I clarified and enlarged a bit the slides of my presentation at the seminar “Setting an ambition for the next Social Europe“, Copenhagen 19 October 2015, organised by FEPS, CEVEA and the Renner Institute.
I talked at the roundtable “Insecurity in Europe: Changing labour markets, withering social safety nets and the new wave of populist parties”. My main thesis is that social-democrats have been and are co-responsible of several conservative “structural reforms”: often because neoliberalism is alive and kicking, but also in exchange for a bit less austerity. In the given political and economic context, such strategy may make sense.
As usual, the main issue is how to change the political and economic context: the principles we believe in require economic growth.