EPSR

17 April 2019

Challenges to ‘united in diversity’ in a European Social Union: Taking the core–periphery conflict seriously

By Vladimir Bogoeski

In the context of Brexit and rising Euroscepticism across the continent that has focused on (mis)interpretations of the effects of labour mobility, the question of a European Social Union cannot sidestep the East-West chasm and treat the Eurozone as its only priority.

16 April 2019

What to expect from Germany for the European Social Pillar and beyond

By Marcel Hadeed

Broader conceptual debates in German ministries notably circumnavigate the question of the currency union’s social dimension. Instead, digitalisation and demographic change are accorded the majority of German bureaucratic headspace

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.

9 November 2018

Public support for Social Europe: A versatile reality

By Sharon Baute

To get the full picture of what specific designs of Social Europe are politically viable and legitimate, knowledge is needed on whether citizens’ interpretations of Social Europe are similar or vary across EU member states.

7 May 2018

Social policy in the European Union: from high hopes to high yields

By Bart Vanhercke and Sebastiano Sabato

A roadmap for the implementation of the Pillar should be tabled by the European Commission in the near future. Debates such as a Framework Directive on minimum income schemes or the setting-up of a common unemployment scheme could be relaunched. Furthermore, the commitment to fight poverty and social exclusion should be restated and concretised through more effective actions.

11 April 2018

Tripartite Social Summit 2018: difficulties on the horizon – A report

By Francesco Corti and Patrik Vesan

What emerged from the Tripartite Social Summit is a general convergence around the Social Fairness Package. The difficulties on the horizon, however, are manifold.

26 February 2018

No, Germany and Italy do not share the same EU vision

By Alexander Damiano Ricci

A couple of weeks ago, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, met on the occasion of a bilateral meeting, in Berlin. The two leaders said that they share the “same vision concerning the future of Europe”. Coupling the joint statement of Gentiloni and Merkel with the French-German entente sieged by the GroKo deal, one could argue that there exists an ideal match between the reformist visions of the centre-left and centre-right governing parties in France, Germany and Italy.

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«When dealing with EU reform proposals, the literature also tends to focus on the contrasts between Germany and France. Germany and Italy are of particular interest because they developed a different reading of the euro crisis.»

EPSR

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