FEPS Talks

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FEPS Head of Communications Ainara Bascuñana interviews Ottilia Maunganidze, lawyer and Head of Special Projects in the office of the Executive Director at the Institute of Security Studies, based in South Africa, and member of the Progressive Migration Group.

Following the Progressive Migration Group Conference on September 10, Ottilia discusses the New Pact on Migration and Asylum from the viewpoint of African countries and the pressing need to abandon the current stagnant and toxic narratives on migration that portray migration as a threat when it is a major driver of development and prosperity.

Find out more about the work of the Progressive Migration Group

Matthias Kollatz has been working on public finance in various positions: as Vice-President of the EIB in Luxembourg but then as Financial Senator of Berlin. Here he shares his views about what changes the great financial crisis of 2008-9 brought about, and how important it has been in a post-crisis model to elevate promotional banks into a more central role.

He acknowledges some important steps of this financial transition, like the Juncker Plan that was launched in 2014. However, he believes that the German debt break (Schuldenbremse) is a product of a time when the investment needs of the economy were underestimated, and in particular there was no proper estimation of the financial implications of the Green Deal.

In order to deliver enough and the right type of climate investment, the EU and its member states need to upgrade their public and promotional banking capacity, but also reform their fiscal rules. Through similar innovations, adequate financing of social needs like housing could also be within reach. It is not the green and social ambitions that should be lowered but the common investment capacities of Europe that need to be upgraded.

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Professor Iain Begg (European Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science) shares his views about two reports which have become key talking points in 2024 in EU circles: one written by Enrico Letta and another one authored by Mario Draghi. Though reports often fade away after they are published, the EU is bound to discuss the internal market as well as competitiveness to develop a coherent economic policy for the coming cycle.

According to Prof. Begg, a thorough analysis of the EU's finances (not just the conventional budget, but the wider 'galaxy' of off-budget mechanisms) would be justified. A fresh approach, including establishing an EU level financial framework and a sharper focus on EU public goods is needed. A new progressive reform should build on the legacy of the Juncker Plan (2014) but also the Next Generation EU (2020) which may inspire common solutions in support of our climate but also defence policies.

In 2025, the European Commission needs to present its proposals for a new Multiannual Financial Framework. Now is the time to launch wide-ranging debates –without taboos— on key elements of the EU budget: cohesion as well as agricultural policy, but also new expenditure programmes. Reforms to these major policy fields will be necessary given the broader interest in EU enlargement which, at least from a budgetary perspective, should not be as tricky as one might believe.

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In this episode of FEPS Talks we welcome Sergei Stanishev, who is leaving the European Parliament after ten years. He summarises his insights gathered as a MEP, but also as the President of the Party of European Socialists, a position he held between 2011 and 2022.

He assesses the EP election outcome from a socialist perspective, and reflects on the evolution of EU social democratic politics over the recent decades. The conversation reaches out to topics including the Green Deal, migration, as well as the prospects of creating peace in Eastern Europe again.

Stanishev concludes the podcast by outlining political tasks and strategic priorities for the upcoming period. Stanishev reminds the listeners that originally, social democracy faced the rise of industial capitalism, which had to be reformed. Today, the mission is to tame the formidable technological and economic trasformations, and put them in the service of the people.

This podcast was recorded just a few hours after the polling stations across the EU closed. It features Matthias Ecke, a returning Member of the European Parliament from SPD in Germany. Together with him, Ania Skrzypek, FEPS Director for Research and Training, dives into the campaign's evaluation, analyses the outcomes and considers successful progressive strategies for the future. Jointly, they search for answers on how to halt the march of the right-wing radicals further and safeguard politics from aggression, but even more so, how to bring the attention of the citizens back to the key progressive proposals.

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This episode of FEPS Talks features Joanna Maycock, an award-winning feminist campaigner and co-author of the policy study “Women Civil Society Organisation Leaders for systemic change.” Interviewed by Ainara Bascuñana, Head of Communications at FEPS, Joanna analyses how transformational feminist leadership is the key to addressing society's increasingly complex challenges and to a paradigm shift towards more sustainable, caring and inclusive societies.

They also delve into the study's findings, bringing to the forefront the data and remaining barriers female CSO leaders face in the workplace. The episode concludes with recommendations on how to change the work culture and support feminist leadership in Europe.

Read “Women CSO leaders for systemic change”

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She explains the relevance of representing workers’ interests within the European Parliament and stresses the work done with the progressive family at the European level, in collaboration with the EU Commissioner Schmit and PES, for which she leads the Social Europe Network.

Interviewed by FEPS Director David Rinaldi, Agnes is not short of ideas for the next European Legislature and suggests making bold steps on public procurement, minimum income, and a European local employment guarantee, in line with the zero unemployment areas that are emerging in different member states.

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Inspired by the recent conference organised by the Belgian presidency of the EU Council on Social Europe, ETUC General Secretary Esther Lynch shares her assessment of the „La Hulpe declaration”, and expresses some regret for the lack of full support from the side of business. She offers a shortlist of the most important achievements of the current EU mandate, praising EU Commissioners Nicolas Schmit and Helena Dalli. She elaborates on the high risk of returning to an austerity focused macroeconomic policy in the EU, while the workers of Europe would need a new orientation for investment and job creation, especially to facilitate a just transition. We learn that the Unions are awaiting the new MEPs and the incoming European Commission with very concrete demands and policy ideas. At the very end of the conversation, Esther Lynch also reveals her personal plans for Labour Day.

Professor Jonas Pontusson is sharing his views about the need for a “social democratic renewal”. There is no simple recipe for this, and one needs to research political economy as well as sociology for a proper assessment of the dynamics of progressive politics today. But the discussions on the decline of social democracy already started in the early 1990s, after which the rise of the “Third Way” created a feeling of revival for a while. In the long run, a most critical relationship is the one between social democracy and the working class. The assumption that the working class automatically supports socialists was probably never true, but today the relevance of the social democratic programme is highlighted by the growing inequalities and the rise of the so-called precariat. Sweden offers an example for a more resilient social democratic organisation and representation. Nevertheless, it also applies there that the offer must stress better the economic agenda: improving redistribution and finding ways to strengthen economic democracy. In various countries, new forms of workers’ activism give hope for revitalising the labour movement and social democratic politics as well.

Brexit is not an issue of the past but the present, and it remains with us for the foreseeable future. FEPS Secretary General László Andor discusses its causes and consequences with Professor Catherine Barnard (University of Cambridge, Trinity College). They agree that in 2016 the pro-Brexit side in reality voted against EU membership, but not for a clear vision of the UK outside of the EU, and the UK is still working out what it wants to be as a country and where. The animosity against the EU had developed over time and across political spectrums, not just within the backbenchers of the Conservatives. Without the UK, however, the EU is finding it easier to move towards a Social Union to ensure that welfare states can be made more resilient.