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We promised a busy and exciting April and we haven’t failed. It looks like May will continue to blossom with activity! 🌺 We will host our flagship event ‘Call to Europe: The Future is Social’ with Commissioner Schmit; the Next Left focus group will travel to Madrid; we’ll celebrate International Workers’ Day, the 20th anniversary of the EU big enlargement, and a very special Europe’s Day ahead of the EU elections! And we also look beyond Europe: coinciding with the World Book Day, this week we’ve launched the book ‘A New Global Deal’. Much more in the menu below, check it out!

Read our new book ‘A New Global Deal: Reforming World Governance’. This is our progressive contribution ahead of the United Nations Summit of the Future that will take place in September in New York, with proposals to reform world governance, address current global challenges and get SDGs back on track.

Five years before the deadline connected to the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, we see increasing inequalities worldwide and a general backsliding in implementing the SDGs adopted by the UN in 2015. Many countries simply lack the means to do so. The book identifies various global governance reforms to be implemented in the form of a New Global Deal as part of the project ‘UNited for: A New Global Deal’.

We discussed some of the book’s insights at an expert meeting that took place this week in Vienna (Austria) organised by FEPS and the Karl-Renner-Institut. In a few days, we will be presenting the key proposals of this book at our panel at the UN Civil Society Conference in Nairobi (Kenya) on May 9-10. 

Last chance to register for the evening reception and event Call To Europe: The Future is Social at the Académie Royale de Belgique, with EU Commissioner Nicolas Schmit, among many other top-level representatives from policy-making, academia and civil society, who will discuss the path to guarantee a Social Europe in the next EU legislature:

• Nicolas Schmit, EU Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights
• Fernando Sampedro Marcos, Secretary of State for Europe, Spain
• Enrico Letta, President Jacques Delors Institute
• Vivien Schmidt, Professor, Boston University
• Kate Pickett, Professor, University of Kent
• Nika Kovač, Director of the 8 March Institute and coordinator of the European Citizens’ Initiative My Voice My Choice

• Maria João Rodrigues, FEPS President and Chair of PES Financial and Economic Network

• Heather Roy, President of Social Platform and Secretary General of Eurodiaconia

• (…)

The challenge to democracy is not just the far-right but some centre-right parties allying with them, letting them inside governments and normalising their exclusionary discourse. 

Building on the initial launch of the policy study ‘The transformation of the European mainstream right and its impact on (social) democracy‘ in Brussels, this event provided another opportunity to discuss the findings and policy recommendations of our latest study with co-authors, policymakers and academics. 

During this event, we uncovered the preliminary findings of the upcoming policy study ‘Bulgarian social democracy on the path to renewal’. We delved into the nuances of social democracy’s resurgence in Eastern Europe, with Bulgaria as the case study,  explored the journey of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and engaged in insightful deliberations on the centre-left’s renewal across the region. Then, together with authors and peer reviewers, we analysed the future of social democracy.

The housing crisis in Greece, characterised by rising rents, limited affordable housing options, and increasing housing inequality, is a multifaceted challenge with profound social and economic implications.

During this expert roundtable, housing researchers and practitioners exchanged on housing market dynamics and public policies in the country. The insights from this meeting will contribute to the development of a policy study to be published in the fall of 2024.

Ahead of the International Workers Days and inspired by the recent high-level conference organised by the Belgian presidency of the EU Council on Social Europe, ETUC General Secretary Esther Lynch shares her assessment of the ‘La Hulpe declaration‘. She highlights key achievements of the current EU mandate and warns against reverting to austerity-driven macroeconomic policies. Lynch emphasises the urgent need for a shift towards investment and job creation, particularly to ensure a fair transition. Finally, she explains that the unions stand ready for the new MEPs and the incoming European Commission with very concrete demands and policy ideas.

On Tuesday 16 April 2024, member states, the European Commission, the European Parliament, the European Economic and Social Committee, European social partners and civil society signed a declaration on the future of the European Pillar of Social Rights. This was a very important day.

In 2024, 50 years after Portugal’s revolution, I happened to hear an interview with a Belgian citizen who, during his career as a United Nations official, had worked in a hundred countries on a Brussels radio station. When asked which experience had impressed him the most, he replied: Portugal in 1974. This answer – perhaps surprising to many – confirmed the impression that has accompanied me throughout my life. I too, after talking to many people in a wide variety of countries, can state that in 1974, I lived through an extraordinary experience.

On 17 April, atypically on a Wednesday, Croatians went to the polling stations to elect their representatives for the 151 seats of the 11th Sabor (the Croatian unicameral parliament). The turnout was the highest in a quarter of a century, reaching nearly 70 per cent (15.46 per cent more than in 2020). 

• It is not the anti-corruption narrative, stupid! by Karolina Leaković
• Croatia’s super election year starts with a possible sharp turn to the right by Sonja Kovać

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