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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.

Estonia’s Digital Frontier: When Perfect E-Government Meets the Paradox of Trust

Iivi Riivits-Arkonsuo

Efficiency without empathy risks turning citizens into data points—Estonia's digital frontier reveals the human limits of technological perfection.

The European Social Model: Key to Competitive Growth?

Mary McCaughey

As Europe faces mounting global challenges, its distinctive social framework may hold the answer to achieving both economic competitiveness and social cohesion.

Universities Must Stay Global in a Fragmenting World

Manuel Muñiz

As global fragmentation accelerates, higher education faces pressure to abandon its international mission—but history shows that open, engaged universities are essential for human progress.

Europe’s Real Security Crisis: Why Social And Ecological Protection Must Unite

Aurore Fransolet, Éloi Laurent, Philippe Pochet and Pascale Vielle

The EU's next budget threatens to slash climate transition funds for military spending. But Europe's gravest security threats already strike inside our borders — killing 62,000 citizens last year alone.

Europe’s Social Innovation Revolution: From Crisis Response To Systemic Transformation

Sofia Lai Amândio and Jürgen Holwaldt

Bold investment in social innovation is essential if Europe wants to tackle twenty-first-century challenges beyond market and state solutions.

Digital Europe: Brand of Countries or Countries with a Brand?

Carlos H. Jerónimo

The EU abolished physical borders decades ago, yet digital walls fragment the continent more than ever before.

The Roots of Europe’s Mental Health Crisis Run Deep

Hans Dubois

Europe's mental health crisis demands urgent action on social conditions, not just healthcare services.

How to Get European Territories Future-Ready

Roland Benedikter

The EU must abandon insularity and embrace global partnerships in futures governance to secure its place in a rapidly changing world.

Investing in Our Children’s Future Starts with Supporting the Workers Who Care for Them

Daniel Molinuevo and Michele Consolini

Despite EU commitments to equality, children at risk of poverty remain severely underrepresented in early childhood education programs.

Europe’s Digital Future Demands Public Ownership And Worker Control

Jan Willem Goudriaan and Diego Naranjo

European AI strategy must prioritise democratic governance over market solutions to protect citizens' data and workers' rights.

Europe’s Wealth Gap Threatens Social Cohesion As Housing Crisis Deepens

Carlos Vacas-Soriano

Extreme wealth concentration across the EU undermines opportunity and security for millions while property ownership becomes increasingly unattainable.

What Can AI In Colombian Classrooms Teach Europe About Democratic Innovation?

Deny Giovanno

When rural schools experiment with artificial intelligence, they reveal whether technology serves the many or the few.

Germany’s Misguided War on Baby Boomers

Peter Bofinger

A prominent economist's attack on an entire generation ignores economic facts and threatens social cohesion.

A Fair Future?  How Equality Will Define Europe’s Next Chapter

Kate Pickett

Inequality fuels crisis — for people, planet, democracy and the next generation. It’s time to act.

AI’s Impact on Europe’s Job Market: A Call for a Social Compact

Federico Pozzi and Pietro Valetto

The European Union must urgently address AI's profound impact on employment, income, and social cohesion.

Why Real Democracy Needs Conflict, Not Consensus

Justus Seuferle

Real democracy thrives on disagreement—unity without conflict often masks power and silences necessary political struggle.

Universities Under Siege: A Global Reckoning for Higher Education

Manuel Muñiz

Governments worldwide are dramatically reshaping higher education, challenging long-held models and academic autonomy.

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S&D Group in the European Parliament Advertisement

S&D Housing Storytelling

Europeans are struggling with rising housing and rental costs, and we have been working in various ways to address this, because we believe a home is a right for everyone.
 Recently, we travelled across Europe to hear directly from people who struggle to afford a decent place to live. They shared a glimpse of how the housing crisis has affected their lives and why having a home is so important to them. Take a moment to check out their stories. They remind us why it is so urgent to act.

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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
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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.

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The Summer issue of The Progressive Post is out! 

The EU is belatedly awakening to a changing Mediterranean sea, where more assertive regional powers are reclaiming a role.

The new issue of the magazine also reflects on how we struggle to keep pace with AI innovations, examines the uncertainties surrounding the execution of the Pact on Migration and Asylum and the risk to human rights posed by the Return Regulation, and focuses on the EU Commission's newly proposed Industrial Accelerator Act.

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Climate policy measures are often met with feelings of powerlessness and disempowerment, triggering fears and resentment. This blog series asks: What does a socially just climate transition look like? How can we create acceptance for just climate policies? 

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“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.

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