Social Europe Articles on Ecology

Social Europe is an award-winning digital media publisher that publishes content examining issues in politics, economy, society and ecology. This archive brings together Social Europe articles on ecology.

EU-Mercosur free-trade pact risks irreversible destruction

by Muhammed Magassy on 9th February 2021

With environment issues rising quickly up the EU agenda, it’s time to get trade and ecological policies into coherent alignment.

Green intentions, brown outcomes

by Rianne ten Veen on 9th February 2021

If the EU does not address its role in domestic deforestation it will never reach its goal of carbon neutrality.

No time to spare for the Paris climate promise

by Mary Robinson on 12th January 2021

Having squandered past opportunities and shirked previous commitments, we now must start making up for lost time.

Legal hurdles facing a green and just transition

by Ingo Venzke on 24th November 2020

The irony of genuinely ‘free trade’ is only regulation enables it. Europe cannot lead the ecological transition without recognising this.

How public development banks can help nature

by Elizabeth Mrema and Carlos Manuel Rodriguez on 17th November 2020

Public development banks will be critical to global efforts to ‘build back better’. They should complement their climate investments with nature-based goals.

Trade unions and climate change: the jobs-versus-environment dilemma

by Adrien Thomas and Nadja Dörflinger on 12th November 2020

Unions can be torn between mitigating climate change tomorrow and saving jobs today. A significant Just Transition Fund could ease that dilemma.

Supporting the transition to post-pandemic sustainability

by Denis Gregory and Maarten van Klaveren on 9th November 2020

Executive remuneration packages not only drive a race to the top but do not account for companies’ environmental ‘externalities’. This needs to change.

Living, working and Covid-19 (update April 2021): mental health and trust decline across EU as pandemic enters another year

The third round of Eurofound's Living, working and Covid-19 e-survey, fielded in February and March 2021, sheds light on the social and economic situation of people across Europe following nearly a full year of living with restrictions. The report analyses the main findings and tracks developments and trends across the 27 EU member states since the survey was first launched in April 2020. It pinpoints issues that have surfaced over the course of the pandemic, such as increased job insecurity due to the threat of job loss, decline in mental wellbeing, erosion of recent gains in gender equality, fall in trust vis-à-vis institutions, deterioration of work–life balance and growth of vaccine hesitancy. The results of the survey highlight the need for a holistic approach to support all the groups hit hard by the crisis, to prevent them from falling further behind.

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FEPS book: Our European Future

The book Our European Future: Charting a Progressive Course in the World by the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS) is the first high-quality book for the next phase of the European project to be discussed in the Conference on the Future of Europe, authored by 36 top experts and intellectuals and edited by the FEPS president, Maria Joâo Rodrigues.

As the Conference on the Future of Europe is about to start—with its first plenary debate this month—it is high time to bring in a real debate about ideas. This book offers solutions to rethink our socio-economic model in the glare of the environmental and digital transformations; to redefine Europe’s role in the world to contribute to renewed multilateralism; to strengthen investment in public goods; and, finally, to reinvent our democratic contract.

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With a pandemic raging, for those countries most affected by Brexit the end of the transition could not come at a worse time. Yet, might the UK's withdrawal be a blessing in disguise? With its biggest veto player gone, might the European Pillar of Social Rights take centre stage? This book brings together leading experts in European politics and policy to examine social citizenship rights across the European continent in the wake of Brexit. Will member states see an enhanced social Europe or a race to the bottom?

'This book correctly emphasises the need to place the future of social rights in Europe front and centre in the post-Brexit debate, to move on from the economistic bias that has obscured our vision of a progressive social Europe.' Michael D Higgins, president of Ireland

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WSI minimum wage report 2021: is Europe en route to adequate minimum wages?

In late 2020, the European Commission took an important step towards securing adequate minimum wages for all workers in Europe with the publication of a draft directive aimed at reversing the growing polarisation of incomes and the growth of in-work poverty. Securing an income sufficient for a decent standard of living will require substantial increases in minimum wages in virtually all member states—a medium-term objective that, according to the commission's calculations, would deliver clear social benefits. More than 25 million workers in Europe would benefit directly were statutory minimum wages to rise to either 60% of the median wage or 50% of the average wage. In Germany alone, where 60% of the median wage would equate to a minimum wage of €12.00, some 6.8 million workers would see increases in their pay.

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ETUI policy brief: teleworking in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic

It is essential companies and policy-makers understand the challenges associated with this modern way of organising work to avoid negative outcomes, especially in terms of occupational health and safety. Implementation of a teleworking system requires that employers take a number of precautions. According to the latest researches from the European Trade Union Institute, successful implementation of telework requires four categories of factors be aligned: individual differences in workers’ ability and desire to adapt; type of job; factors related to the particular household, such as availability of physical space and absence of distractions; and, critically, the employing organisation, in terms of a supportive culture, appropriate systems and a trust-based work environment.

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