Documents European Centre for Political Studies, Brussels 161 results

"As a result of technological progress and economic change, many new occupations have emerged in the labour market, while others have become redundant and disappeared. Along with these new and emerging occupations, new skills have been introduced that can be developed through formal education, on-the-job training or learning-by-doing (or in some other way). This paper presents the Occupations Observatory, which we have created with the aim of providing up-to-date information on these changes in the labour market – reflected in the rise of new occupations and their corresponding skill changes – to policy-makers, researchers, educational institutes, job seekers and many other stakeholders (and how occupational dynamics feed into the occupational classification schemes). We focus not only on new occupations that did not exist before but also on new occupations in terms of recognition, awareness and importance.



This paper was written within the framework of the InGRID project. Funded by the European Union's 7th Framework Programme for Research, the InGRID project (Inclusive Growth Research Infrastructure Diffusion) involves 17 European partners, including CEPS. It aims to integrate and innovate existing, but distributed European social sciences research infrastructures on ‘Poverty and Living Conditions' and ‘Working Conditions and Vulnerability' by providing transnational data access, organising mutual knowledge exchange activities and improving methods and tools for comparative research."

"This paper looks at the difference between the levels and nature of social policy expenditure in northern and northwest European countries and the countries of southern, central, and eastern Europe, and examines the relationship between social investment and state capacity in these country groupings. The authors show that southern and eastern countries have a much greater preference for ‘compensating' rather than ‘capacitating' social policy spending. Furthermore, the state capacity in these countries is lower, which generates less state revenue. Based on these observations they conclude that low state capacity and low state revenue go hand in hand with the preference for capacitating social policies, as these policies involve less delegation and discretion than social investment policies. This paper shows that high state capacity is probably a necessary precondition for effective social investment policies, although some limited alternative paths do exist."

"In response to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, EU member states put various tools in place to support employment, from traditional short-time work (STW) schemes and wage subsidy (WS) schemes to new income support schemes for self-employed and atypical workers.

The European Union offered financial support to these schemes through the creation of a new financial assistance facility – temporary Support to mitigate Unemployment Risks in an Emergency (SURE) – with a capacity of €100 billion to be distributed in the form of loans to those countries that requested it. As of May 2021, 19 member states have obtained financial support from SURE for a total of almost €95 billion. Despite its smooth functioning and success, SURE remains a temporary mechanism linked to the pandemic. In the (unfortunate) case of future crises, the EU will not have a similar tool to provide immediate support to countries in need. As already advanced in 2020, we argue that SURE should become a permanent mechanism."

"In recent years, the concept of green jobs has been the focus of increasing attention from both policy and research circles. At the EU policy level, the green transition is seen as an opportunity to create jobs in existing and emerging economic sectors. The need for re- and upskilling workers to ensure a socially just green and digital transition is also increasingly being highlighted in the policy debate.
Despite this renewed surge in interest, partly propelled by the necessity to mitigate the impacts of the climate crisis as well as external shocks such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the notion of green jobs is not a recent one. A large number of different approaches to how green jobs can be defined and classified have been put forward in the past few decades. While these definitions and taxonomies display certain overlaps, often in terms of a focus on jobs in the Environmental Goods and Services Sector, key analytical differences compromise the comparability of assessments.
These differences along with gaps identified in existing definitions and frameworks have exposed the need to create a novel taxonomy for green jobs. Combining various elements of these approaches in a quantifiable, and thus practically applicable, manner, this report develops an integrated taxonomy based on four pillars: inputs, outputs, processes, and job quality. The use of different indicators to operationalise these pillars aims to enable more accurate assessments and comparison of case studies, to support policymaking in this area.
A number of different strategies and policies that incorporate green jobs elements have been launched, at the EU level as well as by Member States and internationally, in the past couple of years. In line with other recent policy developments, most of these initiatives focus on developing skills for the green transition. In addition, many strategies incorporate a social dimension to green jobs, aiming to ensure that vulnerable groups are protected in the green transition. Tackling the creation and retention of green jobs while phasing out brown jobs may profit from a more integrated approach that goes beyond skills, while also taking into account the greenness of work processes, outputs and supply chain inputs, as put forward by this report."

"Over recent years, EU actorness has increased when it comes to legal authority, autonomy, external recognition and attractiveness, while internal cohesion among EU Member States has dwindled. Two case studies, on the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) and on standards for sustainability reporting, show the varying level of the EU's effectiveness in sustainable development policy.

This CEPS In-Depth Analysis report analyses the EU's capability to act and be effective in sustainable development governance, looking at the period from the 2000s to today. It finds that several factors will affect the EU's ability to pursue the SDGs in the near future.

