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.
In developed democracies today, political leadership is increasingly up for grabs. Voters, clearly tired of the status quo, want change at the top, leaving even major parties’ establishments struggling to install leaders of their choosing. In the United Kingdom, Labour Party MPs have been stymied in their efforts to unseat Jeremy Corbyn as leader. In […]
For once, Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s far-right National Front, may be correct. She has called the United Kingdom’s vote to leave the European Union the biggest political event in Europe since the fall of the Berlin Wall. That may turn out to be true: Brexit has destabilized the UK and could end […]
Last month, I wrote a commentary asking why voters in the United Kingdom supported leaving the European Union, defying the overwhelming weight of expert opinion warning of the major economic costs of Brexit. I observed that many voters in the UK and elsewhere are angry at economic experts. They say that the experts failed to […]
More than 1.2 million migrants have come to Europe in the past year – most of them from Syria. One year after the ‘long summer of migration‘ in 2015, Europe is still facing two severe problems: first, the lists of safe countries of origin differ in many states of the EU and secondly, further large-scale […]
The truth must be told: immigration swung the UK referendum vote against the EU. And some other EU Member States would be likely to vote to leave right now for the same reason. We cannot dismiss opposition to EU immigration by saying it arises from contempt for “foreigners” and covert racism. We cannot say this, […]
I always read the writings of Mr. Varoufakis with great interest, and I frequently find myself in agreement, particularly in his criticism of the Troika (the International Monetary Fund, European Commission, and European Central Bank) and of the Eurogroup (the Ministers of Economy and Finances of the European Union). I also concur with his call […]
How should the European Union respond to the narrow decision by voters in the United Kingdom to leave? European leaders are now focusing, rightly, on how to prevent other countries from leaving the EU or the euro. The most important country to be kept in the club is Italy, which faces a referendum in October […]
“The Jews are rallying!” wrote Naz Shah in an infamous Facebook post just months before she was elected Labour MP for Bradford West. “Your school education system only tells you about Anne Frank and the six million Zionists [my emphasis] that were killed by Hitler”, declared a Facebook post shared by Khadim Hussain, then a […]
Europe’s labour market has changed significantly in recent years, influenced by, among other things, the impact of the economic crisis. Eurofound’s research has shown that the labour market is becoming increasingly segmented. This segmentation could potentially result in a divided landscape of winners and losers, with very different experiences and perceptions of European integration and […]
After the ‘seismic’ shock of ‘Brexit’ a re-appraisal is taking place in the EU concerning the future direction the remaining 27 member states could take. There are three possibilities: ‘more Europe’, ‘less Europe’ or ‘business as usual’. Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, is in no doubt as to the future direction that […]
Professor Bauman, it seems like new walls are rising, again, in Europe. The reasons politicians push for the decision to build these walls – either real or “bureaucratic” – refer to the issues of migration and security. How do you judge what is happening? What are the risks in this rush to “securitization” of the […]
Even before the result of the British referendum on remaining in or leaving the EU was known, the argument emerged that this plebiscite would unleash a chain reaction. But little was said about the role the media played in this. Claes de Vreese and Holli Semetko studied some 28 referendums in 2004, in their seminal […]
