Macron meets Yellow Vest demands with tax cut promises
French President Emmanuel Macron has promised tax cuts as part of a round of economic and political reforms aimed at appeasing the Yellow Vest, or Gilet Jaunes, movement that has staged violent and deeply destructive...
Commission warns EU tourists they will need private insurance under no-deal Brexit
The European Commission has warned that tourists coming from or to the UK will need to be covered by a private insurance plan in the event of a no-deal Brexit as state coverage will...
EU releases €27 million in humanitarian assistance for Afghanistan
The European Commission will provide €2 million worth of assistance the most vulnerable families affected by devastating floods in Afghanistan which devastated large parts of the country in early March.
The funds will be used to provide...
Empowering women through collective action: Will 2019 be India’s Year of Women?
Friday, March 8 is International Women’s Day. It should give us pause for thought.
Just look at recent progress in India. In one of the largest movements for women’s rights in the country, on January...
EU reaches lowest unemployment rate in nearly two decades, but deep inequalities remain
The unemployment rate announced by the European Semester for 2019 is the lowest that has been registered since 2000, but the overall wellbeing of citizens from different regions of Europe have not been affected...
France’s unemployment hits decade-low
Frances unemployment rate fell to its lowest level since the beginning of 2009, according to a report by the French Statistical Service on February 14.
The drop came despite the violent Yellow Vest demonstrations in November...
Brussels paves the way for pan-European private pensions
Representatives of the EU's 28 members have paved the way for the introduction of a pan-European private pension scheme after bloc's ambassadors approved a previous agreement with the European Parliament.
Individuals who want to save...
Finland ends two-year minimum income experiment
Finland’s closely watched two-year experiment with basic minimum wage came to an end on February 8 following the delivery of a final report.
The experiment entailed the disbursement of a €560 tax-free benefit to 2,000...
EU citizens turning away from UK labour market
The UK’s job market has been attracting ever-lower interest from EU nationals, according to the world's largest job search engines.
The shortfall in applications from EU nationals has hit sectors that depend on a steady...
Swedish government announces mass public sector layoffs
The newly-formed Swedish government signalled that it would pursue a major new policy turn on January 31 by announcing mass public sector layoffs that will see 4,500 state workers made redundant in the coming months.
The move...
Romano Prodi: We Need Social Infrastructure
On January 23, after a bilateral meeting at the with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, former Italian Prime Minister and former President of the European Commission Romano Prodi spoke about social infrastructure at the Brussels Press...
Brussels opens case against Austria over EU labour discrimination practices
The European Commissioner for Social Affairs Marianne Thyssen announced on January 23 that Brussels has opened a case against Austria for carrying out discriminatory policies against workers from other EU countries.
EU citizens who work in Austria...
Unemployment at 40-year low, but poverty continues to rise
The European and American labour markets are in the midst of one of their strongest periods since the economic downturn of the Cold War-era late 1970s, but wage growth remains stagnant and deflationary pressure persists, while...
Labour shortage cuts into Dutch growth
The shortage of labour is biting into The Netherlands' growth as the Dutch economy is projected to hit 2.6% growth in 2018, which will decelerate to 1.9% in 2019 and 1.7% in 2020. ABN...
The revolution Europe needs
The spontaneous street protests in Paris over the past month come almost exactly 50 years after the mass revolt of May 1968. But that is not to say the two events are comparable. Les événements...
Uniting Africa for power
African countries are increasingly coming together. A landmark free-trade agreement was concluded earlier this year. East Africa has made great progress on the free movement of people. And a commitment to a single market...
Why Italy’s newly proposed budget is the right step forward
New Europe’s Federico Grandesso spoke exclusively with Massimo Bitonci, Italy's Under Secretary for Economy and Finance, who underlined the positives of the Italian budget plan that was recently rejected by the European Commission, and also discussed some weaknesses that...
Germany’s Angela Merkel and her legacy in the Middle East
The departure of Germany’s first female chancellor was as unexpected and stealthy as her arrival 13 years earlier. In a brief speech at the end of last month, Angela Merkel announced she would not...
