Skip to content

Social Europe

  • eBooks
  • Newsletter
  • Membership
  • Advertisements

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.

America’s New Age of Empire

Joseph Stiglitz

Joseph E. Stiglitz thinks the rest of the world should plan for the worst and pursue a policy of containment of the US.

Why Social Democrats Must Stop Defending and Start Transforming

Miguel Xavier

The centre-left's defensive crouch has made it look like a guardian of an unfair status quo—radical reformism offers escape.

Appeasing Trump Makes Him More Dangerous by the Day

Frank Hoffer

Europe's leaders, paralysed by fear, are repeating the mistakes of the 1930s—and hastening their own irrelevance.

Can Hungary’s Opposition Finally Break Orbán’s Grip on Power?

Stephen Pogány

After 15 years of Fidesz rule, an unlikely challenger threatens Viktor Orbán's grip on Hungary but formidable obstacles remain.

Strength Without Weight: Ideas For A Post-Bureaucratic State

Geoff Mulgan

Geoff Mulgan reimagines the state as a lean, agile force that delivers power without the drag of bureaucracy.

Venezuela And The Decline Of American Democracy

Timothy Snyder

Timothy Snyder sees a familiar connection between US domestic repression and escalating foreign aggression.

Project 2025: From Nightmare To Reality

Thomas Piketty

The year 2025 was marked by the Trump shock: an unprecedented wave of extreme brutality, unapologetic nationalism, and unrestrained extractivism that shook the world as

Europe Must Re-Build Its Architecture—Now!

Almut Möller

The US National Security Strategy confirms what Europeans already suspected: they must forge their own continental framework.

Europe’s Rail Renaissance: Why the Continent Must Finally Bet on Its Own Trains

Lukas Oberndorfer

The EU has the technology, the workers and the demand—now it needs the political will to turn its railway industry into a climate-policy success story.

Can the EU Still Escape the Authoritarian Pull of the USA?

Jürgen Habermas

Waning US leadership and China's new world order compel Europe to unite or face marginalization.

The EU’s Largest Investment Programme Holds Lessons We Cannot Afford to Ignore

Steffen Lehndorff

The Next Generation EU programme, despite sluggish implementation and limited coverage, reveals how industrial policy can drive green transition—if governments act.

Europe’s Foreign Policy Is Broken by Design—Here’s How to Fix It

Guillaume Duval

Kaja Kallas is not the problem; the EU's dysfunctional institutional architecture is crippling its global influence.

Chile’s Democracy Faces Its Gravest Test Since Pinochet

Eduardo Engel and Benjamín García

A far-right candidate threatens to dismantle decades of democratic progress in Latin America's most celebrated success story.

Why European Universities Must Not Follow America’s

Guy Standing

The American model has produced rentier capitalism and functional illiteracy—Europe's universities must return to their civilising mission.

The Digital Omnibus: Deregulation Dressed as Innovation

Aida Ponce Del Castillo

The EU's sweeping data and AI package loosens safeguards for workers while promising competitiveness gains that will flow mainly to US tech giants.

Poland Shows Hungary How Grassroots Democracy Can Defeat Authoritarian Drift

Edit Zgut-Przybylska

Civil society and local autonomy proved decisive in Poland's democratic revival—lessons Hungary must now learn.

Why Political Imagination Has Died—And How to Resurrect It

Siemen Van den Broecke

Margaret Thatcher's ghost haunts global politics as leaders worldwide embrace her "no alternative" mantra, leaving citizens trapped in a system that refuses to acknowledge its own ideology.

Prev Next
ETUI Advertisement

New Edition - Social policy in the European Union: state of play 2025

Can Europe preserve its distinctive social model while simultaneously rearming, reindustrialising, and reorganising its economy in a more conflictual and competitive world? This is the central question raised in this new edition of the Bilan social, a reference publication released every spring for more than 25 years by the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) and the European Social Observatory (OSE).

READ HERE
Eurofound Advertisement

Is financial resilience and trust in Europe faltering?

In this episode of Eurofound Talks, host Mary McCaughey and senior researcher Eszter Sandor unpack the results of the 2025 Living and Working in the EU e-survey. While headline inflation has stabilised at 2.1%, the data reveals a continent gripped by chronic precariousness, with 57% of respondents now at risk of depression. Mary and Eszter explore how this economic insecurity is impacting institutional trust and democratic engagement.

LISTEN HERE
FEPS Advertisement

Read the book "The open future and its enemies" 

A robust democracy must not leave the future in the hands of the alliance between Big Tech and the far right. AI must be politically reined in and democratically shaped so that humanity retains its sovereignty.

Artificial intelligence is regarded as the driving force of progress. Yet it has long since become a challenge to democracy. The book argues that uncontrolled AI will erode our freedom, self-determination and democracy.

READ THE BOOK
Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

WSI Minimum Wage Report 2026

Minimum wage policy across Europe has shifted significantly, with many EU countries raising wages above average and anchoring them to adequate living standards. This trend is consolidating as countries increasingly adopt the reference values recommended in the European Minimum Wage Directive — recently upheld by the European Court of Justice.

DOWNLOAD THE REPORT
S&D Group in the European Parliament Advertisement

S&D Africa Days 2026

We are pleased to invite you to save the date for the S&D Africa Days 2026, taking place on 30 June and 1 July 2026, in Brussels. 

At a time when Africa is too often viewed through narrow and one-sided narratives, this initiative reflects a key political priority for the S&D Group: to advance a renewed, forward-looking partnership of equals between Europe and Africa based on equality, solidarity, social justice and shared progress. 

MORE INFO
FES Advertisement

“What is the actual purpose of the state?” – this central question is the focus of the analysis. At a time when bureaucratic processes are making life difficult for citizens, the paper proposes a three-part model. It aims at a conception of the state as a platform that helps society build the capabilities it needs to address its problems effectively.

MORE INFO

Our Mission

People

Article Submission

Advertisements

Membership

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

RSS Feed

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Copyright Social Europe Publishing & Consulting GmbH 2026
  • eBooks
  • Newsletter
  • Membership
  • Advertisements