Economy

Platform companies trumpet the ‘freedom’ their ‘independent contractors’ enjoy. They misrepresent what freedom is.

The over-reliance on interest-rate increases will likely lead to economic disaster in low- and middle-income countries.

A carve-out for the finance sector would water down the ambition of the EU’s human-rights due-diligence legislation.

In going along with rate rises, European governments are saving the European Central Bank—not their societies.

The proposed new fiscal rules may represent modest steps from the status quo. But they are in the right direction.

The fiscal rules have been in abeyance with the pandemic. What will replace them is up for grabs.

Are statutory minimum wages or collective-bargaining coverage the answer to low pay? Both, actually.

Unions have the capacities to mobilise and represent platform workers and connected workforces in non-standard work forms.

A crisis of wellbeing is invisibly surging in the digital economy. As with the coronavirus, Europe needs to get a grip on it.

European Union institutions at long last finalise a directive to put more women on company boards.

Monetary tightening only risks recession, whereas fiscal measures can set Europe on a sustainable recovery path.

Workers facing asbestos exposure need much more protection—through tighter limits and proper equipment and protocols.

With inflation driven largely by corporate rent-seeking, rather than suppressing wage claims windfall profits must be taxed.

Making public contracts for private firms conditional on collective agreements can help stem the falling labour share.

Divergences between the European Commission and the European Parliament reveal the real challenges of regulating the platform economy.