Depending on the global momentum around ambitious reforms, the EU may be able to implant its agenda into global agreements. Internal dynamics will also determine whether the EU will be able to retain sufficient authority, autonomy and cohesion to effectively project its agenda on a global scale.

This report is part of a series drawing on the outcomes of the EU-funded TRIGGER (Trends in Global Governance and Europe's Role) project that ran from 2018 to 2022.

Using the conceptual framework developed as part of TRIGGER, this report moves beyond observing the characteristics of the EU as an actor to explore its actorness/effectiveness over time in a specific policy domain – this case, the Sustainable Development Goals."

"Transforming the linear economy, which has remained the dominant model since the onset of the Industrial Revolution, into a circular one is by no means an easy task. Such a radical change entails a major transformation of our current production and consumption patterns, which in turn will have a significant impact on the economy, the environment and society. Understanding these impacts is crucial for researchers as well as for policy-makers engaged in designing future policies in the field. This requires developing an in-depth knowledge of the concept of the circular economy, its processes and their expected effects on sectors and value chains. This paper reviews the growing literature on the circular economy with the aim of improving our understanding of the concept as well as its various dimensions and expected impacts. On the basis of this review, it attempts to map the processes involved and their application in different sectors. The paper suggests that research on the circular economy is currently fragmented across various disciplines and there are often different perspectives and interpretations of the concept and the related aspects that need to be assessed. This fragmentation is also evident in the available studies that adopt different approaches in calculating the impacts, which makes efforts at comparing the results from different sources very challenging. Finally, this paper suggests that there is limited information on the indirect effects on the economy (e.g. impacts on the value chain or changes in consumption spending patterns) as well as the social impacts of the circular economy transition."

"This report sets out the elements for the design of a streamlined and future-proof policy on innovation and entrepreneurship in Europe. It is the result of a collective effort led by CEPS, which formed a Task Force on Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the EU, composed of authoritative scholars, industry experts, entrepreneurs, practitioners and representatives of EU and international institutions. The result of these deliberations is a set of policy recommendations aimed at improving the overall environment and approach for entrepreneurship and innovation in Europe and a new paradigmatic understanding of the role that innovation and entrepreneurship can and should play within the overall context of EU policy. These recommendations are based on a new, multi-dimensional approach to both innovation and entrepreneurship as social phenomena and to the policies that are meant to promote them."

"In this extensive report, we assess how a European unemployment benefit scheme (EUBS) could be designed. To this end, we examine 18 EUBS variants, 4 equivalent and 14 genuine schemes, and their key features. Some of these features can also be found in national unemployment benefit schemes, while others are more related to the EUBS context. We analyse the design of a common EUBS in previous literature and combine these insights with results for the legal and operational options as well as constraints and the economic value added obtained as part of our study on the “Feasibility and Added Value of a European Unemployment Benefit Scheme”. All this information is integrated into a summary fiche for each of the 18 EUBS variants studied. In addition, the report deals with a range of policy issues including convergence, minimum requirements and accession criteria."

"This CEPS e-Book presents the final report of a comprehensive project on the Feasibility and Added Value of a European Unemployment Benefits Scheme, initiated by the European Parliament and commissioned by the European Commission, Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion. The aim of the study is to assess the legal and operational feasibility of introducing a European unemployment benefits scheme (EUBS), as well as the economic added value that such as scheme could bring. Some 18 different variants of an EUBS are analysed in terms of their design, legal and operational challenges and economic effects. The study presents the most comprehensive work on the subject to date. For each of these 18 variants, the impact on the individual member states, EMU and the EU has been examined. The 18 variants vary across a range of features, such as the replacement rate and caps used, the duration of unemployment benefits and the eligibility conditions that apply. If an EUBS were to be selected as one of the potential stabilisation mechanisms to explore further, this study provides evidence and insights on the barriers ahead and different ways to deal with them."

"In the aftermath of the Great Recession, there has been a widespread call for reform of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), as it became clear that its current institutional architecture lacks an automatic stabilisation mechanism to prevent and mitigate the effects of economic shocks. A European unemployment benefits scheme (EUBS) has long been discussed as one potential stabilisation mechanism. In this report, we explore this option in more depth. We start from 18 EUBS variants, of two types – equivalent and genuine – for which we assess the legal and operational feasibility of introducing these schemes and the added value that they would bring. Our analysis focuses on added value in terms of macroeconomic stabilisation as well as the potential contribution to labour mobility and Europe's social dimension. The feasibility assessment covers legal and operational options and constraints at the national and EU levels. The report further devotes attention to important challenges such as institutional moral hazard, permanent transfers and EUBS implementation."