Analyses 8 July 2022 “Double dualisation” and the COVID-19 pandemic. Widening socio-economic inequalities in Europe and the potential for Next Generation EU to stem them By Marcello Natili, Fedra Negri and Stefano Ronchi The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated pre-existing divides and socio-economic risks. This is particularly worrisome in Europe, where the Great Recession and the sovereign debt crisis had already led scholars to speak of a ‘double dualisation’ (Heidenreich 2016). Did the COVID-19 pandemic also worsen income inequalities between insiders and outsiders and between core and peripheral countries?
Analyses 2 April 2022 Walking the road together? Resolving inter-state conflicts in the path towards the NGEU plan By Stefano Ronchi and Joan Miró i Artigas 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 14 May 2021 EAPN Conference on ‘Action Plan for the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights’: how to turn promises into action? By Stefano Ronchi Report on EAPN online conference ‘Action Plan for the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights’, 22 March 2021
Analyses 22 April 2021 European solidarity before and after COVID: we are in this together? By Stefano Ronchi The issue of cross-national solidarity in the EU came to the fore 10 years ago, when the sovereign debt crisis unveiled the big inequalities that exist between member states. Back then, mistrust, more than solidarity, prevailed. This time, with the economic aftershocks of the pandemic, the music seems to have changed.
Policy focus 24 July 2020 Minimum income reforms in crisis-ridden EU: social conditionality in the shadow of austerity By Stefano Ronchi Despite tight economic conditionality from the EU and international lenders, minimum income policy was expanded in some crisis-ridden European countries. When minimum income expansion was not triggered by domestic politics, the EU crucially intervened to put it on the agenda: ‘social conditionality’ made its appearance alongside economic conditionality.
Policy focus 29 May 2020 Social investment outcomes and policy complementarities: lessons for Social Europe By Stefano Ronchi Taking social investment seriously has become more important than ever before to jumpstart European welfare states after the COVID tragedy. A fair balance of social investment and social protection policies will be crucial if no person (or member state) is to be left behind.
Policy focus 10 April 2020 EU welfare states through the crisis: losing track of social investment? By Stefano Ronchi The European social investment momentum came to a halt in the years of the crisis. Retrenchment rather than investment became an option for EU welfare states under strain.