Episode #21 brings to you the fourth instalment of Social Europe Talk from the European Parliament in Brussels. The topic of discussion is "Germany - Europe's Reluctant Hegemon?" Social Europe Editor-in-Chief Henning Meyer is joined by the MEPs Pervenche Berès (France), Javi Lopez (Spain) and Tanja Fajon (Slovenia) as well as the director of the Brussels office of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Uwe Optenhögel. 

Social Europe Talk: Germany - Europe's Reluctant Hegemon?

The mission of Social Europe (SE) is to strengthen democracy by finding and discussing solutions to the most pressing political, economic and social issues of our time. We use the values of freedom, sustainability and equality as the foundation on which we examine society's most pressing challenges.

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Around the world, education 'reforms' have made schooling more market-mimicking and competitive, rendering education a 'club good' for the better off. Finland shows how treating education as a public good and teachers as autonomous professionals brings better student performance overall, without intrusive and expensive inspection.

Pasi Sahlberg: lessons from Finnish education

Philipp Ther, professor of central-European history at the University of Vienna and director of its Research Centre for the History of Transformations, talks to Robin Wilson of Social Europe about how societies which show hospitality to refugees in the long run benefit from their openness. Prof Ther is author of The Outsiders: Refugees in Europe Since 1492 (Princeton University Press).

Philipp Ther: The Outsiders

Albena Azmanova is an associate professor in political and social thought at the University of Kent’s Brussels School of International Studies and author most recently of Capitalism on Edge: How Fighting Precarity can Achieve Radical Change without Crisis or Utopia (Columbia University Press). She talks to Robin Wilson, acting editor-in-chief of Social Europe.

Albena Azmanova: Capitalism on Edge

Thomas Piketty is a French economist who is professor of economics at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS), associate chair at the Paris School of Economics and centennial professor of economics in the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics.

Thomas Piketty: Capital and Ideology

Vivien A. Schmidt, Jean Monnet Professor of European Integration, Professor of International Relations, and Professor of Political Science at Boston University talks to Social Europe about Europe's crisis of legitimacy and the interrelationship between democratic legitimacy at the European level and the ongoing Eurozone crisis.

Social Europe Talk: Germany - Europe's Reluctant Hegemon?

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