20 March 2019

A discussion with Philippe Lamberts, MEP and co-chair The Greens/EFA

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In this podcast, Philippe Lamberts, MEP and co-chair of the Greens/EFA, discusses the prospects of a European Social Union. Lamberts highlights the contradictions of the Union between hard-economic policies and soft-social regulations. Trade unions could do a better job, he argues. Meanwhile, The Greens put a lot of social items into their manifesto, starting from a European Directive on Minimum Income.

Photo credits CC Flickr: Congress of local and regional authorities

Analyses
30 May 2022

Angela Merkel’s discursive shift from the Eurozone crisis to COVID-19

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The euro crisis and the pandemic have put the integrity of the European Union at risk. In the absence of a truly political union, the economic and monetary union between countries as different as EU member states has fuelled inter-state conflicts. However, in contrast to what happened during the euro crisis, over the course of the pandemic, the member states managed to reach an agreement over a recovery plan in a constructive way.

Analyses
23 April 2022

EU economic governance between crises: broken taboos in search of political institutionalization

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The pandemic represented a turning point of the debate on the European economic governance. All in all, the combination of existential (public health) crisis and experiential learning from the errors of the Great Recession led EU policymakers, along with the Commission and the ECB at the helm and with strong support from the European Parliament, to adopt a more solidaristic approach to respond to the COVID-19 crisis. In such a context, four taboos were temporarily broken, thus opening the room for a debate on the future of economic governance for the EU.

Analyses
2 April 2022

Walking the road together? Resolving inter-state conflicts in the path towards the NGEU plan

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The dramatic socio-economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic reawakened the tensions between Northern and Southern member states that had already shaken the EU during the 2010s. Contrary to what happened during the euro crisis, in the COVID crisis the member states managed to reach an agreement in only about five months. How did EU leaders move past the deadlock of the euro crisis years?

Analyses
5 March 2022

Transnationalism fosters more engagement in European politics

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How often do you discuss European Union (EU) political matters with others? Do you feel that your voice counts in the way the EU conducts its business? Did you vote in the latest elections for the European Parliament (EP)?
In a newly published article, we explain that the way people answer these questions depends, in part, on the extent to which they live their lives “across” the national borders of EU member states. Transnational citizens are more likely to engage in such forms of political behaviour.

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«The tightening of EMU economic governance squeezed the fiscal space available for welfare innovation, especially in those countries that were hardest hit by the recession. Ten years after the outbreak of the economic crisis, it is time to take stock of the developments of social investment in this turbulent decade.»