Social Europe: The four worlds of the social-ecological state

From this point of view, a speech by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, on March 12th, amid the shock of the Covid-19 health crisis, appeared as an epiphany as radical as it was late: ‘What this pandemic is already revealing is that free health care, without condition of income, course or profession, our welfare state, are not costs or burdens, but precious goods, essential assets when fate strikes … There are goods and services which must be placed outside the laws of the market.’ [...]

The decade that is opening is indeed that of the ecological challenge: faced with climate change, the destruction of biodiversity and the degradation of ecosystems—visible and tangible everywhere on the planet—human communities must initiate a profound transformation of attitudes and behaviours to prevent the 21st century being one of self-destruction of human wellbeing. The first months of the first year of this decisive decade leave little doubt about the urgency of this collective effort.

First, Australia was ravaged by a succession of giant fires, which only rain eventually extinguished. Then the Covid-19 pandemic rendered inactive almost half of humanity and, with that, the global economy. Yet the worldwide health crisis is, at its origin, ecological: this virus—as before it SARS, MERS, Ebola and to some extent HIV-AIDS—is a pathology of the human-animal frontier. It is because humans have gone too far in the destruction of ecosystems, the conquest of biodiversity and the commodification of life that they are today affected, panicked and paralysed—in other words conquered in turn.

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Social Europe: The nascent paradigm shift in the EU

The commission is building up a stockpile of medical equipment, which would be distributed where it is most needed through the EU’s RescEU civil protection mechanism. The ‘Brussels bureaucracy’, much derided for its infamous red tape and cumbersome decision-making, is providing the competent, cool and nimble leadership so invaluable in a crisis. [...]

In a yet more uncharacteristic move, the commission has introduced an unemployment reinsurance scheme—Support to Mitigate Unemployment Risks in an Emergency (SURE)—which is to be financed through bonds issued by the EU itself. The scheme is to supply aid to areas that have been hit hardest, by providing reinsurance to state-financed income-support programmes for workers affected by the crisis.

These developments are uncharacteristic as they go against the reputation that the core EU bodies have acquired as being in thrall to neoliberal globalisation—a reputation developed in the course of at least two decades of ‘structural adjustment’ policies of labour-market deregulation and pressures to cut public expenditure. Such policies had been adopted for the sake of increasing the union’s ‘competitiveness’ in the global economy, since member states vouched, in the Lisbon strategy of 2000 (and its subsequent iterations), to make Europe ‘the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world’. [...]

This not only goes beyond the idea of ensuring a level playing-field among the member states, which has long been the raison d’être of the EU governing institutions. It also surpasses the minimalist idea of social justice as a matter of wealth distribution from the wealthy to the poor. It is signalling a move towards something more ambitious—building a robust public sector at the heart of a revived welfare state. This time, a trans-European one.

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EURACTIV: Croatia president quits state ceremony in protest at Nazi-era salute

“But one of the participants, who was in line to lay the wreath before me, was dressed in clothes with the emblem ‘For the homeland ready’, which is something I do not want to be a part of,” Milanovic said.

‘For the homeland ready’ is a salute used by the Ustasha movement which ruled Croatia during World War Two, when the country was formally allied with the Nazis and brutally persecuted Jews, Serbs and anti-fascists. [...]

Croatia, which became independent in 1991 and joined the EU in July 2013, has paid lip service to anti-fascism but has been ambivalent about its fascist past. The legacy of the country’s Ustasha regime, as well as of the subsequent 45 years of communism, is a topic that sharply divides the Croatian society to this day.

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Deutsche Welle: Russia removes Vladimir Putin mosaic from military church

An image of the mosaic, which showed Putin alongside Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, was first made public in Russian media last week. While the Kremlin has not publicly commented on the mosaic, the decision to remove it apparently came from Putin himself.

Bishop Stefan of the church in question denied reports that the mosaic had been dismantled, but told Russian media that it had indeed been removed from display "in accordance with the wish of the head of state [Putin]." [...]

Meanwhile, Vladimir Legoyda of the Synodal Department for Relations between the church and the media told Russian media that a second mosaic depicting former leader Josef Stalin should also be removed.

"With his name associated with many troubles in the lives of people who can not be crossed out of history," he told Russian radio program Faith, while acknowledging that the featuring of secular figures in churches is not abnormal.

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Salon: Judge blocks Trump from giving coronavirus relief for Native American communities to corporations

A federal judge blocked the Trump administration Monday from passing out coronavirus relief funds intended to help Native American communities to certain for-profit corporations owned by Natives. [...]

More than a dozen tribal governments sued the administration, arguing that the decision would dilute funds intended to help areas among the hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic. [...]

The administration argued that ANCs could deliver services to communities like a tribal government, but Mehta said there was no evidence that ANCs were providing public services during the crisis. He also took issue with the government's claim that the Treasury Inspector General could simply take back the money if it was improperly distributed.

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