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"This 2017 edition of Benchmarking working Europe focuses on the question 'overcoming cleavages across the EU?'. It analyses in four chapters and with the help of 58 visual graphs latest trends and outcomes of European policies in the areas of macro-economics, wages and collective bargaining, labour markets and, last but not least, social dialogue and workers' participation.
The Benchmarking working Europe 2017 demonstrates that the European Union is experiencing increasing social divergences and underlines the need for new policies that can generate higher living standards for all, based on fair integration and upwards convergence."

"This year's Benchmarking Working Europe focuses on whether the European Union is really on the path towards convergence.

Analysing the state of 'working Europe' with the aid of a multi-level and multi-dimensional set of indicators and thus assessing what current EU policies have achieved or have not achieved, the Benchmarking Working Europe 2018 demonstrates that, despite renewed economic growth in GDP terms, the proceeds of this growth are being unequally shared and structural problems in the areas of education, infrastructure and R&D remain due to the EU's obsession with labour market deregulation and fiscal austerity."

"The last decade has witnessed a significant revival of belief in the efficacy of fiscal policy and mainstream economics is now reverting to the standard positions of mid-1970s Keynesianism. On the coattails of that revival, increased attention is being given to the doctrine of Modern Money Theory (MMT) which makes exaggerated claims about the economic costs and capability of money-financed fiscal policy. MMT proponents are now asserting society can enjoy a range of large government spending programs for free via money financed deficits, which has made it very popular with progressive policy advocates. This paper examines MMT's assertion and rejects the claim that the US can enjoy a massive permanent free program spree that does not cause inflation. As has long been known by Keynesians, in a static economy money financed deficits can be used to finance programs when the economy is away from the full employment - inflation boundary. However, that window will be temporary to the extent that those deficits drive the economy to full employment. Since the programs are permanent they have to be paid for with taxes or they will generate inflation. That is the economic logic behind the unpleasant Keynesian arithmetic."

"This brief analyses the long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated government responses on the environment. It links the impact of sectoral and regional shocks to the economy until 2040 to a range of environmental pressures, including greenhouse gas emissions, emissions of air pollutants, the use of raw materials and land use change.

The short-term reductions in environmental pressures are significant; as the economy gradually recovers, emissions are projected to increase again, with growth rates going back to the pre-COVID baseline projection levels. But there is a long-term – potentially permanent – downward impact on the levels of environmental pressures of 1-3%, with stronger effects for pressures related to capital-intensive economic activities."

"It has almost become a cliché to say that the Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated pre-existing inequalities while also generating new ones. However, the following pages of this year's Benchmarking Working Europe clearly reveal that, far from being a platitude, the nexus between the pandemic and rising inequalities is both increasingly measurable and alarming. But they also stress that inequality is not just a one-off historical incident linked to a particular crisis. It is in fact the product of an economic model that, for the past three decades, has progressively redistributed less and less wealth to the bottom percentiles of society, while accumulating more and more at the top. In other words, it is a structural problem. Given the corrosive impact that inequalities are having on the social and economic, let alone political and democratic, fabric of our societies, the policy responses to the problem of inequality must be equally structural in character."

"The global economy is facing mounting challenges amidst the largest energy market shock since the 1970s and the cost-of-living crisis for many households from rising inflation pressures. The OECD Economic Outlook, Volume 2022 Issue 2 highlights the unusually imbalanced and fragile outlook, the significant downside risks associated with energy market developments and rising financial vulnerabilities as interest rates are raised, and the associated policy challenges. Well-designed and timely policy actions are required to maintain economic stability, enhance energy security and strengthen the prospects for future growth.
This issue includes a general assessment of the macroeconomic situation, and a chapter summarising developments and providing projections for each individual country. Coverage is provided for all OECD members as well as for selected partner economies."

"The central questions and main contextual background explored by this year's issue of Benchmarking are, at their core, fairly straightforward. Europe is at a crossroads, painfully navigating four transitions at once: a (perhaps less than obvious) economic policy transition best exemplified by the debates surrounding the EU economic governance framework (COM(2022) 583 final); a geopolitical transition, increasingly shaped by the ‘open strategic autonomy' debate (Akgüç 2021) and, of course, by the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine; and the two more readily acknowledged green and digital transitions. It is, however, becoming increasingly clear, as explored in greater detail in the following chapters, that these four transitions imply important trade-offs and have significant ramifications for the social dimension of the European project and for the livelihoods of European workers. These consequences are currently being ignored by the principal institutional actors that are shaping them and that, at times, have conflicting priorities.

The current inability on the part of governments and policy-makers, at a national and supranational level, to resolve the tensions inherent to these transitions is a major factor in determining what the following pages of this issue refer to as a ‘polycrisis'. We understand the current conjuncture as a ‘polycrisis' due to the presence of a series of multiple, separate crises happening simultaneously (e.g. a climate crisis, a cost-of-living crisis, a geopolitical crisis, etc.), due to the way in which these separate crises interact with each other (for instance the energy crisis and the climate crisis), and due to the extent to which they thus amplify each other's effects, in particular social and economic effects (the extent to which strained supply chains and externally driven inflationary pressures tend to magnify the shortcomings of current fiscal policies, for instance, as noted in the opening chapter). There is also a growing perception that resolving any of these crises in isolation may be a particularly arduous task and that cumulative responses must be identified.

This polycrisis is intimately linked to the inability of the ruling class to engage with what we identify here as the missing transition: the social transition. This issue of Benchmarking Working Europe engages critically with these four transitions and their effects and posits that only a transformative and ambitious social transition can break the current cycle of crisis after crisis and instead institutionalise what the issue refers to as ‘sustainable resilience'.

The four transitions – and the missing one
We are arguably witnessing four major discernible and disruptive transition processes that are shaking the kaleidoscope of the European project as it is currently still enshrined in the (fragile) constitutional consensus embodied by the Lisbon Treaty. The rather more obvious (but no less challenging) processes are the green and technological transitions. Yet, it is arguable that, most visibly since the suspension of parts of the Stability and Growth Pact, we have also been experiencing an economic policy (including a monetary policy) transition and – in connection with the supply chain shortages caused by Covid‑19 and its aftermath, and more markedly since the Russian invasion of Ukraine – a geopolitical transition linked to the developing concept of ‘open strategic autonomy'"

"Over the past winter, the EU economy performed better than expected. As the disruptions caused by the war in Ukraine and the energy crisis clouded the outlook for the EU economy, and monetary authorities around the world embarked on a forceful tightening of monetary conditions, a winter recession in the EU appeared inevitable last year. The Autumn 2022 Forecast had projected the EU economy to contract in the last quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of 2023. Instead, latest data point to a smaller-than-projected contraction in the final quarter of last year and positive growth in the first quarter of this year. The better starting position lifts the growth outlook for the EU economy for 2023 and marginally for 2024. Compared to the Winter 2023 interim Forecast,"