Social policy and employment

Our friends at Europe&Me are conducting a survey to gather opinions on the issue of an Unconditional Basic Income. By unconditional basic income (UBI) we understand that every person gets a fixed amount of money from the state every month. The exact amount and how it changes with age, location and rising income is up for discussion. The UBI would be sufficiently high so that other benefit schemes (unemployment benefits, pension, etc) could be phased out. However, everybody gets it without conditions and can spend it at his/her discretion.

Europe&Me will use the data gathered when they, along with FutureLab Europe, represent the voice of young Europeans at the EFC Belfast debate “Peace through Social Justice” on June 7 2012.

Make your voice heard by filling in the short survey here:

http://www.europeandme.eu/survey

Image source: Europe&Me magazine

In anticipation of the appointments of European Council President and Foreign Policy chief, a lot of noise was made about gender balance. Member states were also urged by activists, NGOs, as well as Commission President Barrosso to consider nominating female candidates to the Commission. The promotion of a gender balanced Commission is a cause supported by at least 2 360 facebook users, and 888 petition signers on official website, www.genderbalancedcommission.eu, though it’s reasonable to expect some overlap in members. The result? The High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy is a certain Catherine Ashton, and nine women have been nominated to the new Commission (the same number as were in the last Commission). While ideally we would live in a world where underpaid and overlooked women is not the norm, the debate on positive discrimination and gender quotas is again on the table. On the one hand, a visible gender equality within the European institutions has positive effects both for gender issues and for the image of Europe. On the other, appointing underqualified women does not further women’s rights. Rather, it risks proving sexist people right. The female appointees may however well be qualified, and for their sake and the sake of gender equality, we certainly hope they are.

Photo: Flickr, DogFromSPACE

The battle for or against ‘Social Europe’ is increasingly taking up a central place in European politics. This week, the President of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, laid down another brick to the house when criticising recent wage raises in Germany and Finland. The chief of the ECB argued that wage raises harm the ECB’s attempts to bring down the rate of inflation, which in December 2007 reached 3,1%. The statements immediately saw trade unions retaliate that Mr. Trichet should “stop his fight against a more social Europe”. Whether one agrees with Mr. Trichet or not the very fact that the top dog of the ECB comments on such a highly salient political issue is bad news. Generally, European citizens are not used to hearing unelected bureaucrats from other countries commenting in negative ways on their wage raises. Granted, there might be several good economic reasons for the institutional design and the outspoken independence that permits the president of the ECB to comment on wage policy in EU member states. However the average citizens do not know or care about these reasons. From their perspective Mr. Trichet’s statements appear very strange. And very undemocratic.