Right-wing governments talking the pro-worker talk and walking all over the workers. Finland edition bsky.app/profile/jmko...

The #Draghi Report rightly drew attention to the difficulties that European companies face in scaling up. One of the proposed solutions is an EU-wide "28th regime" for innovative companies. This analysis shows that serious pitfalls must be avoided & safeguards instituted if this proposal is to work.

Is there a doctor in the house? The most powerful person on the planet glaringly obviously has serious mental health problems and no-one is doing anything about it.

Kudos, indeed, to Spain and PM Sanchez for breaking the taboo in Europe. At the same time it is worth noting that, from a global perspective, Europe/OECD lags well behind world opinion on Palestine. (Source: @theguardian.com )

Trump makes a Bond Villain look like a cute kitten. In hock to the fossil fuel industry, his administration is systematically seeking to destroy the renewable energy industry in order to restore "carbon dominance". This is risking the lives of millions of people for financial and political gain.

🗣️ Last week at the #ILERA 2025 European Congress (International Labour and Employment Relations Association) @durham-university.bsky.social 👇 What can the ETUI's latest research in the industrial relations field tell us about the state of #SocialEurope today? Key points of discussion included... 🧵

🚨 Publication alert 🚨 New e-book available on European Industrial Policy via Social Europe ebooks.socialeurope.eu/9/industrial...

"While western leaders gather in diplomacy...rules based order" Seriously? Trump has trashed the global trade regime (EU acquiesces). Has lit a fire under global climate accords. US & EU do nothing to stop the slaughter in Gaza. Kallas is upset & puzzled why non-western powers are coming together 🤦

www.etui.org/news/not-muc... A very quick tour d'horizon of the challenges for the EU that have built up over the normally quiet summer period.

An important and welcome development for the whole Euro Area economy. In Germany, the "wage anchor" for the entire currency area, nominal wages are growing at a stable rate of around 4%, consumer prices at the ECB target of ~2%. Real wages are therefore increasing at a substantial rate, ~2% 1/3

True. But Trump has been jumping all over the rule of law for months. The damage in most cases won't show up for months (eg deportations) or years (higher ed). Whereas attacking central bank independence has the potential to provoke a very fast and violent reaction. You break it, you own it.

🚨Just one week left to apply!🚨 Exciting opportunity to work on EU economic policy issues at @etui.bsky.social in Brussels.👇 Don't miss it - the window closes this weekend. #econsky

on.ft.com/4mv5v86 You don't have to be a genius, but apparently a bit smarter than Bessent, to see the flaw and danger in this plan. US Treasury wants to issue a wall of short-term debt. No prob! Tether and others buy it to back #stablecoins. The shiny new coins are bought for boring old dollars. 1

What do the latest Eurostat trade data tell us about the risks to the European economy and jobs from the ongoing #trade and #tariff turmoil? A short 🧵. Spoiler: No drama yet (in June data), but some worrying signs that require policymakers' attention Data: ec.europa.eu/eurostat/en/... 1/8

BREAKING: European unions representing 45 million workers across Europe just sent a letter to EU High Representative Kaja Kallas demanding decisive and principled EU action on Gaza.

As I have noted before, paying Chinese workers higher (nominal) wages would kill a number of birds with one stone. It would arrest what looks increasingly like a Japan-style slide into deflation, avoid the fiscal pressures from government deficit spending and reduce CN's current account surplus.

What more interesting time to work in Brussels on pressing economic policy issues facing Europe? Deadline end August!

Series 4 episode 11 of the fantasy mystery "Right-wing populists talk the pro-worker talk (and walk the plutocrat walk)".

on.ft.com/45tFsGO Notwithstanding a widespread belief that governments are powerless to rein in large corporations, we see clearly here that Big Oil initially reacted to policy signals prioritising Green Transition. And as those signals now weaken (EU) or are reversed (US), it reverts to type.

I hang my head in shame at Europe's failure to do anything to stop the atrocities committed before our very eyes, systematically and over months, by a country, Israel, with which the EU has an Association Agreement. A moral and political failure of historic proportions.

The media should report this sort of thing more often: good public policy that, over time, improves people's lives. www.politico.eu/article/hels... Relentless "breaking bad" news creates a sense of powerlessness. Good policies create benchmarks for other countries. 👍@politico.eu 👏 Helsinki/Finland

There's a thing about Trump's firing Erika McEntarfer at the BLS and attempts to force out Fed chief Jay Powell that wd be funny if the stakes were not so high. If he's right that the BLS is cooking the jobs numbers & in fact the US economy is booming, the Fed is right not to cut interest rates. 1/2

At @etui.bsky.social we have an exciting opening for an economist. www.etui.org/sites/defaul... There could scarcely be a more interesting and challenging time to work in Brussels on European economic policy issues, in an international, multidisciplinary team. Pls spread the word!

What a deal! The EU has "agreed to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on additional US energy products and weapons, in exchange for the broad 15 per cent levy that covers many European exports including cars." Not a misprint. Unthinkable during my lifetime. But this is 2025. on.ft.com/4onuknM 1

Let us be clear. 2+ million Gazans are not starving, they are being deliberately & systematically starved by Israel. The EU could implement low-cost sanctions (Association Agreement) but does not. It is complicit in genocide. Germany, in particular, is actively abetting genocide with weapons sales.

