Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Themes
    • European digital sphere
    • Recovery and resilience
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Newsletter

A Social and Green New Deal to reverse the populist tide

Colin Hines 23rd April 2019

The setback to the immediate plans of those seeking the UK’s exit from the European Union provides a window of opportunity to go on the offensive for an anti-populist, continent-wide alternative.

Social and Green New Deal

Colin Hines

The UK now has around six months to sort out the Brexit debacle. Yet out of this could emerge a Europe-wide programme to turn the youth-led Extinction Rebellion into a successful movement and reverse the recent boost given to anti-environmentalist populists by the electoral success of the True Finns party.

To achieve this will require support for a programme to tackle the majority’s growing sense of social and economic insecurity and at the same time help to solve climate chaos. A start could be made during the European Parliament elections—with UK involvement now made virtually inevitable by the extension of its stay within the European Union, potentially to the end of October.

Central to this campaign must be the demand for a Europe-wide Social and Green New Deal. The former would reject austerity and instead dramatically increase the funding of employment in face-to-face jobs which address the worries of people of all ages, such as inadequate health, education and housing through to care for the elderly. A European Green New Deal would result in a massive green infrastructure programme, ensuring the rapid decarbonisation of energy, transport, resource use and agriculture. The political advantage of this twin approach is that it would be seen by voters across Europe to be beneficial to every community.

Also key is the need for regulations to ensure that all these social and infrastructural jobs are adequately remunerated and secure. Their additional advantage is in offering a career structure across a wide range of skills for many decades. Such work is also relatively difficult to automate and virtually impossible to relocate abroad.

Our job is keeping you informed!


Subscribe to our free newsletter and stay up to date with the latest Social Europe content.


We will never send you spam and you can unsubscribe anytime.

Thank you!

Please check your inbox and click on the link in the confirmation email to complete your newsletter subscription.

.

Public resistance

Such an approach is made more feasible by three trends. First, there is increased public resistance to the ever-clearer downsides of austerity and privatisation. Demands for change are now climbing up the political agenda, as people of all classes are worried about social issues—even the affluent are concerned about how these affect their children and grandchildren.

Just as this is happening, so worries about climate change are also moving centre-stage. The United Nations’ top scientists have warned that we have just 11 years to halve global emissions and avoid climate catastrophe. This has resulted in 1.4 million young people joining the global school-strikes movement to demand change. A series of climate-related events—from massive fires in the United States through to the recent devastating floods in Mozambique—have fuelled a growing activist movement calling for transformational policies to tackle climate change, but in a way that benefits the majority.

Finally, in an echo of the 2008 crash, there is now a growing conviction that another serious global downturn is imminent and debates have begun about how to stop it occurring or to cope with its aftermath.

How to pay

Of course, the key question always asked about such a massive programme is how to pay for it. The answer is from the usual fiscal sources, such as increased government expenditure and fairer taxes, as well as encouraging savings in what might be called ‘climate war bonds’. In the event of a looming economic crisis, however, a massive green ‘quantitative easing’ programme of monetary expansion will have to be considered. The previous crash resulted in $10 trillion of QE being injected into the global economy, but it wasn’t directed at job-generating investments and mostly inflated the stock and property values of the already comfortably off. Given the economic problems facing the eurozone, even the Financial Times has called for a large-scale green QE programme.

The crucial link between a Social and a Green New Deal is how the funding required, and what it is spent on, can ensure that the basic lot of the poorer section of society is improved, and that compensation can be provided for any green-transition policies resulting, for example, in rising food or energy prices. This can take the form of increased benefits and, for instance, scrappage schemes to replace older, more-polluting cars and subsidies for electric vehicles. Such an approach would address this understandable jibe from a French yellow-vests protester: ‘Our elites are talking about the end of world when we are talking about the end of the month.’ 


We need your support


Social Europe is an independent publisher and we believe in freely available content. For this model to be sustainable, however, we depend on the solidarity of our readers. Become a Social Europe member for less than 5 Euro per month and help us produce more articles, podcasts and videos. Thank you very much for your support!

Become a Social Europe Member

Finally, this approach could act as an encouragement for those communities campaigning globally for such changes. The Guardian’s economics editor recently listed the short-term blocks to achieving a ‘global green new deal’, but improving the day-to-day existence of the majority, while tackling the environmental crisis, could turn the clichéd call to protect the people and the planet into reality. There really is no other choice.

