Special Issue

14 January 2019

The European Pillar of Social Rights: ten arguments for prioritising principle 14 on minimum incomes

By Bea Cantillon

The ethical program of the Union should be guided by the principle that everyone is entitled to an adequate minimum income. The time has come to proclaim that a European compact on minimum incomes is not only possible and, desirable, but actually necessary.

5 January 2019

The European Social Union as a “union of national welfare states”: a legal perspective

By Fancesco Costamagna

The fact that the ESU is not intended to be a European Welfare State, but a union of national welfare states, together with the idea according to which the ESU is set to become the institutional counterpart to the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) are two features that provide a strong normative orientation to the efforts aiming at creating the ESU.

13 December 2018

A Timely Call for a Social Union

By László Andor

A Social Union cannot just mean more EU level legislation, as it cannot purely be built through more policy coordination or through budgetary instruments either. All three arms of governance have to play a role and in due coordination.

3 December 2018

The European Pillar of Social Rights and the European Social Union: creating the link

By euvisions

In order to encourage and facilitate the conceptual and policy link between the Pillar and ESU, Euvisions launches today a debate with two introductory contributions by Frank Vandenbroucke and Maurizio Ferrera, followed by two comments by Manos Matsaganis and Anton Hemerijck.

3 December 2018

The European Pillar of Social Rights: from promise to delivery – Introduction to the “European Social Union (ESU) public forum debate”

By Frank Vandenbroucke

We need an effective ‘roadmap for delivery’ of the European Pillar of Social Rights, based on the complementarity of existing EU instruments and a well-considered selection of priority initiatives. Which initiatives should feature in such a range of priorities?

3 December 2018

Crafting the ESU – Towards a roadmap for delivery

By Maurizio Ferrera

We have an Economic and Monetary Union. We must pronounce the birth of a fully-fledged institutional counterpart: a European Social Union (ESU). The year 2017 sealed the adoption of the European Pillar of Social Rights (EPSR), an important and valuable step forward, but not enough.

3 December 2018

Snakes and ladders on the road to ESU

By Manos Matsaganis

In joining this debate, I will focus on three topics: the constraints placed by diversity, and how to overcome them; the limits of unemployment (re)insurance, and the need to address new forms of ‘worklessness’; and the contribution of a European Social Union to the goal of coping with the transformations of work.

3 December 2018

Who’s afraid of the European Social Union? A contribution to the ESU debate

By Anton Hemerijck

Untold lessons from the Great Recession call for a transformation in the Eurozone governance regime from a ‘disciplining device’ over member welfare states into a European Social Union (ESU) as a ‘holding environment’ for active welfare states to prosper.

«We are faced with a specific far-right narrative of Europe, which presents a romanticised image of the continent, but which also sounds almost familiar by drawing on elements of Europe’s history such as its status and place in the world, its distinctiveness vis-à-vis other civilisations and its potential (and need) to come together in close union»

Special Issue

Special Issue

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