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.
We used to demand peace and love—now we demand no discrimination and no hate. Why did we lower our ambitions? Political debate today is desolate—not just because it drowns in hate but because it lacks ambition. Strategic litigation and protest, shaming and angry shouting, have replaced utopian dreaming. How can we build a sense of […]
At the heart of the crisis of trust in politics lies the corrosion of public service by the ethos of private gain. There is little doubt that the western world is going through a serious political crisis, which can be best described as a crisis of trust in its political institutions and governments. Two things […]
The proxy media exchange between the French president and the leader of the German Christian democrats is a sign of an emergent European public sphere. On March 4th something unusual—as far as I can recall, unprecedented—happened in European politics. The head of state of a member state of the European Union, the French president, Emmanuel […]
It’s time to share evenly the benefits of automation. That’s why trade unions are calling for a four-day week. When in September 2018, Frances O’Grady, general secretary of the British Trades Union Congress (TUC), called for a four-day week as a 21st century trade union ambition, we didn’t know how quickly the idea would take […]
The eurozone remains mired in unemployment while the European Central Bank targets only inflation. Adam Tooze begins a series of Social Europe columns by explaining the hidden history of the Fed’s more successful dual mandate. In January 2013 the US Federal Reserve made a remarkable statement. It announced that it would ramp up its monetary […]
Women are disproportionately dependent on public services. They can’t afford austerity and it’s time that governments recognised this. Austerity. From the left to the right, governments have only that one word on their lips. The European Parliament elections are approaching in May and there are fears everywhere that the tidal wave of extreme right-wing movements […]
Twenty-seven years since the siege of Sarajevo began, a handful of commanders have been tried, but Bosnian prosecutors have not yet filed any indictments against direct perpetrators of sniping and shelling attacks on civilians. During the three-and-a-half-year siege of Sarajevo, civilians were attacked with snipers’ bullets and artillery projectiles while buying food at markets, doing […]
When is a posted worker in Europe not a posted worker? When he’s a truck driver, it seems. ‘A monthly pay of €1,000, no holidays, living separately from their families for two years—the bare figures alone are outrageous,’ the German magazine Stern reported on truck drivers from the Philippines who discovered the ‘wild west’ of […]
Eye-watering remuneration for chief executives is economically wasteful as well as socially divisive. Non-profits should pioneer compressed wage hierarchies. As Oxfam reports that the top 1 per cent of the world’s population now own more than the other 99 per cent, it’s time to think about how those at the top of the economic tree […]
It has become fashionable on the left to suggest that capitalism and democracy are now incompatible. In her latest column, Sheri Berman reviews the contrary case. For most on the left the story of the last decades goes something like this. During the postwar era the ‘primacy of politics’ was the rule: democratic governments, particularly […]
The US has been able to run growing budget deficits by issuing more dollars as the reserve currency. If a polycentric world ends its indulgence, the shock to America could be great. In 1944, at the end of World War II, a new international monetary system was agreed. This system pegged currencies to the price […]
An EU directive nearing completion would protect the whistleblowers at the heart of recent scandals—but only if they reported within their organisation first. The European Union’s proposal for a directive to protect whistleblowers is reaching the final stages of its legislative journey. Major changes must however be made to the directive, even at this late […]
