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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.

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The false scarcity of vaccine trade tensions

Katie Gallogly-Swan

The row over the EU introducing vaccine export controls has occluded its rejection of a temporary waiver on intellectual property rights.

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A rail renaissance for Europe

Lena Donat

The European Year of Rail can support the Green Deal and sustainable recovery. Europe needs more international trains with easier booking.

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Big Tech media and the EU’s weak reed of ‘competition’

Steven Hill

The attack on the US Capitol revealed the dangers of Big Tech media platforms—but envisaged EU competition laws won’t fix them.

Socialeurope.eu — logo on red background, Social Europe.

Must try harder: recovering from educational inequality

Shane Markowitz

School closures during the pandemic have hit socially excluded students hard. The EU needs to ensure every child can reach their potential.

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Culture, creativity and coronavirus: time for EU action

Elena Polivtseva

The pandemic has highlighted a longer-term failure adequately to address the working conditions of cultural professionals in Europe.

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No time to spare for the Paris climate promise

Mary Robinson

Having squandered past opportunities and shirked previous commitments, we now must start making up for lost time.

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Not part of Europe anyway?

James Wickham

The language of the Brexit stand-off is of a ‘level playing-field’ versus ‘sovereignty’. But beneath that, it’s about divergent social models.

Socialeurope.eu — logo on red background, Social Europe.

Care, capitalism and politics

Kathleen Lynch

The coronavirus crisis has highlighted how the welfare state of the future must be built on an ethic of care rather than self-interest.

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Greater equality: our guide through Covid-19 to sustainable wellbeing

Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson

The pandemic has reinforced the case for egalitarianism to define the ethos of the welfare state.

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Legal hurdles facing a green and just transition

Ingo Venzke

The irony of genuinely ‘free trade’ is only regulation enables it. Europe cannot lead the ecological transition without recognising this.

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How good journalism can drive out bad

Olaf Steenfadt

With a Digital Services Act in the offing, regulation of platforms can make public-interest journalism sustainable again.

Socialeurope.eu — logo on red background, Social Europe.

The Global Fund for Social Protection: an idea whose time has come

Olivier De Schutter

The pandemic has highlighted the fragility of social protection, especially in the developing world. A new global fund is needed—and it’s affordable.

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A new pact for asylum in Europe?

Mohamoud Yusuf

The European Commission is caught between the needs of frontline states receiving refugees and those in the rear resisting responsibility-sharing.

Socialeurope.eu — logo on red background, Social Europe.

Time to transform transport

Lorelei Limousin

Europe has the chance to revolutionise how people and goods move and help cap global warming, while creating jobs and improving health.

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S&D Group in the European Parliament Advertisement

S&D conference The Middle East at crossroads: A progressive vision, 9 September 2026, European Parliament, Brussels

S&D conference “The Middle East at crossroads: A progressive vision”

In case you missed it, you can watch the replay of the S&D Group’s conference “The Middle East at crossroads: A progressive vision” by clicking the button below, and read the press release and opinion piece.

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Cover of the ETUI report Climate change and workers’ health: protecting workers against heat and other climate-related hazards, by Marouane Laabbas-el-Guennouni and Andreas D. Flouris.

New Report - Climate change and workers’ health

After a summer marked by repeated heatwaves across Europe, this publication tackles an increasingly urgent issue: workplace heat exposure, now one of the leading climate-related threats to workers' health. The report identifies the sectors and workers most at risk, and calls for a dedicated EU directive to strengthen and harmonise their protection.

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EurofoundTalks podcast with Mary McCaughey and Eszter Sandor: Is financial resilience and trust in Europe faltering?

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.

LISTEN HERE

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Cover of The Progressive Post issue 31, Summer 2026: The Mediterranean, a crowded sea.

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.

READ THE MAGAZINE

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WSI blog series “Climate Transition: Socially Just and Fair”: How the climate crisis and global migration are linked, by Neva Löw and Maximilian Pichl

How the climate crisis and global migration are linked

The climate crisis and global migration are closely linked. Emancipatory forces must demand and defend the right to be able to leave, but not to have to leave. This means defending and expanding asylum rights.

READ HERE

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Cover of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung analysis The Capability State: A Progressive Vision for the 21st Century by Henning Meyer.

“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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