Global income inequality: time to revise the elephant
New data on inequality show probably the greatest reshuffling of world incomes since the industrial revolution, Branko Milanovic writes.
Unpacking self-employment ‘flexibility’
Platform companies trumpet the ‘freedom’ their ‘independent contractors’ enjoy. They misrepresent what freedom is.
Making women with disabilities visible
Unemployed, underpaid, excluded—women with disabilities remain invisible in social policies related to employment.
Accessibility can improve everyone’s lives
In a digitalised world, accessibility is ever more at a premium for the visually impaired—who should be involved in finding solutions.
Killing Twitter
Elon Musk claims he bought the platform to ‘help humanity’ by investing in a public good—the world’s digital town square. But it’s the people, not the pavement, that make the town square.
Injustice is fuelling Europe’s energy crisis
Europe needs to shift from a system locked into climate-wrecking fuels, extractivism and autocracies—towards ‘energy justice’.
Europe’s 2050 mission to a future-fit economy
The step up to a sustainable economy is steep, but it is achievable with political leadership and unshackled public investment.
European Child Guarantee: making it a reality
Portugal, whose national plan is launched today, offers a model for a transversal and localised approach.
Today’s far right and the echoes from history
Robert Misik argues today’s extreme right is sponsoring a brutalisation comparable to historical fascism.
Time to confront Europe’s rogue state—Hungary
For the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, the European Union is the enemy, not Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Progress and setbacks from COP27
The European Union cannot rely on the United Nations process to deliver and must reinforce its own climate efforts.
Ukraine: sustaining inter-community ties
How have those Ukrainians on the ground committed to integration reacted to the invasion? Stories from its Intercultural Cities network offer inspiration.
Energy bills: direct payments needed, not fossil subsidies
Subsidising high energy costs might seem the obvious answer to the cost-of-living crisis—but it’s not.
World Cup clampdown on rainbow armbands
The international football governing body’s action in Qatar conflicts with its own guidance on human rights.
Pre-empting the coming world war
Despite Ukraine, Paul Mason writes, Europe is still not awake to the security threat it faces.
Europe’s winter of change: break-up or breakthrough?
This winter, the European Union is facing a multidimensional crisis which could exacerbate intra-EU divisions and power asymmetries.
The monetary tightening trap
The over-reliance on interest-rate increases will likely lead to economic disaster in low- and middle-income countries.
What Lula must do
Facing a deeply divided country and mounting global crises, Brazil’s president-elect has his work cut out.
Pay gaps between firms driving wage inequality
Inter-firm differences are not only widening wage gaps but also threaten wider social division among workers.
Setting human-rights due diligence back on track
A carve-out for the finance sector would water down the ambition of the EU’s human-rights due-diligence legislation.