During the last two decades, the European Union has come under increasing existential threat. Successive historic crises have called into question the EU’s ability to meet the needs of its citizens, and effectively navigate the emerging challenges of the 21st century. From sovereign debt, Mediterranean migration, and Brexit to climate change, the Covid-19 pandemic, and spiralling conflicts just beyond its borders, the EU has struggled to carve out a meaningful path forward. Worse, through action or inaction, it has often failed to live up to the lofty ideals of its foundation. In response, the EU has faced a growing tide of Europhobic dissent, driven by insurgent populism and nationalism. Left unanswered, this tide promises to overwhelm the EU and irretrievably damage the legitimacy of its institutions—or see them coopted into the chauvinist projects of a new and emboldened ‘authoritarian international’. In light of this, progressive forces who value the positive role the EU can play in the world face a stark and urgent choice. They can give the EU a new fundamental vision, centred on elevating the situation of the worst-off in all corners of European society. Or they must reconcile themselves to losing it permanently as a force for freedom and equality, justice, solidarity, and pluralism across the European continent and beyond. A Radical Bargain for Europe makes an impassioned case for the first of these two choices. It argues that social policy is the site where this new vision must be developed, as the live frontier of the latest debates over the course of European integration. And it presents the concept of a basic income as a concrete step towards fulfilling the promise of a ‘social Europe’—folding in one of the greatest questions of modern social policy debates in many national contexts. This book presents an outline of what a European basic income (EUBI) would look like. It argues that, in its fundamental form, an EUBI has its attractions to a wide range of progressive ideologies, from the far left, greens, and social democracy to liberalism and Christian democracy. Each of these ideologies adds its own unique colour to the shape an EUBI could take, in principle and in practice. Yet all of them must work together in a broad ‘agenda coalition’ to take the next step towards European social integration, embrace an EUBI, and realise the EU’s radical potential.

This book analyses contemporary trends in radical unionism in Europe. It contains nine country case-studies that probe the limits and possibilities of trade union renewal and focus on radical activity. It assesses the degree to which we are witnessing the emergence of 'radical political unionism' as an alternative model of European trade unionism.

Within the framework of the new European economic governance, neoliberal views on wages have further increased in prominence and have steered various reforms of collective bargaining rules and practices. As the crisis in Europe came to be largely interpreted as a crisis of competitiveness, wages were seen as the core adjustment variable for ‘internal devaluation’, the claim being that competitiveness could be restored through a reduction of labour costs. This book proposes an alternative view according to which wage developments need to be strengthened through a Europe-wide coordinated reconstruction of collective bargaining as a precondition for more sustainable and more inclusive growth in Europe. It contains major research findings from the CAWIE2 – Collectively Agreed Wages in Europe – project, conducted in 2014–2015 for the purpose of discussing and debating the currently dominant policy perspectives on collectively-bargained wage systems under the new European economic governance.

Bulgaria has faced previously unimaginable pressures over the last two decades, as it struggles to adapt to a post-Communist landscape and to reform both state and society in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union, while facing the challenge of increased efforts by NATO and the EU to expand into this region. In Negotiating Diplomacy in the New Europe, Stefanos Katsikas sheds new light on the mechanisms and factors which have influenced the making and shaping of Bulgarian foreign policy, examining the extent to which both domestic factors and the international environment have affected its trajectory. Following the promulgation of Gorbachev's now-famous policies of glasnost and perestroika, and the fall from power of the Bulgarian Communist Party - led at the time by Todor Zhivkov - many have directly attributed Bulgaria's changes in foreign policy to the processes of democratization witnessed throughout Eastern Europe. However, although this was to some extent the case, the commonalities shared with the country's foreign policy during the Cold War era leave in question the extent to which the effects of democratization alone suffice to explain Sofia's post-communist diplomatic and strategic policies. By analysing the influencing factors of Bulgaria's foreign policy since 1989, Katsikas considers factors such as domestic policies, as well as the effects of EU and NATO efforts to expand their influence and membership. Rich in primary sources, including personal interviews with key protagonists who have dominated foreign policy-making in both communist and post-communist Bulgaria, Negotiating Diplomacy in the New Europe examines the shift of foreign relations not only within the context of post-Cold War democratization, but also the country's integration into wider Euro-Atlantic frameworks. It thus holds invaluable analysis for researchers of Europe's post-communist international relations, as well as those interested in the processes of democratization and those of foreign policy formation.

The book explores the promotion of Europeanness, which aims to arouse feelings of belonging to the European Union. It demonstrates that the promotion of Europeanness at the EU level does not constitute an overarching identity policy that imposes a homogenous interpretation of European identity. Rather, it is a process of negotiation in which various entrepreneurs of Europeanness within and outside the EU institutions invent and communicate representations of Europe. Both the negotiation and the multilayered representations of Europe that it produces are investigated through three case studies: the academia and the historians, European heritage, and the iconography of the euro.

This book is a follow-up to the ETUI 2012 volume 'The triumph of failed ideas'. The focus of the book is the weight attributed to the different economic and social development paths in ten individual EU countries, and their interaction with the austerity regime established at EU level which in fact is deepening the crisis rather than paving ways out of it. The most dangerous implication of this policy approach is, according to this study, that it is driving countries apart - misleadingly in the name of 'Europe', hence the title of the book 'divisive integration'. The main message of the book is that a gradual recovery is possible only if there is a change of course in individual countries that then triggers reactions in the policies of other countries and perturbations at the EU level. However, these changes in individual countries is no longer feasible without a green light or at least toleration from the level of the European institutions.

This book is designed to take a fresh look at the most basic elements of relations between the United States (and Canada) on one side of the Atlantic and European allies and partners on the other side. The requirement to take a fresh look derives from the radical changes that have taken place in many areas in recent years, along with the need both to gain a basic understanding of the interests and values that motivate governments and peoples on the two sides of the North Atlantic and to provide a solid grounding of analysis to help shape policies for the future.