Collective bargaining—a legal right unrecognised in Ireland
The EU recovery plan must link company bailouts to enforcement of collective-bargaining rights.
Politics
Social Europe is an award-winning digital media publisher driven by the core values of freedom, sustainability, and equality. These principles guide our exploration of society’s most pressing challenges. This archive page curates Social Europe articles focused on political issues, offering a rich resource for innovative thinking and informed debate.
Carbon pricing and the exit from fossil fuels
Adam Tooze argues the European Green Deal and young Europeans’ activism are fostering a virtuous circle favouring more rapid decarbonisation.
Challenging patents key to make Covid-19 vaccine work for all
Finding a vaccine against the coronavirus is a biochemical challenge. Ensuring universal access to it, however, is a political choice.
The EU is muddling through another crisis—which may be good enough
The divisions exposed by the coronavirus have reopened fundamental questions about the ultimate aims of the EU. But now is not the time to answer them.
Technological sovereignty—and a sepia-image Britain
Paul Mason bemoans how ‘Brexit’ has left the UK a beached whale in a world in need of technological regulation driven by European values.
The Main Street manifesto
The historic protests which have swept America were long overdue, not just as a response to racism and police violence but also as a revolt against entrenched plutocracy.
A new social contract
The 2020 ITUC Global Rights Index exposes the failings of the world’s economic model—a new social contract can help us build a new one.
Explaining artificial intelligence in human-centred terms
Since AI involves interactions between machines and humans—rather than just the former replacing the latter—'explainable AI’ is a new challenge.
Covid-19 fallout takes higher toll on women
While women appear to be more resilient than men to Covid-19 in terms of health outcomes, that is not the case when it comes to the economic and social fallout.
Protests, the left and the power of democracy
Sheri Berman urges the American left not to squander the sea-change in public opinion of recent weeks by only preaching to the converted.
Pandemic deepens social and political cleavages
The coronavirus crisis has inflamed cleavages in democratic societies which will be difficult to heal.
Social commons: the social protection we want
Universal basic income would offer a deadweight subsidy to low-paying employers. The route to security for all lies in the concept of ‘social commons’.
A basic-income floor should be part of a recovery programme
With the UK’s social safety net full of holes, support has grown for a basic income to underpin a mean and means-tested benefits system.
Why recovery needs to have children at its centre
The pandemic and the lockdown have had serious effects on children’s wellbeing. The EU recovery plan must ensure their specific needs are addressed.
Sweden, the pandemic and precarious working conditions
Most commentary on the Covid-19 death toll in Sweden has been on the absence of lockdown, yet privatisation and precarity in eldercare should really be in the spotlight.
Sweden must be ready to support an ambitious recovery fund
Rather than locate itself in the ‘frugal four’, Sweden should support a progressive recovery plan at the coming European Council.
Science and politics: a new alliance?
The pandemic has brought science and expertise to the fore in the public sphere, as an anchor of trust—and put the populists on the back foot.