Politics

The project of European integration is going to run into walls. In political terms, it has become evident that its active as well as its passive support is decreasing. To some degree this loss in faith is tied to the social implications of years of austerity policies that were imposed to many nation-states in the […]

The latest Bank of England forecast has inflation returning to the 2% target by the end of 2017, which is in three years time. That is an unusually long time to be away from target. So what is the MPC proposing to do about this long lapse from target? Absolutely nothing. Tony Yates goes through all the detail, but remains mildly […]

Unpredictable events often induce the most radical change. For Bangladesh and its garments industry it could well be that the improvements in standards, as a result of the Rana Plaza tragedy, end up being just the stimulus to help the country’s manufacturing sector evolve; from the huge and perhaps burdensome focus solely on low end […]

Social Europe Journal has just published its latest by Giacomo Corneo. The main argument of the paper is that the state should become a kind of investment state in order to make sure that high returns on capital do not further increase inequality but benefit the wider public. To achieve this, Corneo argues that governments should […]

Social Europe is caught between a rock and a hard place. It is supposed to restore confidence in democracy – which since the bailout of the failing banks and the ensuing politics of austerity can hardly be regarded as a plausible promise anymore and which, anyway, at EU-level is known primarily for its absence. But […]

Cosmopolitanism is a requisite to become citizens of the world, albeit a globalised world, with no borders or, at least, with permeable borders. Crossing over borders to look for a job or a better life, forces you to exit from a limited perspective, one defined by a community and a culture, and deal with new […]

In trying to make the banking system less dangerous, European and global regulators are trying three approaches. First, they have just undertaken stress tests. Second, they have specified new requirements for the banks to hold more capital and fewer risky assets. Third, they have tried to weaken the incentives for frontline dealmakers to expose their […]

General and labour mobility across borders within the EU decreased sharply during the immediate crisis period in 2008–2010. There is consistent evidence of a rebound in mobility since 2011, but mobility rates remain lower than before the crisis. In spite of EU policies facilitating free movement, European and national data suggest that the level of […]

Gender empowerment and Equality in the Ready Made Garment (RMG) sector A slew of industrial accidents such as the Tazreen factory fire and the recent collapse of Rana Plaza have cast the Bangladeshi garment industry in a negative light, with international media reporting extensively on the hazardous working conditions. A fair amount of media attention […]

As the Eurozone experiences a prolonged demand-deficient recession, and given Germany’s pivotal role in making that happen, it is important to get the argument against current German policy right. It seems to me there are two wrong directions to take here. The first is to argue that Germany needs to undertake fiscal expansion because it […]

Because of the depth, intensity and duration of the series of crises that have affected the EU over the last five years, fire-fighting and action to reform the institutional framework for economic governance have dominated the policy agenda. It is little surprise, therefore, that ‘social Europe’ has lost traction, although as Bart Vanhercke has argued […]

In a speech delivered at the Central Bank of Latvia on October 17th, Benoit Coeuré, member of the executive board of the ECB and apparently one of the currently few close confidants of Mario Draghi, argued that speeding up the pace of structural reforms in the Eurozone could be key to averting the area from […]

In the months since the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh, which killed over 1,100 garment factory workers and injured some 2,500 more, there has been a concerted effort to improve safety standards and working conditions in the country’s ready-made garment (RMG) sector. Brands and retailers joined the government and employer and worker […]

Once upon a time, the European Commission dreamt of making the European economy ‘smart’ – by investing in education, research and innovation -, more ‘sustainable’ – by moving Europe into a low-carbon economy – and ‘inclusive’ – by boosting job creation and reducing poverty. That was in the year 2010, it was the Commission’s “Europe […]

After years of prioritising the reinforcement of economic instruments to meet European budgetary targets, the debate on Social Europe has lately enjoyed something of a renaissance. This is no mere bolt out of the blue and its protagonists come from well beyond the usual circle of advocates among the enthusiasts for Europe in academia, the trade […]

Rising inequality is one of the most controversial issues in European politics. In an interview with EUROPP’s editor Stuart Brown, Danny Dorling discusses the problems posed by inequality, the situation within the UK, and why the current trends are likely to prove unsustainable. Although many social scientists, most notably Thomas Piketty, have provided evidence of rising inequality […]

Austerity is contagious: The case of France France is finding itself between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, with 54% of companies reporting in the third quarter 2014 that they find activity constrained by a lack of customers, the main problem is clearly on the side of demand. On the other […]

Europe is back at square one. On the verge of a third recession in five years, the relentless tide is even crashing against the insurmountable walls of the German factory powerhouse. Stagnation yet again in the Eurozone – this time accompanied by a certain whiff of Japanese-style deflation. Once more the markets are getting nervous: a volatile […]

The global system of financial regulation is extraordinarily complex. Partly for that reason, it is little understood. In order to explain it to my students at Sciences Po in Paris, I have devised a kind of wiring diagram that shows the connections among the different bodies responsible for the various components of oversight. It makes […]

A few years ago, Richard Anker, a former ILO official, wrote an important paper on the historical evolution of the notion of ‘living wages’ and different ways of measuring them. This paper is one example of a growing realization that mandated minimum wages, however effectively enforced, can diverge significantly from ‘living wages’ that can sustain […]

Until recently, there has been very little analysis of women’s role in the economy. Two centuries ago, Mary Wollstonecraft published her proto-feminist A Vindication of the Rights of Women, and in 1869 John Stuart Mill, inspired by his wife Harriet, wrote The Subjection of Women in support of female suffrage. But new evidence is emerging of the cultural […]