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Avatar photoValerio Alfonso Bruno

Valerio Alfonso Bruno is a research fellow at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan. He is co-author with James F Downes and Alessio Scopelliti  of The Rise of the Radical Right in Italy: A New Balance of Power in the Right-wing Camp (Ibidem and Columbia University Press, 2024).

Italy: a ‘post-fascist’ assault on democratic checks

Valerio Alfonso Bruno

The Meloni government in Italy is betting everything on radical and polarising constitutional reforms.

Italy’s election: a far-right high, on a low budget

Valerio Alfonso Bruno

The honeymoon for a Meloni-led, right-wing government may prove to be shortlived.

Draghi’s resignation: what next?

Valerio Alfonso Bruno and Vittorio Emanuele Parsi

Only one political figure will benefit from chaos in Italy. He is in Moscow, not Rome.

Ukraine and Europe’s defence spending

Valerio Alfonso Bruno and Adriano Cozzolino

Europe’s reaction to the Ukraine crisis will do much to define what kind of Europe it is to be.

Matteo Salvini’s League and the price of unbridled populism

Valerio Alfonso Bruno and Vittorio Emanuele Parsi

The strength of populism is its simple message that ‘the people’ are traduced by an ‘elite’ linked to ‘foreign’ interlopers. That’s also its weakness.

Science and politics: a new alliance?

Valerio Alfonso Bruno

The pandemic has brought science and expertise to the fore in the public sphere, as an anchor of trust—and put the populists on the back foot.

Lobbying In The EU: An Often Unholy Alliance

Valerio Alfonso Bruno

With movies such as Inside Job and Thank you for Smoking or TV series like House of Cards, the US model of influencing decisions and

Towards The Disappearance Of Politics?

Valerio Alfonso Bruno

The crisis of political debate within contemporary democracies Exactly sixty years ago, in 1958, Hannah Arendt published The Human Condition. In her philosophical masterpiece, Arendt

The Production Of Fear. European Democracies In The Age Of Populisms And Technocracies

Valerio Alfonso Bruno

Populisms and Technocracies: mastering the art of evoking fears In Europe, home to one of the most ambitious political and institutional experiments in recent history,

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New Edition - Social policy in the European Union: state of play 2025

Can Europe preserve its distinctive social model while simultaneously rearming, reindustrialising, and reorganising its economy in a more conflictual and competitive world? This is the central question raised in this new edition of the Bilan social, a reference publication released every spring for more than 25 years by the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) and the European Social Observatory (OSE).

READ HERE
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Is financial resilience and trust in Europe faltering?

In this episode of Eurofound Talks, host Mary McCaughey and senior researcher Eszter Sandor unpack the results of the 2025 Living and Working in the EU e-survey. While headline inflation has stabilised at 2.1%, the data reveals a continent gripped by chronic precariousness, with 57% of respondents now at risk of depression. Mary and Eszter explore how this economic insecurity is impacting institutional trust and democratic engagement.

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Read the book "The open future and its enemies" 

A robust democracy must not leave the future in the hands of the alliance between Big Tech and the far right. AI must be politically reined in and democratically shaped so that humanity retains its sovereignty.

Artificial intelligence is regarded as the driving force of progress. Yet it has long since become a challenge to democracy. The book argues that uncontrolled AI will erode our freedom, self-determination and democracy.

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WSI Minimum Wage Report 2026

Minimum wage policy across Europe has shifted significantly, with many EU countries raising wages above average and anchoring them to adequate living standards. This trend is consolidating as countries increasingly adopt the reference values recommended in the European Minimum Wage Directive — recently upheld by the European Court of Justice.

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S&D Africa Days 2026

We are pleased to invite you to save the date for the S&D Africa Days 2026, taking place on 30 June and 1 July 2026, in Brussels. 

At a time when Africa is too often viewed through narrow and one-sided narratives, this initiative reflects a key political priority for the S&D Group: to advance a renewed, forward-looking partnership of equals between Europe and Africa based on equality, solidarity, social justice and shared progress. 

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“What is the actual purpose of the state?” – this central question is the focus of the analysis. At a time when bureaucratic processes are making life difficult for citizens, the paper proposes a three-part model. It aims at a conception of the state as a platform that helps society build the capabilities it needs to address its problems effectively.

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