Trade Unions
Time for a twenty-first Century Social Democracy
Social democrats need a new understanding of the historic compromises that are necessary for the practice of power.
The German election defeat followed on from losses for social democratic parties in the European Parliament elections. To be sure, socialists kept power in Portugal and Norway, but without a majority of votes. And PASOK’s win in Greece was based on a new politics, [...]
No Freedom Without Solidarity!
Do you remember the moment when communism fell in Eastern Europe? Most people will recall the dramatic events in Berlin in November 1989. Perhaps they will remember the overthrow of Ceaucescu in Romania or when Yeltsin defeated the coup in Moscow two years later. Yet communism ended here, in Poland, when twenty years ago the [...]
Interview – ‘The only solution is to refuse to comply with ECJ rulings’
In recent judgements undermining the right to strike and compliance with collective agreements, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has dealt a fresh blow to hopes for a ‘Social Europe’. Political scientist Fritz Scharpf explains the reasoning behind rulings from Europe’s highest court – and explores what can be done to oppose them.
Herr Scharpf, why [...]
European Court of Justice (ECJ) and Social Europe: A Divorce based on Irreconcilable Differences?
In a recent interview with Mitbestimmung, Professor Fritz Scharpf, one of Europe’s most prominent social scientists, spoke about the radicalising effects of the recent ECJ rulings in the Viking, Laval, Rüffert and Commission vs Luxembourg cases: ‘the basic treaty freedoms are now deemed not just to prevent protectionist discrimination against foreign suppliers but more broadly [...]
The European Social Model and the ECJ
When a scholar of Fritz Scharpf’s reputation and standing speaks, pro-Europeans should listen. His warning that the European project represents a judicial entrenchment of neoliberalism needs to be treated with the utmost seriousness. But pro-European supporters of a Social Europe and the idea of a European Social Model, in the trade unions and elsewhere, should [...]
Advantages of Backwardness – Lessons for Social Europe from the American Labour Movement
By Lowell Turner
The European Union has many admirers around the world, including here in the United States, in the neoliberal heartland. Many of us view the idea, if it is not always the reality, of Social Europe as a benchmark for human-centered economic integration in a global economy. We look to our “old [...]