68 research outputs found
Social security and poverty reduction reforms in Slovakia and in the rest of the Central Europe
Slovakia's courageous gimmick. CEPS Commentary, 14 January 2011
To help both the United States and Europe grapple with their rising levels of government debt and large budget deficits, this Commentary suggests that EU policy-makers might be well advised to consider an innovative albeit quirky approach devised by Slovakia to deal with the problem, in which the personal prosperity of top national officials is based not only on wage developments in the economy, but also on the countryâs fiscal prudence
Protecting employment in the time of coronavirus: What is the EUâs âŹ100 billion going to buy? CEPS Policy Contribution 09 Apr 2020.
This paper briefly analyses the proposal by the European Commission to establish SURE, the âEuropean instrument for temporary support to mitigate unemployment risks in an emergencyâ.
The SURE facility would borrow up to âŹ100 billion on the financial markets, lend it to member states to finance short-time work schemes and similar measures, using guarantees from the member states themselves.
The analysis makes the point that the scheme should be seen, first and foremost, as a proof of European solidarity to counter hostile propaganda from Russia and China about the EUâs ineffectiveness. It can also have an impact on national policies to deal with the coronavirus and to assist the most damaged and/or fiscally weak member states, but this effect is likely to be limited. Potentially, the most important feature of SURE is that it explicitly refers to itself as the forerunner of a future European Unemployment Insurance scheme
Will this time be different for Greece? How to assess its ability to deliver on the reform agenda. CEPS Commentary, 13 March 2015
Taking its inspiration from the ongoing debate on whether this time will be different for Greece and whether Syriza will deliver on its reform promises to the European partners, this Commentary expresses bemusement that the public debate on such an important issue as well as internal discussions among senior policy-makers frequently resort to âgut feelingsâ or simple stereotypes. To counteract this tendency, the author presents a simple analytical framework that can be used to assess the likelihood that a government will deliver on its reform agenda. Its purpose is not to allow for a precise probabilistic calculation, but to enable better structuring of the knowledge we have. It emphasises that the change depends NOT only on the capacity of the state to design and deliver policies, but even more crucially on state autonomy from both illegitimate and legitimate interests and cognitive models used by policy-makers to make sense of the world
Economic and Social Reforms in Slovakia: On some Aspects of Public Process and Interests Advocacy
The Slovak Republic faces the task to secure conditions for a long-term economic growth. A crucial precondition for an efficient implementation of economic measures is the knowledge of the status quo and of the impacts on the economy and the society as a whole to be expected from the relevant measures. Foreign experience with economic policies can only adopted when adjusted to the conditions of Slovak's economy, and attention has be paid to both short-term and long-term prospects of the economic and social development. To be implemented, many economic measures require acceptance on the part of the public, and this requires, among other things, direct involvement of the citizens in economic processes
Government Responses to the Platform Economy: Where do we stand? CEPS Policy Insight No 2017-30/July 2017
The introduction of the platform economy in Europe has sparked debate on the challenges it raises
for workers, companies, social partners, governments and other stakeholders, and how these
challenges can be addressed. This paper assesses government responses to the platform economy
in seven EU countries: Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Slovakia and Spain. It shows
that, owing to the lack of a specific framework governing the platform economy, countries generally
attempt to apply existing legislation, regulations and policies to the new challenges that the
platform economy brings. This holds for the status of workers, working conditions, and industrial
relations and social dialogue. Nevertheless, this strategy is not necessarily successful. The status of
platform workers, for example, remains unclear in most member states. Some member states
consider all platform workers to be self-employed, while in other member states, their status is
much more dependent on the specific circumstances. There seems to be little debate on the idea
of introducing a new status in the countries studied. On working conditions, the results confirm
that most countries have applied the existing framework to platform work. In many of the member
states, this has turned out to be problematic in several dimensions (e.g. taxation and social
protection). In the area of industrial relations and social dialogue, there is much less evidence of
specific actions or initiatives
Letâs get to Work! The Future of Labour in Europe. Vol. 1. CEPS Paperback, 8 September 2014
Work is both an essential part of our daily lives and one of the major policy concerns across Europe. Yet the public debate of labour issues is all too often driven by political rhetoric and short-term concerns. In this volume, researchers from seven European countries explain, in accessible language, the findings from various social sciences and what they mean for the future of labour in Europe. The conclusions they reach are addressed to policy-makers, the business world, journalists and fellow academics, and to anyone interested in the shape, size and character of the labour markets of tomorrow.
âMany valuable synergies emerged between the various strands of NEUJOBS and the in-house analytical work of the European Commission.â
LĂĄszlĂł Andor, European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion
Education policy and welfare regimes in OECD countries. Social stratification and equal opportunity in education. CEPS Working Document No. 357, December 2011
In this Working Document we look at which OECD countries deliberately attempt to reproduce social
stratification through educational policies, and which countries put greater emphasis on intervening
in the stratification process. First, we examine the relationship between education and welfare policies
as measures of intervention in this process: do countries intervene in both education and welfare â
driven by a âstratification cultureâ? Or is there a trade-off between intervention in education and
welfare, with certain countries prioritising one over the other?
Our findings indicate that there are two pure types of clusters: i) a cluster in which: âthe role of public
policy is to promote equalityâ including countries that are egalitarian in the welfare and the education
systems and ii) a cluster with stratification in both, a cluster in which â âthere is a proper place for
everyone in societyâ and several mixed clusters. Second, we consider whether it is the state on the one
hand or the market or family on the other hand that provides education and welfare.
We found that countries can be grouped into more market-oriented and more âetatistâ clusters.
Combining the analysis of stratification with the analysis of the market/state boundary, we observe a
more complex clustering in groups of less egalitarian and market-oriented countries, less egalitarian
market-oriented, egalitarian state-oriented, educational egalitarian state-oriented and educational
egalitarian market-oriented countries.
We interpret our findings as challenging a one-policy-fits-all approach that advocates education policy
reforms designed to increase equal opportunities in education. We argue that the context of each
country needs to be considered before the implementation of such policies
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