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.
Despite its rich multicultural history, Poland has refused to welcome refugees. A recent national poll showed that 52% of Poles are against accepting refugees, 18% accept temporary relocation, and support for permanent settlement is on the verge of statistical error. This is a change of mindset, fuelled, inter alia, by the xenophobic rhetoric of the […]
Everybody agrees that better education and improved skills, for as many people as possible, is crucial to increasing productivity and living standards and to tackling rising inequality. But what if everybody is wrong? Most economists are certain that human capital is as important to productivity growth as physical capital. And to some degree, that’s obviously […]
If Donald Trump loses the US election, will the tide of populism that threatened to overwhelm the world after the Brexit vote in June begin to wane? Or will the revolt against globalization and immigration simply take another form? The rise of protectionism and anti-immigrant sentiment in Britain, America, and Europe is widely believed to […]
British Prime Minister Theresa May once warned her fellow Conservatives of the perils of being known as the “nasty party.” But after 100 days in office, she is in danger of going further, turning the United Kingdom into the nasty country. In just a few months, May has launched attacks on “international elites” and decided to […]
“Did you know that since the beginning of the migration crisis, harassment against women in Europe increased dramatically?” This slogan popped up during the summer of 2016 on posters along Hungarian roads, during a governmental campaign. The other five thematic messages were: “Since the beginning of the migration crisis more than 300 people died in terrorist […]
Since the crisis began in 2008, an intense European discussion has challenged official policy priorities. Civil society organisations (CSOs), trade unions, think tanks and grassroots campaigns have called for ending austerity and restoring shared prosperity, reforming (or dismantling) EU institutions, reducing inequality and making Europe more inclusive, achieving environmental sustainability and reacting to climate change […]
An 11th hour and 59th minute resolution has been reached to the recent standoff between Wallonia and Europe over CETA, the trade agreement between the European Union and Canada. The pressure on tiny Wallonia and its politicians was immense, as it was being blamed for making the EU a laughingstock before its Canadian partners and […]
In his recent State of the Union address, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker laid out his vision for the EU over the next 12 months. The need to build a Europe that protects and empowers its citizens was at the very core of the address, focusing on the common values that we share in Europe, […]
Jarosław Kaczyński and Donald Trump, two politicians who have shocked the world this past year, have mostly gotten away with their outrages. But not anymore. When Kaczyński’s Law and Justice (PiS) party came to power last year, it immediately seized control over key Polish institutions, including the Constitutional Tribunal, the state prosecutor’s office, public media […]
A ‘world free of poverty’ is the motto of the World Bank (WB). It monitors extreme poverty in the world by using the so-called ‘one dollar a day’ poverty line that was constructed in the 1990s. Today, this international poverty line has become $1.90 a day. How has the world fared in terms of the […]
It appears Belgium’s Wallonia has put a nail in the coffin of the EU-Canada trade agreement (CETA) by vetoing it. The reasons, The Economist puts it, “are hard to understand.” Well, yes and no. Canada is one of the most progressive trade partners you could hope to have, and it is hard to believe that […]
Angela Merkel has suggested that Europe’s future migration management plan with North Africa should be based on EU-Turkey deal provisions; if implemented, this move may endanger the right of many migrants to seek and enjoy asylum in “safe countries” and render Europe complicit in human rights violations. The process of externalizing asylum procedures is a […]
