worthwhile analysis of the results of the European elections, and especially the West-East split ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Mariya Nikolova <[email protected]> Date: Mon, Jul 1, 2019 at 9:35 AM Subject: June 2019: European elections, the platform economy and social law, the cost of living in the EU, ETUI job vacancies To: <[email protected]> Unsubscribe <https://crm.etui.org/civicrm/mailing/unsubscribe?reset=1&jid=1964&qid=644047&h=629987e4cbf9abec> *View in your browser <https://crm.etui.org/civicrm/mailing/view?reset=1&id=355> * *Editorial* *Mapping the results of the EU election: some preliminary reflections on the social challenges* The results of the recent European elections give us a very complex picture at the EU and national level. The common interpretation is that there was a lower than expected rise of the extreme right and populist parties in Europe and that the green and liberal parties have been the winners. This is true for the Western part of the EU, but in Eastern and Central Europe the situation is different. In these countries, the Greens get only 3 seats (on a total of almost 200) and so does the radical left (3 seats too). The Socialists & Democrats in Central and Eastern Europe, for their part, have stabilized their share of the vote. Altogether the left counts for 25 % of the vote in that region. Looking more closely at the national level, it is very difficult to make any generalization. Look at the situation in Poland and Spain, for example. The cleavage theory of Rokkan and Lipset from 1967 can be useful here in trying to put some order and understand the picture by analyzing emerging cleavages. Of the 3 traditional cleavages - state vs church, centre vs periphery, and owner/capital vs worker - the last one was the most influential for the trade union movement. Even if a redefinition of the capital/workers cleavage would be possible, with more attention for the ecological question, it would nevertheless be helpful to add 2 additional (new) cleavages to the picture. A first new cleavage is the opposition between open – closed society. It was clearly part of this election debate. It can be illustrated by the tensions between the renamed Renew Europe Group and the Identity and Democracy Group. Although intuitively we would take for granted that both are opposed to social policies, this does not quite seem to be the case. We can observe that some nationalistic parties propagate social messages. At the same time, Emmanuel Macron, who has decided to join with his political movement the Renew Europe Group in the European Parliament, has a socially inspired discourse, although only at EU level (doing the contrary at national level). If this cleavage is becoming dominant, it could be very challenging for the trade unions. A second cleavage is the green, post-materialist versus productivist political positioning, which has gained more popularity recently. For the proponents of post-materialist values, the environmental crisis imposes a completely new paradigm. It challenges the productivist paradigm which centers on the concept of growth. Again, the social orientation of the post-materalist paradigm is not straightforward. It ranges from very socially sensitive to more liberal. The challenge here will be to have an in-depth reflection about what it means concretely for trade unions to operate in this new paradigm. If post-materialism takes the lead, what does this mean for pensions and wages? What could be a trade union agenda in this context? In any case, it is only the start of very complex, challenging and strategic debates for the future. *Philippe Pochet, General director ETUI* *Publications* *The platform economy and social law: Key issues in comparative perspective * This Working Paper brings together two parallel but complementary approaches to the impact of the platform economy on working conditions and social law. *Aussi disponible en français* Read more <https://crm.etui.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=53048&qid=644047> *The cost of living in the EU: how much do you need?* This policy brief details the necessary amounts for dignified living according to official EU figures and the perceptions of Europeans, as well as the actual disposable income of families in the lower part of the income distribution across EU member states. 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Read more <https://crm.etui.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=53059&qid=644047> *Recent events* *In memoriam Christos Triantafillou * It is with great sadness that the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) learned of the passing of Christos Traintafillou, an economist at the Labour Institute of the General Confederation of Greek Workers (INE-GSEE), member of ETUI's Trade Union related Research Institutes (TURI) network, trainer, member of the NETYL network (Young Leader) and member of the Pedagogical Committee of the Education department. Read more <https://crm.etui.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=53060&qid=644047> *Trade union related research institutes meet on the verge of the ETUC Congress * This year the members of the network of research Institutes close to the trade union movement (TURI) were invited by the Austrian Chamber of Labour (AK) to hold their annual conference on the fringe of the ETUC Congress in Vienna. Read more <https://crm.etui.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=53061&qid=644047> *The European Pillar of Social Rights: where are we now and where are we going?* Almost one and a half years after the proclamation of the European Pillar of Social Rights (EPSR), a group of researchers, policymakers and civil society representatives came together at the ETUI to assess the status of the EPSR’s implementation and reflect on its future. Read more <https://crm.etui.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=53062&qid=644047> *TSD 2019: what agenda for the European and US trade unions? * The political situation in Europe after the recent elections for European Parliament and the trade union agendas on both sides of the Atlantic were the main topics of this year’s Transatlantic Social Dialogue meeting, organised by the European Trade Union Institute, the Institute of Economic and Social Research of the Hans Böckler Foundation and the Worker Institute of Cornell University. 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