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 European Parliament election campaign is entering full swing—a detailed analysis of the platforms of the main European party groups and what the political consequences might be for the EU over the next five years. In his speech at the December congress of the Party of European Socialists, Frans Timmermans, the current lead candidate for the […]
Free-trade agreements have raised huge controversy over clauses allowing of corporate challenge. But they can be used to enforce labour standards. The European Union is an extremely active international actor in the area of trade, being widely involved in the negotiation and conclusion of free-trade agreements (FTAs) with partner countries. Many of them, such as […]
Amid political polarisation and declining democratic standards, can OECD and EU countries sustain the good governance challenges such as globalisation, social inequality and climate breakdown demand? Eroding standards of democracy and growing political polarisation are severely hampering the implementation of sustainable reforms. This is one of the main findings in the Sustainable Governance Indicators (SGI) […]
Turkey’s Kurds have long faced oppression by the state. But they have come to be seen by the Erdoğan regime as the main obstacle to its untrammelled power. Against the background of Turkey’s affiliation to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), the European Union’s official recognition of its candidature for full membership at the Helsinki Summit […]
The UK Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, is wrong to believe the EU environment inimical to a radical government. He should support a second ‘Brexit’ referendum. There has been much focus in the United Kingdom on the key issues put forward by those on the right who want the UK to leave the European Union—principally their […]
The vast numbers drowning invisibly in the Mediterranean have evoked little European sympathy. Redefining this tragedy as the migrants genocide might bring a shock. In 40 years from now what we define as the ‘migration crisis’ in Europe will be reported in history books as the migrants genocide. The migrants genocide of the early XXI century unveils the […]
A commitment to democracy, human rights and the rule of law was Europe’s answer to fascism. The loss of this European memory presents real dangers amid a resurgent populism. The greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression (1929-1939) has produced a crisis of democratic legitimacy not unlike the one that fuelled the rise of fascism […]
Europe desperately needs to resolve its collective-action problem to emerge from the crisis. Democratising Europe, with a fiscal capacity, is better than monetary easing. On December 10th 2018 we launched a Manifesto for the Democratisation of Europe, along with 120 European politicians and academics. Since it was launched, the manifesto has accrued over 110,000 signatures […]
The European Union has been much more successful at ‘negative’, market-liberalising integration than ‘positive’ social measures. The concept of social rights can change that. In these days, ‘Social Europe’ is a hotly debated issue. This is a product of the diverse crises Europe has seen over the last decade—the financial crisis, the so-called refugee crisis […]
Full employment could become a new target for an insecure Europe. A European employment guideline would provide the means to hit it. Since the investment bank Lehman Brothers went bankrupt a decade ago, unemployment in many EU countries has risen to an unacceptably high level, falling only slightly in recent years. In parallel, right-wing parties […]
The new US congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has kickstarted a debate on taxation. Arguments for high income tax rates are not punitive—but they are political as well as pecuniary.
The historic achievement of peace within a Europe of universal norms is belied by the external instability engendered by violent and incoherent interventions. The European Union is justly admired for making war among its members impossible. This is no small achievement in a continent which was in a state of semi-permanent warfare for the past […]
