Europe’s decarbonisation challenge? ‘Wir schaffen das’
Adam Tooze writes on the roadmaps to net-zero by 2050. Is a just transition for Europe realistic?
Society
Analysis and debate on work and welfare, social rights, migration, gender, climate and the future of European societies.
Venturing the green transformation?
Under the European Green Deal, venture-capital firms are expected to play a vital investment role—one for which they are singularly ill-suited.
‘Migrants’ moral panic still leading to lost lives
The pandemic has overshadowed, but not reduced, refugee flows to Europe. Damaging misconceptions of asylum-seekers haven’t softened either.
Social pillar Action Plan—longer on aspiration
The Action Plan shows ambition on poverty, employment and training. But the concrete measures are not (yet) up to the task.
Fissures that tear us apart and pressures that weigh us all down
Kate Pickett contends in a new Social Europe column that inequalities go together—and so their opponents shouldn’t get drawn into rivalry.
Taxing better to create more caring—and feminist—societies
International Women’s Day falls in the shadow of a pandemic which has hit women hard around the world.
Don’t defund the BBC
Rather than public institutions being limited to fixing market failures, organisations such as the BBC are also market shapers.
Making EU regulation better for all
The stigma attached to democratic EU regulation by the ‘one in, one out’ approach must be replaced by a positive commitment to the common good.
Leaving behind the EU’s deadly addiction to deregulation
Better regulation is benevolent and participatory, cognisant of complexity and future-oriented. Deregulation it is not.
Aligning the social pillar with human rights
The Action Plan of the European Pillar of Social Rights could lead to a profound shift in the enjoyment of human rights in the EU.
EU credibility as a people’s union rests on the social pillar
Buffeted by the pandemic and by populism, the EU needs the European Pillar of Social Rights to become a solid anchor of security for all.
Vaccine nationalism won’t defeat the pandemic
International co-operation is vital to make vaccination, as a public good, available to all.
Can we change the climate on climate change?
Karin Pettersson is impressed by a fictional account of the existential challenge humanity faces.
Managing the unavoidable impact of climate change
While doing all it can to arrest climate change, the EU must place workers and their concerns at the heart of its adaptation strategy.
Ursula von der Leyen’s mission ‘to the moon’
The European Green Deal rests on the commitment of the 27 member states. The fate of the renewable-energy directive shows the scale of that challenge.
Green intentions, brown outcomes
If the EU does not address its role in domestic deforestation it will never reach its goal of carbon neutrality.