Stefan Collignon
Stefan Collignon Professor of Political Economy at St. Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa and President of the Scientific Committee of Centro Europa Ricerche (CER), Rome. He was also Centennial Professor of European Political Economy at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and Visiting Professor at Harvard University. Apart from his column for Social Europe Journal, Stefan publishes regularly in newspapers such as The Financial Times and The Financial Times Germany.
Who is reforming Europe’s Economic Governance?
After the crisis, European policy makers are now crafting reforms to strengthen the Union’s economic governance. It is an opportunity to make Europe more democratic. Instead, conservatives increase the democratic deficit under the pretext of closing budget deficits. This will not work. The European Commission has proposed measures to enhance economic policy coordination. ECB President [...]
A European Economic Government Could Solve Europe’s Democracy Deficit
Europe has come to praise democracy and is about to bury it. The Greek crisis, caused by the uncooperative behaviour of different nation states, has been a wake-up call showing that monetary union without an economic government will not work in the long run. Reforms are needed. Yet, because they widen the democratic deficit, the [...]
Europe’s Keynesian Turn?
The Euro-crisis is transforming the continent radically. One of the consequences of the decisions taken by the European Council on May 9 could be the end of the conservative ordo-liberal German model of social market economy. The European Central Bank may become the best ally of Europe’s left. As part of the €750 bn. rescue [...]
After Greece, the European Republic!
Europe’s governments have done it: the Euro Area is in shambles. Not because the euro was a bad idea, but because partial interests by member state governments prevent the design and implementation of good policies. Nation states damage the collective interests of European citizens. The present system of intergovernmental governance without a European government is [...]
The Challenge of New Chauvinism in Europe
The extreme right is on the move again. Forward, not in retreat. And European social democrats are hiding their heads in the sand, but the danger is not going away. In France the Front National and in Italy the xenophobic Lega Nord got over 12 % at the recent regional elections. The upcoming elections in [...]
What Conservatives do not understand about the Euro
Conservative economists triumphantly expect that the end of the euro is nigh. They take the Greek budget troubles as proof: one size cannot fit all. But they are wrong. The euro has contributed to the largest job creation in Europe’s history: 15.1 million new jobs in the first decade compared to 3.9 million in the [...]
The Greek Drama and the Social Justice of Responsible Fiscal Policies
I do not envy our Greek socialist friends. They got elected because the previous conservative government was catastrophically incompetent, but the mess they now have to sort out is worse than the wildest imaginations could have predicted. This is not just a local problem. The fate of the euro, and therefore of Europe, hangs in [...]
Does Europe need a Strategy for China?
The European Union is the second largest economy in the world, but does it have a global economic strategy? 10 years after the creation of the euro, there is little evidence for it. Policymakers are more concerned with protecting narrow domestic advantages than with improving opportunities for the European economy as a whole. The Lisbon [...]
The Winner is: Democracy!
Habemus Presidentem. With the Lisbon Treaty ratified, the European Council appointed the Belgian Prime Minister Van Rompuy as its President, and Lady Ashton as Vice-President of the European Commission. The echo has been devastating. The Financial Times has called it ‘a colossal failure of ambition’. However, the decisions by the heads of states and governments [...]
Does Europe’s Social Democracy still have a Future?
Social democracy will only be able to sustain a social Europe through strengthening European democratic institutions. German Social Democrats are lucky. Although in September they received their lowest vote in a federal election since the war– 23 per cent – things could have been worse. The result was still three percentage points more than they [...]
Taking Democracy in Europe seriously
Emanuel Barroso has been re-elected President of the European Commission. How strange! Why has the politician, who bears the largest individual responsibility for the steady decline in the efficiency and popular approval of European policies, been endorsed by all EU governments and obtained 382 votes of the 718 MEPs who participated in the election? This [...]
Testing the European Parliament
Europe returns from the summer vacation and a busy schedule starts in Brussels. The most important issue is the election of the President of the next Commission: who will it be and how will he be appointed? The two questions are, of course, related. For the moment only the incumbent José Manuel Barroso is an [...]