Take a look at the ETUI’s revamped website on worker participation! 🔗 worker-participation.eu/

The backsliding on climate commitments threatens to turn into a rout. Now it is a turn of the oil multis. on.ft.com/46W8EZl It should not be a surprise to policymakers that oil multis will not enter voluntary commitments to not open new fields and substantially and swiftly reduce output. 1/2

I just updated this with links to, among others, @thomaspiketty.bsky.social and Gastón Nievas' fantastic World Historical Balance of Payments Database and Müller et al.'s brand new Global Macro Database.

At @etui.bsky.social we have an exciting opening for an economist. www.etui.org/sites/defaul... There could scarcely be a more interesting and challenging time to work in Brussels on European economic policy issues, in an international, multidisciplinary team. Pls spread the word!

The EU would do better to reach agreement with the recipients of these screeds than with their author. The value of any agreement with the latter is dubious at best. A coordinated approach with Japan, Korea, China and other BRICS countries interested in rules-based trade would be powerful indeed.

Tariffs can be "paid" either by: foreign exporters lowering sales prices, importers lowering margins, or consumers paying higher prices. Dean Baker shows that option 1 is *not* happening. The distributional conflict is between US firms and consumers. Profit squeeze or inflation. That's the question

I love nationalist, autocratic, neoiliberal, billionaire-dominated parties so much that I am glad America is going to have two of them. #Musk #AmericaParty

on.ft.com/3GvhSRz This goes to show how much expectations have shifted. The fact is that a 20% tariff on Vietnam represents a massive increase. (The US MFN was previously 2-3%.) But it is discussed here in terms of relief that it is lower than the threatened 46%.

Sadly, the danger posed by the Trump presidency is so great that one can only hope the House does NOT water down the Senate version of the Big Ugly Bill. The more egregious & shameless the tax cuts for the 1% and heartless the welfare cuts, the better the chance to end the nightmare at the mid-terms

Good thread 👇 on @martinsandbu.ft.com (€) article. The policies subsumed under the branding-nightmare term financial repression were an important part of the trente glorieuses. I wd emphasise more than Martin does the extent to which post-1980 financial liberalisation has been crisis ridden. 1/2

Sad news that the former head of the German trade union confederation DGB, Michael Sommer, has passed away. Not the least of his achievements was establishing @imkinstitut.bsky.social, which since 2005 has contributed to a more balanced debate in Germany on economic policy issues.

on.ft.com/447GxF4 Don't Look Down! If you do you'll see that globally we are digging out and burning more coal than ever before. Releasing more CO2 and methane than ever. Despite all the commitments, new coal mines and power plants are opening, locking in a strategy everyone knows is unsustainable.

The cost-saving joint procurement element is important & long overdue. But it ought to be obvious that €billions in additional military hardware for small west European armed forces barely increases Europe's collective defence capacity without provision for flexible and coordinated deployment. 1/3

Following the NATO debacle, it would be a First-Order calamity if the EU, the world's largest trade block, were to appease Trump on tariffs. Quick relief that locks in bad terms is not in Europe's interest, which has tools to push back and alliances to mobilise and strengthen.

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j... Europe's shame in 13 words "EU may take action against Israel if conditions in Gaza do not improve" A collective refusal to take even minimal measures despite recognising evidence of daily war crimes and genocidal policies by Israel in Gaza. 1/2

Now it is indeed 24th June 2025, a good time to recall the lies and fantasies that led to the #Brexit disaster. Daniel #Hannan was far from the only one, but one of the more literate and most deluded. www.reaction.life/p/britain-lo... Now Baron Hannan of Kingsclere, warm seat in the House of Lords

Thoughtful commentary on critical current topics. Wrt to the assessment of small effects of oil-market disruption on European growth and inflation, I wd note that: growth is lacklustre & faces headwinds; inflation has only just returned to target after overshoot. Seemingly small effects will hurt.

Particularly bizarre statement (yes, I know) given that the US is the stand-out "no vacation nation", as @jschmittwdc.bsky.social pointed out many many moons ago www.etui.org/publications...

Rates vs. levels The latest @imkinstitut.bsky.social inflation monitor shows that, in Germany, the inflation *rate* is now around half a percentage point lower for low-income than for high-income households, as price pressures have shifted from food/energy to services. But... 1/2

It's actually worse than silence. Europe continues to sell arms to, continues to maintain priveliged trading relations with the perpetrator of these crimes.

on.ft.com/4071Xzv International prominence must indeed be earned. But the right way. Depressingly, the ECB President appears not to understand that Europe lacks safe assets PRECISELY BECAUSE the EU has not run large fiscal deficits, which is how such assets are created. 1/2

Appalling and shameful statement from the President of the @ec.europa.eu, betraying European values. Netanyahu is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes! The EU must present him with sanctions-backed demands not chat with and back him while shedding crocodile tears over Gaza.

Wildly speculative, non-evidential and, frankly, unhinged (all on the eastern flank) statements by Rutte. Ofc Europe needs to do more to ensure an effective collective defence. But not throw hundreds of billions of euro & scarce human resources into ineffective structures. Especially given that .. 1

The complete moral and political failure of Germany's 'political class' and media over Israel/Gaza becomes ever more apparent. The general population, if this survey from a well-established poll is correct, is streets ahead in understanding what Never Again means. #NieWieder

Welcome that the German government is seeking to boost investment and green transition. But focusing on corporate car fleets and raising the car-price threshold for subsidies from an already hi €70k to 100k is a poor choice, economically, environmentally and socially.