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“Regression in social rights”, “precarisation of jobs”, “no recognition for onerous work”: such are the slogans being seen on the streets of France to denounce the current pension reform. And but there may be nothing distinctive in regards to the French state of affairs.
“Related reforms have already been launched in different European nations. The protest motion appears distinctive to France, however this response is akin to comparable phenomena linked to the ‘value of residing disaster’ within the UK and Germany for instance, nations that are much less vulnerable to strikes”, notes Nicola Countouris, analysis director on the European Commerce Union Institute (ETUI), whose annual report has simply been printed (Benchmarking Working Europe 2023).
Financial governance takes precedence
“Actually, there may be nothing particularly nationwide about these structural reforms, since they’re requested by the European Fee inside the framework of financial governance,” says Emmanuelle Mazuyer, director of analysis at France’s Centre for Scientific Analysis (CNRS) and a specialist in European social legislation. Europe’s integration challenge stays essentially centred on markets, significantly for the reason that creation of the euro. “The precedence all the time goes to the financial system, to the discount of public deficits, it is the DNA of the European Union,” provides the researcher. “All different transitions – together with ecological, digital and financial – have to be tailored to this framework,” says Nicola Countouris.
The controversy is happening at a time when the nations of the “EU are going by way of hardships following Covid-19. The proof is evident: wealth is distributed in an more and more inequitable method. In accordance with the ETUI report, “at the moment financial insecurity impacts not solely these in low-paid and momentary jobs, labelled ‘the precariat’ by Man Standing (2011), but additionally a wider skilled class together with lecturers, nurses, administration executives, carers and attorneys”. In March 2023, the French nationwide institute for statistics (INSEE) reported that rising company income in Europe had contributed to inflation in 2022.
Did Europe study nothing after the monetary disaster of 2008? “The EU is really at a crossroads. It could redouble the trouble and dedication it confirmed within the face of the Covid-19 disaster, this time by guaranteeing that its actions usually are not geared simply to emergencies however quite in direction of basic reforms. Or it might probably fall again on its pre-pandemic austerity mannequin and ignore the broader social concern. We consider that this second method could be doomed to failure and that with out a social transition, all different transitions are prone to fail”, says Nicola Countouris.
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Moments of disaster, as a substitute of producing social advances, typically lead to backsliding. “Initially, we see nations falling again onto their conventional nationwide fashions. Then, as social coverage is pricey, precedence is given to decreasing public deficits and sovereign debt”, argues Emmanuelle Mazuyer. Thus, after deregulating job contracts and making labour relations extra versatile, nationwide governments at the moment are concentrating on social advantages: shrinking unemployment rights, elevating the retirement age and privatising methods by way of using pension funds. “Measures are solely taken when in addition they serve financial goals, such because the current improve in wages to compensate for inflation and the price of residing,” notes Emmanuelle Mazuyer.
In an article printed in 2021, researcher Amandine Crespy checked out what European residents need: “progress, unemployment and social inequalities stay on the high …
