Europe caught between austerity and social progress

“Regression in social rights”, “precarisation of jobs”, “no recognition for exhausting work”: such are the slogans being seen on the streets of France to denounce the latest pension reform. And but there may be nothing distinctive concerning the French state of affairs.

“Related reforms have already been launched in different European nations. The protest motion appears distinctive to France, however this response is corresponding to comparable phenomena linked to the ‘price of residing disaster’ within the UK and Germany for instance, nations that are much less liable to strikes”, notes Nicola Countouris, analysis director on the European Commerce Union Institute (ETUI), whose annual report has simply been revealed (Benchmarking Working Europe 2023).

Financial governance takes precedence

“In reality, there may be nothing particularly nationwide about these structural reforms, since they’re requested by the European Fee inside the framework of financial governance,” says Emmanuelle Mazuyer, director of analysis at France’s Centre for Scientific Analysis (CNRS) and a specialist in European social legislation. Europe’s integration mission stays basically centred on markets, significantly for the reason that creation of the euro. “The precedence all the time goes to the financial system, to the discount of public deficits, it is the DNA of the European Union,” provides the researcher. “All different transitions – together with ecological, digital and financial – should be tailored to this framework,” says Nicola Countouris.

The controversy is happening at a time when the nations of the “EU are going by hardships following Covid-19. The proof is evident: wealth is distributed in an more and more inequitable method. In keeping with the ETUI report, “right now financial insecurity impacts not solely these in low-paid and momentary jobs, labelled ‘the precariat’ by Man Standing (2011), but in addition a wider skilled class together with lecturers, nurses, administration executives, carers and attorneys”. In March 2023, the French nationwide institute for statistics (INSEE) reported that rising company earnings in Europe had contributed to inflation in 2022.

Did Europe study nothing after the monetary disaster of 2008? “The EU is really at a crossroads. It will possibly redouble the trouble and dedication it confirmed within the face of the Covid-19 disaster, this time by guaranteeing that its actions aren’t geared simply to emergencies however reasonably in the direction of basic reforms. Or it may fall again on its pre-pandemic austerity mannequin and ignore the broader social difficulty. We imagine that this second strategy could be doomed to failure and that and not using a social transition, all different transitions are prone to fail”, says Nicola Countouris.

Moments of disaster, as a substitute of producing social advances, usually end in backsliding. “Initially, we see nations falling again onto their conventional nationwide fashions. Then, as social coverage is dear, precedence is given to decreasing public deficits and sovereign debt”, argues Emmanuelle Mazuyer. Thus, after deregulating job contracts and making labour relations extra versatile, nationwide governments at the moment are concentrating on social advantages: shrinking unemployment rights, elevating the retirement age and privatising techniques by using pension funds. “Measures are solely taken when additionally they serve financial targets, such because the latest improve in wages to compensate for inflation and the price of residing,” notes Emmanuelle Mazuyer.

In an article revealed in 2021, researcher Amandine Crespy checked out what European residents need: “progress, unemployment and social inequalities stay on the prime …