Next Left Vol. 10

Delivering Welfare Societies is the 10th volume of the FEPS Next Left Book Series. It features an impressive collection of articles, deriving from research conducted by the academics of the FEPS Next Left Focus and Working Groups in the years 2014-2015. The texts included were extensively debated having received 4 peer reviews, while in parallel the core ideas were also tested at the numerous round tables organized across the EU. In their diversity, the contributions unite in proving that not only there is a future for Europe – but also that it can be constructed alongside progressive principles. This well-documented optimistic message is a contribution that this volume hopes to make in times when the EU finds itself at such relevant crossroads.

Delivering Welfare Societies starts with the foreword of Dr. Alfred Gusenbauer, Chair of the FEPS Next Left Research Programme, who offers his prediction on what may happen on the global and European level in the months to come. This serves as a political framework and reference point for the proposals brought along in the subsequent 4 chapters. These are: Focusing the Agenda: Equality, Quality Employment and Decent Living Standards; Taking the Lead: Seizing the Moment, Taking Responsibility and Devising a New Social Compact; Acting through Europe: Solidarity, Politicization and Communitarian Method; and last but not least Paving the Vision: a Goal To Reach, a Strategy to Unite and a Narrative to Convince. The Chapters include solid analyses of the political processes and socio-economic trends shaping and shaking the EU at the moment, suggesting the ways through which new trajectory can be contextualized, conceptualized and convincingly presented to the voters.

In its richness Delivering Empowered Welfare Societies therefore offers a path out of anxiety about the future of Europe and the current ad-hoc, quick fix and emergencies- prompted debates. Its’ conclusive motto is: the future of the European Union is and will always be there. But it is up to progressives to mobilize themselves and find courage to believe, that among these and many other available ideas there is enough to claim a publically legitimized mandate to be the ones to shape the course of things to come.