Social Europe and Well-Being  

Social EU / PODCAST

A strong social Europe: Long overdue or a bridge too far?
The upcoming Porto Social Summit hopes to give a much-needed push to the European Pillar of Social Rights, the EU’s attempt to add a social dimension to its policies. But without any real power in this area, what concrete results can we expect?

In this episode, the EPC's Social Europe and Well-Being team looks ahead at the summit and explores the tension between the dream of a social Europe and doing the work of building it. They explain why EU-wide social policies are worth pursuing and how they could be implemented successfully.

The discussion also covers health, the potential role of the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility in spurring reforms, and the disproportionate effect COVID-19 has had on women in the workplace.
With Rebecca Castermans , Simona Guagliardo , Mihai Palimariciuc , Aileen McLeod , Laura Rayner

Health / PODCAST

Vaccine certificates: Damned if you do, damned if you don't
An EU vaccine passport could help us get back to normal sooner, but at what cost?

Despite lingering disagreement between member states, the Commission will soon present its proposal for an EU vaccine passport. The upcoming 'digital green pass' should make it easier for EU citizens to cross borders in time for the summer holidays.

But not everyone is on board; health experts warn there are still too many unknowns about the effectiveness of the existing vaccines, while others worry about the ethical, social, and privacy implications.

With vaccine certificates becoming a potential ethical, technical and political minefield, the Commission and member state governments will have to think through all possible effects and outcomes: What are the benefits of having an EU vaccine certificate? What are the potential pitfalls? And what could be some of the unforeseen, downstream consequences in the long run?

In this episode, EPC analysts try to answer those questions, covering the health, social, freedom of movement and data privacy dimensions of the debate.

With contributions from Greek Minister of Digital Governance, Kyriakos Pierrakakis, and EPC policy analysts Simona Guagliardo, Alberto-Horst Neidhardt and Andreas Aktoudianakis; and Programme Assistant Helena Hahn.
With Rebecca Castermans , Alberto-Horst Neidhardt , Simona Guagliardo , Andreas Aktoudianakis , Helena Hahn