Feeling the heat: Europe’s firefighters need support
Firefighter numbers have been cut, when investment—especially in prevention—is key to stemming Europe’s wildfires.
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.
Collective bargaining: Romania shows the way
Romania’s recent law strengthening collective bargaining offers a way forward for the European Union.
Social protection: enhancing benefit take-up
Europe’s social-protection schemes are full of holes, affecting the most vulnerable most—but they can be fixed.
Cutting methane emissions: greater ambition needed
A proposed EU regulation on methane emissions must be strengthened, not diluted, to address a planet on fire.
Europe must unite to stop deep-sea resource grab
The ban on deep-sea mining risks losing its traction—and Europe is divided on the issue.
Five years of ‘Fridays for Future’: what future now?
The movement is adapting its strategy to advocate for social climate policies.
World Cup kiss: feminist progress meets backlash
Spain’s #MeToo moment shows however that things are changing.
Facing the social realities of the green transition
Hans Dubois and Ana Jesus
Europe faces many challenges on the road to climate neutrality. Broad civil-society involvement is crucial for getting there.
A European Media Freedom Act worthy of its name?
Amid a sea of online misinformation, in a ‘polycrisis’ world reliable public-interest journalism has never been more essential.
The answer to an anti-green backlash is to be redder
Labour must not follow the Tories downwards, Paul Mason writes, as they grasp at electoral straws.
Policing must be based on human rights
Police services exist to uphold the rule of law. They can only do so if their policing model is based on protection of human rights.
Three choices for a more strategic Europe
The EU aims to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 55 per cent by 2030. It must make strategic choices to realise 90 per cent by 2040.
Changing the face of trade-union leadership
Women are increasingly assuming leading roles in trade unions. Next comes changing organisational cultures.
Nature Restoration Law: an opportunity crucial to seize
The EU Nature Restoration Law has been saved but with its ambition deeply eroded—negotiators must restore its aspirations.
‘Social media’: the harms to women and girls
Europe needs to address a major factor in the mental-health crisis facing adolescent girls in particular.