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.
Jacek Rostowski, Poland’s finance minister until last November, recently suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin would not have dared to annex Crimea if he had not observed Europe agonizing over a solution to the euro crisis. Is Rostowski right? At first sight, such a connection seems far-fetched. Putin’s show of strength involved military force and […]
Why does the economic policy pursued or proposed by the left in Europe often seem so pathetic? The clearest example of this is France. France is subject to the same fiscal straightjacket as other Eurozone countries, but when a left wing government was elected in April 2012, they proposed staying within this straightjacket by raising […]
The Dutch Labour party (PvdA) is in a coalition government with the conservative-liberal political party (VVD) of Prime Minister Mark Rutte: recent local elections saw them lose significant traditional strongholds, with their support falling to 10%. The elections appear to signify an historic shift towards ever greater social fragmentation as ‘Big Tent’ parties fail to […]
We are about to enter into a sobering period reminding us of the human capacity for destruction and devastation. As we begin to commemorate a number of key historic moments marking out the “century of violence”, there will be a need to honor the dead and remember the failures of our political imaginations in preventing […]
When Adam Smith was 22, he famously proclaimed that, “Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.” Today, almost 260 years later, we […]
The phenomenon we have been witnessing for some time now looks more and more like an industrial revolution overturned. Vast masses of migrants converge on the city, in the anonymous constellations of shopping centres in the suburbs, between the intersections of the major routes of communication (motorways, railways, airports), but also in the degraded historical […]
In 11 EU member states youth unemployment is over than 25% and it is 49% or higher in Croatia, Spain and Greece. This fact is not a purely national problem. Instead, it constitutes one of the biggest challenges currently faced by the EU. Yet among its neighbours, Austria’s position is surprisingly stable due to its […]
With the upcoming European elections, political parties on the left are paying lip service to the call for a European minimum wage policy. Such a policy would serve as a first step in the development of a more social Europe, enhance the legitimacy of the Union and could contribute to a wage-driven growth model for […]
The ancient’s world geopolitical center, the cradle of civilization, the Mediterranean Basin; a unique location with some of the world’s most important geostrategic corners. Life has not been boring in the Basin and continues to be so. This region has been witnessing wars, revolutions, regime upheavals, political instability, religious conflicts, ethnic conflicts over democracy and […]
At its foundation the European project was primarily about peace. Following the murderous preceding decades this was rightly the overriding priority. It was also about power: squeezed between the imperial powers of USA and the USSR unity was essential. These goals determined the path: rights would shift from nations to a United States of Europe […]
Despite having a positive effect on the economic situation within the Eurozone, the European Central Bank’s Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) program has proved controversial, with the German Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe recently deeming it illegal under EU law. Paul De Grauwe argues that the ruling reflects a serious misunderstanding of central banking on the part of the […]
On 8 February 2009, almost 60 percent of Swiss voters supported the extension of the bilateral EU-Switzerland agreement on the free movement of workers to workers from Romania and Bulgaria. This clear endorsement of the free movement of Romanian and Bulgarian workers in the Swiss labour market is noteworthy because the Swiss People Party (SVP) […]
