare, Mario Draghi announced on January 22 that the European Central Bank (ECB) would be pumping €60bn a month into the financial markets until September 2016, in what is euphemistically called “quantitative easing” (QE). This amounts to 10% of Eurozone GDP and 10% of its gross public debt. Many observers guess the flow […]

Those who think current levels of inequality are not a problem can skip this one. The Blair governments did a lot to fight poverty, but were famously relaxed about inequality, or more specifically the earnings of the 1%. For many in those governments this reflected their own views, but it also reflected a political calculation. […]

How has the European Union’s influence on the global stage changed since the turn of the century? Douglas Webber presents findings from a study of Europe’s power in seven key policy areas. He finds that on every area with the exception of regulatory policy, the EU’s power has either remained steady or declined since 2003. While some […]

The Greek elections have thrown European politics into turmoil. How do you assess the election result? The majority of Greek voters have delivered a No to crisis management through austerity which has led the country into a social catastrophe. The massive spending cuts have driven the country into the deepest recession and, at the same […]

Radical left parties rarely get a chance to rule countries. On January 25th, SYRIZA became the first ever radical left party to win elections in Greece. This is an occasion that spurs hope for progressive political change in Greece and Europe. At the same time, it is a major cause for concern. How can politicians […]

Of the many tough economic lessons from the latter part of the previous decade, the one about the unreliability of GDP size and growth rates as diagnostics of economic wellbeing has probably been the most sobering. We now know that although economies have to grow to prosper, they cannot do so at all cost, especially […]

When the euro crisis began a half-decade ago, Keynesian economists predicted that the austerity that was being imposed on Greece and the other crisis countries would fail. It would stifle growth and increase unemployment – and even fail to decrease the debt-to-GDP ratio. Others – in the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and a […]

How would you like to live in an economy where robots do everything that can be predictably programmed in advance, and almost all profits go to the robots’ owners? Meanwhile, human beings do the work that’s unpredictable – odd jobs, on-call projects, fetching and fixing, driving and delivering, tiny tasks needed at any and all hours – […]

With the rise of parties on the far-right and radical left of European party systems, social democratic parties now face a challenge to retain their support base in several European countries. Tom Angier writes that the primary problem facing social democrats is that they have shifted their appeal away from their core constituencies and the social organisations […]

If misperceptions solidify, they become a reality. This seems to be the biggest political risk of the euro crisis. As a German living abroad I am amazed about the gulf between perceptions of the European crisis in Germany and in southern Europe. If you follow the German debate, you get the impression that the irresponsible […]

Following Syriza’s victory in the Greek elections on 25 January, a number of commentators have turned their attention toward Spain, where the left-wing Podemos, which originally emerged from the Indignados protest movement, has been receiving strong polling numbers since the end of 2014. Vicente Navarro writes on the growth of Podemos and his role in shaping the […]