Competitiveness has become the most abused word in Brussels.
It is invoked to justify almost anything — except the one thing Europe actually needs: a strong industrial policy to build quality jobs, to safeguard and reinforce economic capacity in Europe and to achieve shared prosperity.
Europe could never win a race to the bottom that Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s admirers here are clamouring for — and we can already see how this recipe has damaged Europe’s competitiveness.
The new impetus for Social Europe of the past five years has led to important and long-awaited policy initiatives, including on minimum wages, platform work and corporate due diligence. However, progress in this field remains both fragile and fragmented.
Fresh research from the New Economic Foundation suggests that MEPs voting for the new EU economic governance rules will lock-in underinvestment in health, housing, education, and the environment — whoever ‘wins’ the June elections.
The EU’s own analysis has made it clear this is economic self-sabotage, and it’s politically foolish three months from European elections where the far-right are predicted to increase support, writes the general secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation.
We can’t continue with a situation in which people regularly working from home are six times more likely to work in their free time or are having their privacy routinely violated, writes general secretary of the European Trade Unions Confederation.
Just had a nice August break by the pool or the sea? Spare a thought for the 29 percent of all EU households which can’t afford a week’s holiday away from home…
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