Due-diligence directive: it can’t be unpicked
A key decision is awaited on the directive on corporate sustainability due diligence—facing rearguard corporate resistance.
Society
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 societal issues, offering a rich resource for innovative thinking and informed debate.
Strengthening social cohesion amid the polycrisis
Unconventional policies buttressed a decline in inequality and poverty in the EU. Renewed austerity might endanger it.
Fighting poverty: directive on minimum income needed
As the European elections loom, legislation addressing the root causes of poverty must move to the top of the agenda.
An eco-social care contract for Europe
In the next term the EU can advance an eco-social future which values participation in care and enables access as a universal basic service.
Out of their class: quality education for all
A Harlem schools programme shows how education can counter, rather than reinforce, brute-luck disadvantage.
COP and women: change of political climate needed
Women, though disproportionately affected by climate change, are an afterthought when it comes to climate action.
Standards for equality bodies—nearly done
The long process of levelling up the capacity of EU member states’ equality bodies is accelerating to a conclusion.
Musculo-skeletal disorders: lifting the strain
A spotlight on health and social care shows the need for an EU directive on musculo-skeletal disorders.
Time to recognise a fifth EU freedom: solidarity
Tesla’s confrontation with Swedish workers highlights how solidarity must be enabled in a globalised Europe.
Platform-work directive: the clock is ticking
The ‘gig’-economy directive, a critical legacy of social rights from this EU term, is being held up by some member states.
Six ways to tighten the circular economy
Mutually-reinforcing measures, plus finance and labour, are needed to bend a linear economy into a circle.
A progressive green-growth narrative
Many voters regard investment in decarbonisation and socially and environmentally beneficial outcomes as economically harmful.
Gender, energy poverty and the European Green Deal
Tackling energy poverty is key if the European Green Deal is to be transformative. That in turn requires a gender lens.
Why organisations must embrace ‘open source’
Sharing information accelerates the pace of co-innovation, facilitating inter- and multi-disciplinary research and study.
The sustainability transition needs a new narrative
To ensure broad-based support for wholesale change, policy-makers will need to pursue an equitable transformation.
Maritime needs stronger wind to cut its emissions
The European Commission’s plan to extend the Emissions Trading Scheme to the sector falls short in driving decarbonisation.