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.
There is a general perception in the UK that the remaining EU states, and Germany especially, would like to punish Britain for withdrawing from the European Union. This would mean Britain out in the cold, no trade deal, and potentially a fine to make up for lost payments. The problem here is that it is generally […]
A lot can happen between now and the second round of the French presidential election on May 7, so it is still too early to celebrate. But, even with the nationalist, populist candidate Marine Le Pen still in the running, many observers are genuinely hopeful that the first-round winner, Emmanuel Macron, will be France’s next […]
While international opinion polls recorded uniformly negative reactions to Donald Trump’s election, the markets reacted positively, except for a few hiccups mostly caused by Trump-generated controversies. This momentum lasted up until the Republican effort to “repeal and replace Obamacare”, which tanked. Now, with the markets tapering off and uncertainty omnipresent, there seem to be four […]
The centrist Emmanuel Macron’s success in the first round of the French presidential election is likely to re-energize Europe. Unlike the other candidates, Macron does not just recognize the need for radical change to the European Union; he supports bringing it through Europe-wide cooperation. But Macron’s plurality of the popular vote was narrow, and a […]
When the nuts and bolts of the long-awaited European Pillar of Social Rights are unveiled at the end of April, the European Commission will at the same time set out plans to achieve a better balance between work and private life. This issue affects the lives of millions of Europeans, and has a direct bearing […]
Western democracies are facing a new threat: pessimism. Recent surveys reveal that 65 percent of Europeans and North Americans think the world is getting worse and that younger generations will be poorer than previous ones, with a mere 6 percent considering that things are better and will continue to get better. This sinister sense of […]
The response to the Great Recession from European social democratic/centre-left parties, with some notable exceptions like Portugal’s, was largely to implement the austerity policies of the right: they bailed out the banks and the bondholders, and they tightened fiscal policies and supported loose monetary ones. The economic and political consequences of these policies have been […]
In recent years, the European Union has suffered through a cascading set of crises, including the Eurozone crisis, the refugee crisis, the security crisis, and Brexit. But rather than bringing the EU together, with concerted responses that would demonstrate its common values on its 60th anniversary, these crises have revealed cross cutting divisions among member […]
Today, a quarter-century after the Cold War’s end, the West and Russia are again at odds. This time, though, at least on one side, the dispute is more transparently about geopolitical power, not ideology. The West has supported in a variety of ways democratic movements in the post-Soviet region, hardly hiding its enthusiasm for the […]
On March 25, Europe’s leaders convened in the birthplace of the “European project” to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome. But what exactly was there to celebrate? Were they reveling in Europe’s disintegration, which they now call “multi-speed” or “variable geometry” Europe? Or were they there to applaud their business-as-usual approach to […]
The British government has officially started the “divorce” procedure from the European Union. This procedure must be completed within two years. In April 2019 the UK will cease to be a member of the EU. Most divorces are painful affairs mainly because an agreement has to be found on who pays whom. The same will […]
Of all social democratic parties in Europe none has fared worse at the polls of late than Iceland’s Social Democratic Alliance. Whereas in the parliamentary election of 2003 it won 20 out of 63 seats in Parliament, it barely cleared the 5% threshold in the 2016 election, securing three seats, all in rural constituencies. The […]
