1,721,000 research outputs found
The ‘Leap’ from Coordination to Harmonization in Social Policy: Labour Mobility and Occupational Pensions in Europe
No full textThe Supplementary Pension Rights Directive, legislated in 2014, represents a leap from minimum coordination of social security rights to minimal harmonization, thereby facilitating the portability of occupational pensions across the EU. The Lisbon Treaty, which relaxed the voting requirements in the Council, facilitated its adoption. In the ‘shadow of the vote’, the opponents (mainly Continental CMEs) abandoned the defence of the status quo for less exacting legislation. The majority of Member States instead understood that consensus was necessary to appease the domestic concerns of countries like Germany and to strengthen its negotiating position vis-à-vis the Parliament. Despite the inevitable watering down, the final law modifies domestic pension arrangements across the EU, thereby benefiting mobile workers. The implications are twofold. First, political economists should take into account the growing European influence on domestic pension policymaking. Second, the extension of QMV to sensitive areas of social policy will probably enhance overall harmonization
Pension Reforms in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe. From Post-Socialist Transition to the Global Financial Crisis
No full textThis book traces and analyzes the legislation and implementation of pension reforms in four Central, Eastern and Southeastern European countries: Croatia, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia. By comparing the political economy of their policymaking processes, it seeks to pinpoint regularities between institutional settings, actor constellations, decision-making strategies and reform.Guardiancich employs a historical institutionalist framework to analyze the policies, actors and institutions that characterized the period between the collapse of socialism and the global financial crisis of 2008-2011. He argues that viable pension reforms should not be seen simply as an event, but rather as a continuing process that must be fiscally, socially and politically sustainable. In particular, the primary goal of a pension scheme is to reduce poverty, provide adequate retirement income and insure against the risks of old age within given fiscal constraints, and this will happen only if the scheme enjoys continuing political support at all levels. To this end the author individuates those institutional characteristics of countries that increase the consistency of reforms and lower the likelihood of policy reversals in time.1. Introduction
2. Studying Pensions in Post-Socialist Countries: A Theoretical Framework
3. Croatia: Authoritarian Rule, Systemic Shifts and Neoliberal Policies
4. Hungary: The Negative Effects of Political Budget Cycles
5. Poland: How to Radically Rewrite the Social Contract
6. Slovenia: Neocorporatist Constraints and the Postponement of Reforms
7. Comparative Politics of Reform: Legislation, Implementation and Sustainability
8. Conclusions: Findings and the Future of ReformsPublished version of EUI PhD thesis, 200
Recovering from the Crisis through Social Dialogue in the New EU Member States: The Case of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovenia
No full textThe recent financial and economic crisis is the biggest economic downturn experienced in Central and Eastern Europe since the immediate post-Communist era, and its impacts were deeply felt in the four countries under review. A reduction in domestic demand, an increase in unemployment, rising public debt, and lower living standards are among the results of the economic crisis. The authors explain that the measures aimed to mitigate its impacts and accelerate economic recovery can be grouped into three categories: 1) short-term anti-crisis measures negotiated at the national level; 2) executive measures negotiated at the sectoral and firm level; and 3) fiscal consolidation measures and structural reforms negotiated at the national level. Social dialogue has played an important role in the post-Communist era in Central and Eastern Europe; first in the early years of transition, and later during the EU accession process. As the volume shows, social dialogue was used as a key mechanism in devising and implementing anti-crisis measures, particularly in the first part of the downturn. The short-term anti-crisis measures were developed with the support of the social partners and were by and large effective. Tripartite consultations and collective agreements negotiated at the sectoral and firm levels focused on the preservation of jobs and helping enterprises to adapt to the difficult economic environment. Conversely, in the second phase of the crisis, social dialogue was challenged and its role was relegated. Governments faced pressure to comply with the Maastricht criteria and with the conditions set by the international financial institutions; as a result, austerity measures were adopted, in most cases without the support of the social partners. In response, demonstrations have been organized by the social partners and other civil society organizations in order to express disapproval of the governmentimposed austerity policies. However, as the studies show, social dialogue did not break down in the four countries under review, as was the case in some parts of Western and Eastern Europe, thus illustrating a certain maturity of industrial relations in the countries concerned
The Sustainability of Pension Reforms in Central, Eastern and South-eastern Europe
No full textThe World Bank has supported the fundamental reform of unfair and wasteful Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) systems around the world since 1994. It sponsors a systemic overhaul that involves the dual paradigmatic shift from collective to individual responsibility and from state to private provision. Central, eastern and south-eastern Europe very eagerly embraced the new old-age pension paradigm without, however, knowing what its future implications would be. Widespread criticism, as well as political and economic failures, elicited a re-thinking of the Bank’s blueprint. This sounds not only as a mea culpa but it also signals that the new paradigm is a sometimes unnecessary and risky strategy which may fail to protect against old-age poverty as well as being politically very vulnerable. To substantiate this, the article accounts for the pension crises and responses in Croatia, Hungary and Slovenia. The three countries ended up with radically different institutional designs of their reformed pension systems, only to be all, to a varying degree, politically, socially or fiscally unsustainable
Welfare State Retrenchment in Central and Eastern Europe: The Case of Pension Reforms in Poland and Slovenia
No full textOnline at: http://www.fm-kp.si/zalozba/ISSN/1581-6311/2_041-064.pd
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