Colin Hines

Colin Hines is convenor of the Green New Deal Group and former co-ordinator of Greenpeace International’s economics unit, having worked for the organisation for ten years.

Home ・ Politics ・ A Social and Green New Deal to reverse the populist tide

Most Popular Posts

schools,Sweden,Swedish,voucher,choice Sweden’s schools: Milton Friedman’s wet dreamLisa Pelling
world order,Russia,China,Europe,United States,US The coming world orderMarc Saxer
south working,remote work ‘South working’: the future of remote workAntonio Aloisi and Luisa Corazza
Russia,Putin,assets,oligarchs Seizing the assets of Russian oligarchsBranko Milanovic
Russians,support,war,Ukraine Why do Russians support the war against Ukraine?Svetlana Erpyleva

Most Recent Posts

Gazprom,Putin,Nordstream,Putin,Schröder How the public loses out when politicians cash inKatharina Pistor
defence,europe,spending Ukraine and Europe’s defence spendingValerio Alfonso Bruno and Adriano Cozzolino
North Atlantic Treaty Organization,NATO,Ukraine The Ukraine war and NATO’s renewed credibilityPaul Rogers
transnational list,European constituency,European elections,European public sphere A European constituency for a European public sphereDomènec Ruiz Devesa
hydrogen,gas,LNG,REPowerEU EU hydrogen targets—a neo-colonial resource grabPascoe Sabido and Chloé Mikolajczak

Other Social Europe Publications

The transatlantic relationship
Women and the coronavirus crisis
RE No. 12: Why No Economic Democracy in Sweden?
US election 2020
Corporate taxation in a globalised era

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

Towards a new Minimum Wage Policy in Germany and Europe: WSI minimum wage report 2022

The past year has seen a much higher political profile for the issue of minimum wages, not only in Germany, which has seen fresh initiatives to tackle low pay, but also in those many other countries in Europe that have embarked on substantial and sustained increases in statutory minimum wages. One key benchmark in determining what should count as an adequate minimum wage is the threshold of 60 per cent of the median wage, a ratio that has also played a role in the European Commission's proposals for an EU-level policy on minimum wages. This year's WSI Minimum Wage Report highlights the feasibility of achieving minimum wages that meet this criterion, given the political will. And with an increase to 12 euro per hour planned for autumn 2022, Germany might now find itself promoted from laggard to minimum-wage trailblazer.


FREE DOWNLOAD

ETUI advertisement

Bilan social / Social policy in the EU: state of play 2021 and perspectives

The new edition of the Bilan social 2021, co-produced by the European Social Observatory (OSE) and the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), reveals that while EU social policy-making took a blow in 2020, 2021 was guided by the re-emerging social aspirations of the European Commission and the launch of several important initiatives. Against the background of Covid-19, climate change and the debate on the future of Europe, the French presidency of the Council of the EU and the von der Leyen commission must now be closely scrutinised by EU citizens and social stakeholders.


AVAILABLE HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Living and working in Europe 2021

The Covid-19 pandemic continued to be a defining force in 2021, and Eurofound continued its work of examining and recording the many and diverse impacts across the EU. Living and working in Europe 2021 provides a snapshot of the changes to employment, work and living conditions in Europe. It also summarises the agency’s findings on issues such as gender equality in employment, wealth inequality and labour shortages. These will have a significant bearing on recovery from the pandemic, resilience in the face of the war in Ukraine and a successful transition to a green and digital future.


AVAILABLE HERE

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

EU Care Atlas: a new interactive data map showing how care deficits affect the gender earnings gap in the EU

Browse through the EU Care Atlas, a new interactive data map to help uncover what the statistics are often hiding: how care deficits directly feed into the gender earnings gap.

While attention is often focused on the gender pay gap (13%), the EU Care Atlas brings to light the more worrisome and complex picture of women’s economic inequalities. The pay gap is just one of three main elements that explain the overall earnings gap, which is estimated at 36.7%. The EU Care Atlas illustrates the urgent need to look beyond the pay gap and understand the interplay between the overall earnings gap and care imbalances.


BROWSE THROUGH THE MAP

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Membership

Advertisements

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Social Europe Archives

Search Social Europe

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Follow us on social media

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow us on YouTube