Documents Janssen, Ronald 33 results

" Réformes, réformes, réformes ! Cette injonction sert de fil rouge à une grande partie des travaux de l'OCDE : les États membres devraient intervenir pour réduire significativement les réglementations et laisser les marchés et le secteur privé faire leur travail. Ce serait la bonne méthode pour améliorer la situation ou faire face aux situations de crise, et elle concerne particulièrement les institutions du marché du travail, comme la législation de protection de l'emploi, le salaire minimum ou l'indemnisation du chômage."

" Latvia is used by the ‘austerians' as a case showing that hard and painful austerity can get an economy out of recession. This policy brief argues the opposite and shows that what actually happened in Latvia is that policymakers decided not to continue but to break with the policy of austerity. This made it possible for Latvia to get out of a vicious spiral of austerity causing a depression and thereby leading to even more austerity.

After having looked in greater detail at what really happened in Latvia, in terms of both the policy that was actually implemented and the results it generated, the author pleads that Europe should urgently apply a moratorium on new fiscal austerity measures so as to avoid deepening the recession many of its member states are already suffering. Restoring growth dynamics needs to come first and consolidation of public finances can only follow afterwards. "

"The European Social Model has been subjected to sustained attack at the ideological level, and steps have been taken in many countries to 'roll back' a number of its core features. In this debate, globalisation is frequently used as an argument that social Europe is no longer affordable and is a barrier to necessary reforms and to competitiveness.
Against this background, this note turns first to the facts about Europe's position in the global economy, moving on to consider possible links from globalisation to the European Social Model and the alleged necessity of reform. It then looks in more detail at specific features of the model and at arguments about the (in)efficiency of social institutions, before closing with a number of questions that Europe's trade unions need to address in the coming years. "