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what they bring to the literature. We also present our quantitative data. Finally, we examine the similarities between the Eurozone crisis and the current situation and draw some conclusions. On the room for manoeuvre of bailed out countries Bound by European treaties, such as the Stability and Growth Pact, and pressured by the increasing divergence of yields between Eurozone countries, the peripheral countries had little room for manoeuvre during the financial crisis. In all our cases, governments tried to avoid further
damaged the Party. In Opposition, Cameron lowered the salience of the issue and policy towards the EU did not undergo the significant rethinking seen in other areas. However, European integration then became one of the most important and difficult issues for Cameron in office after the 2010 general election. The Eurozone sovereign debt crisis prompted other Member States to pursue further integration, which the UK neither participated in nor blocked, hastening the development of differentiated integration. Eurosceptics favouring fundamental renegotiation or withdrawal
who were constrained by the tasks of managing globalising economies. These movements also became targets of organised political groups seeking to instrumentalise the protest for partisan purposes, however, with the decline of ATTAC being one result (Ancelovici, 2002; Ayres, 2002; Della Porta et al., 2006).1 The global financial crisis following the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, including the Euro-zone crisis, has brought more new protest. So far, an important part of the story has been regional. In Greece, Spain and Portugal social democrats had intelligently
justifying their actions by reference to the mood in Brussels and Frankfurt. When Ireland became the only country to hold a referendum on the EU’s Fiscal Compact in 2012, voters were warned that a triumph for the ‘No’ side would have catastrophic results, leading to expulsion from the Eurozone and the immediate cancellation of financial aid; the merits and demerits of the proposal itself barely featured in the debate. Against this backdrop, many on the Irish left have begun to question their view of the European project.1 Having previously thought of the Union as a
policy tools they have left at their disposal. The future of the European social dimension in the context of an enlarged EU and the Eurozone crisis The outbreak of the sovereign debt crisis in the Eurozone in 2010 plunged the EU into an unprecedented political and economic crisis. As the EU struggles to restore confidence and credibility in both its single currency and political institutions, there is a passionate debate regarding the future of the EU. Much attention has been directed to the structural inadequacies of the Economic and Monetary Union project and the EU
-utopian’ section of this book are situated within the shadow of the crisis of the Eurozone and the spread of far-right populism across the continent. The economic problems of the EMU and the return of nationalism feed off each other as part of a broader attack on the postwar European project. In fact, the latter is increasingly preventing the resolution of the former, as the rise of populism is preventing the cross-border cooperation necessary to repair the ‘flaws in the construction of the single currency.’ 2 These disputes have a decidedly tragic quality, as there is broad
-term visions for the future of the EU. Amongst the three parties, the SPD has been the most enthusiastic about the EU, but recent challenges, such as the Eurozone crisis and the refugee crisis, have cast a shadow on the SPD’s self-proclaimed Europhilia. Meanwhile, the Labour Party has constructed the EU as an economic project that serves the national economic interest. The lack of a more coherent and convincing EU narrative became apparent before, during, and after the 2016 EU referendum. The PS, more than Labour and the SPD, has called for the re-orientation of the EU
suggesting that the cases of other Eurozone countries are examined in the light of theories advanced in this book, I discuss the degree to which new research questions might develop knowledge of asymmetric relations between labour movements. Further research in areas related to theories of institutions and European integration is also encouraged. Finally, I evaluate ways in which the EU might be reformed so as to strengthen institutional grounds for labour cooperation. Although arguments in this book present the EU in a mixed light, I stress that the
-liberalism is the absence No social democratic alternative in Europe?61 of social democracy as an effective political agent. Any illusions to the contrary were dispelled already at the 2009 elections to the European Parliament, where social democracy took a battering. Most dramatically, the Euro-zone crisis has in effect obliterated PASOK in Greece and the shambolic state of affairs of the Italian left was confirmed in the 2013 elections. In Britain, the financial crisis ruined Gordon Brown’s credentials of economic competence as the Labour Party was thrown out of office in
labelled as neo-liberals by Social Democrats – had done to roll back the welfare state during their time in office from 1982 to 1998 (Schröder, 2003; Camerra-Rowe, 2004; Merkel et al., 2006: 172–87). Moreover, these cuts stood in sharp contrast to earlier tax cuts that had one-sidedly benefited rich households and large corporations (Harlen, 2002). Taken together, economic policies under Schröder led to a massive increase in income inequality and insecure and low-wage jobs (Bispinck and Schulten, German social democracy133 Table 8.1 GDP growth, 2000–06 Germany Euro-Zone