Gender and the Arab city
One of the top priorities for the United Nations Sustainable Development Agenda is to make cities “inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable.” City leaders can take a simple step that would go long a way toward achieving...
ECB winds down stimulus programme as Eurozone inflation accelerates
As consumer price growth in the 19-member Eurozone has slightly picked up to 2.2% in October from 2.1% in September.
The European Union’s statistical office's preliminary report said inflation in the Eurozone remained steady for a fifth...
Europe boasts four of five most reliable pension schemes in the world
In the recently released 10th annual edition of the Mercer Global Pension Index, the Netherlands' retirement scheme was rated the best in the world, followed closely by Denmark, Finland, Australia, and Sweden.
The index, which compares...
Can Eurozone reform help contain Trump?
US President Donald J. Trump is using economic warfare to pursue his foreign-policy objectives. In August, his administration announced that it would double tariffs on steel and aluminium imports from Turkey, in order to...
Greece’s creditors nervous as Tsipras appears to walk away from structural reform goals
After successfully concluding its three-year European Stability Mechanism stability support programme and with its place at the heart of the Eurozone and EU secured - a development that Brussels is publicly hailing as a...
Can Trade Agreements Be a Friend to Labour?
Labour advocates have long complained that international trade agreements are driven by corporate agendas and pay little attention to the interests of working people. The preamble of the World Trade Organization Agreement mentions the objective of...
Who Really Creates Value in an Economy?
After the 2008 global financial crisis, a consensus emerged that the public sector had a responsibility to intervene to bail out systemically important banks and stimulate economic growth. But that consensus proved short-lived, and...
Commission wants €4.7 mil from Globalisation Adjustment Fund to help redundant workers in Portugal
The European Commission today proposed to provide Portugal with nearly €4.7 million from the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund to help former garment workers and several hundred young people without employment and education find a...
Hard Lessons from Genoa
Is our infrastructure safe? In the aftermath of the collapse of the Morandi Bridge in Genoa, this is the question on everybody’s mind. Of course, we could argue that disasters like this are one-offs,...
The Trump Administration’s Dead End on Trade
There is every reason to believe that the United States’ trade dispute with China will get worse before it gets better and that the US trade deficit will widen further rather than shrinking. In...
If Trump Ruled Venice
Marco Polo, the famous thirteenth-century Venetian merchant, was one of the first Europeans to trade with China. Now imagine that, after a while, the Venetian state became concerned that Polo was purchasing too many...
Commission mobilises €9.8 mln for reintegration of ex-Air France workers into labour market
The European Commission has mobilised €9.8 million from the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF) to assist workers who were made redundant by French national flag carrier Air France in 2017.
The initiative will help unemployed workers find...
Austrian Government wants extension to 12 working hours a day
Austria's far-right Chancellor Sebastian Kurz is facing increased opposition after his government announced plans to seek ways to extend the country's legal working hours by 12 a day, increasing the average working week to 60.
Up to 100,000...
Desire for change drives Eastern European business toward success
When discussing the development of business in Eastern Europe, frequently the conversation revolves around the economic progress, or lack thereof, in the former Soviet satellite states of Central Europe and the Baltics.
When the conversation...
Eurozone inflation picks up as unemployment drops slightly in May
Feeding the European Central Bank (ECB) dilemma on whether to stick to the quantitive easing (QE) programme, inflation in the Eurozone accelerated in May, according to a flash estimate released on May 31 by Eurostat.
According...
MEPs vote to improve conditions for workers outside their home countries
EU workers who are temporarily working in a European country outside of their own will be paid the same salary as their local counterparts, according to revised rules that the European Parliament approved with a vote...
Italy’s president names former IMF exec prime minister as political crisis deepens
The drawn-out process of sitting a new government that has gripped Italy since voters first went to the polls in early March took an unexpected twist in the 24 hours that transpired between Sunday...
British farmers want access to cheap EU labour
The British food and farming sector is only the latest industry calling for clarification over freedom of movement and market access during the post-Brexit transition period after the British National Farming Union and 100...
We can still make it!
After more than two months of wrangling, Italy finally has the government that it should have had in the first place -. a coalition of M5S (5-Star Movement) and LEGA (League), the anti-establishment forces...