Dear colleagues, 
 
FYI – IMF working paper “The Distributional Effects of Fiscal
Consolidation” by Ball, Furceri, Leigh, and Loungani (June 2013). The paper examines the distributional effects of fiscal consolidation. Using episodes of fiscal consolidation for a sample of 17 OECD countries over the period 1978–2009, the paper finds that fiscal consolidation has typically had significant distributional effects by raising inequality, decreasing wage income shares and increasing long-term unemployment. The evidence also suggests that
spending-based adjustments have had, on average, larger distributional effects than tax-based adjustments. 

The policy implications of the paper are disappointing but in any case the paper shows divergence from orthodoxy. We have seen recently other IMF research pieces acknowledging the adverse effects of austerity (by the same authors in 2011 see “Painful Medicine”). Further, IMF Chief Economist Olivier Blanchard recently admitted serious underestimation of multipliers with respect to the depth of the economic contraction in the design of austerity policies (Blanchard and Leigh 2013: “Growth Forecast Errors and Fiscal Multipliers.”). However, these IMF research papers do not appear to be reflected in IMF operations. 
 
In 2013, the scope of public expenditure consolidation is expected to intensify significantly, impacting 119 countries in terms of GDP, and then steadily increase to reach 132 countries in 2015. One of the key findings of ourpaper “The Age of Austerity: A Review of Public Expenditures and Adjustment Measures in 181 Countries”, based on IMF data and a review of 314 IMF country reports,  is precisely that fiscal contraction is most severe in the developing world. Contrary to public perception, austerity measures are
not limited to Europe; in fact, many of the principal adjustment measures feature most prominently in developing countries. 
 
The United Nations has repeatedly warned that austerity is likely to bring the global economy into further recession and increase inequality. In doing so, it has called on governments for forceful and concerted policy action
at the global level to make fiscal policy more countercyclical, more equitable and supportive of job creation; to tackle financial market instability and accelerate regulatory reforms; and to support development goals. A Recovery for All requires shedding the myopic scope of macroeconomic and fiscal policy decisions and, instead, basing them on their potential to achieve full employment, human development, people’s rights and sustainable growth.

Regards,
Isabel Ortiz
Director Global Social Justice Program
Initiative for Policy Dialogue, Columbia University, New York

Dear friends, 

This is the opinion that we expressed recently in an op ed in the FT:

A framework for sovereign debt restructuring is required. 
Late last month the Argentine government filed a writ at the US Supreme Court to have claims in its continuing legal battle with Elliott Management, a hedge fund, and other
creditors heard by that higher tribunal. 

Some commentators quickly dismissed the move as a simple strategy to buy time and delay an inevitable defeat for Buenos Aires, which already suffered a setback in New York courts that ruled in favour of Elliot Management. Far from
this, the pertinent question to ask is why it has taken so long for this case to arrive to the highest tribunal.

The case brought by those of Argentina’s creditors who did not participate in the two original debt restructurings was originally a civil litigation brought under New York state laws. A Supreme Court ruling is warranted because the case has far wider implications – for US foreign policy and the international financial system.

Every day the lack of a predictable set of rules for timely, orderly, fair and economically efficient resolutions of sovereign debt problems becomes harder to hide. Think of it as the absence of the bankruptcy procedures that exist at national level. Without them there is no speedy restitution to
disputes, funding dries up and crisis costs rise.

When several years ago the International Monetary Fund tried to provide a statutory framework for sovereign debt restructuring, the US argued that there was no need for such a framework since contractual solutions were available. 

The challenge by holdout creditors to the Argentine bond restructuring deal, if successful, would throw into question the feasibility of such contractual restructurings. It would also undermine the attractiveness of New York as a market for sovereign debt issues where investors can expect flexibility in the legal system to manage complex cases.

The holdouts have demanded their claims be paid in full, plus interest. But the one factor that sovereign debtors have in their favour for nudging creditors towards a voluntary debt restructuring is that bondholders may fear that, should they not join on it, they may be left out of any deal altogether. If creditors had reason to believe that litigation will allow them to recover the whole amount of their claims, why would they settle for less? 
 
The presence of collective action clauses – an essential mechanism for negotiating a settlement – is considered essential to limit the ability of holdouts to block a restructuring offer. This has been the dominant view over the past decade and the reason why CACs have spread since the Asian crisis, not only for emerging countries but more recently for European debt issues. A ruling in favour of the holdouts would also make this palliative ineffective. 

The IMF recently recognised as much, noting: “The Argentine decisions – if upheld – could exacerbate collective action problems and risk undermining the sovereign debt restructuring process.” This is why, the IMF added, a decision against Argentina would have systemic implications. 
 
Indeed, we do not know whether a ruling in favour of Argentina will necessarily stop holdouts from continuing to take their chances in litigation. But we do know that a ruling in favour of the holdouts will make voluntary debt
restructurings almost impossible in the future, thus putting further pressure to establish a statutory framework for sovereign debt restructuring mechanisms, and making the position of those who are against it, such as the US, harder to justify.

We believe that a formal international framework for debt restructuring is needed. A decision against Argentina will make the negotiation of such a mechanism inevitable. If only for these reasons, this should have been a case for the US Supreme Court all along. 

Best regards,
Aldo Caliari and Jose Antonio Ocampo

The writers are respectively director of the Rethinking Bretton Woods Project at Center of Concern and professor at Columbia University, former UN Under-Secretary General of Economic Affairs and a former finance minister of Colombia.  
_______________________________________________

Professor José Antonio Ocampo
SIPA, Columbia University
420 W 118th St., Of. 1315
New York, NY 10027 USA

Dear Colleagues,

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has just released an updated version of its unique Social Protection Index (SPI). The study, which analyzes government programs providing social insurance, social assistance, and labor market support in 35  countries across Asia and the Pacific, shows varied spending patterns across income groups and subregions.

A few countries - Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mongolia, and Uzbekistan - have Social Protection Indexes that are higher than 0.200, meaning that they are already investing 8% of their gross domestic product (GDP) on social protection  programs. However, spending in most middle-income countries, including Armenia, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Samoa, remains below 3%
  of GDP. 

The SPI study also notes that because social insurance tends to dominate government social protection spending, benefits accrue disproportionately to men and non-poor.
Poor and disadvantaged persons, particularly those working in the informal sector, benefit less because they lack access to social insurance. They are instead targeted by social assistance programs that in many countries are fragmented and provide inadequate transfers.

Relatively little is being spent on labor market programs like cash-for-work and skills development. This needs to be addressed amidst rising youth unemployment, critical skills
gaps, and the disproportionate number of women who are unable to enter the formal labor market. Areas for government attention include employment guarantee
schemes to construct or rebuild basic infrastructure, skills development, and technical and vocational education and training.

Countries at various stages of development need to set their own targets, taking into account available public resources. However, governments need to accelerate the review and reform of pension schemes in view of the region’s huge informal  sector and rapid aging. Preventive social protection programs such as micro-insurance schemes to cushion the impact of variable weather patterns and natural disasters should also be explored, the study says.

Expanding social protection coverage requires mobilization of additional public revenue which can be secured by broadening the tax base, improving tax collection, and improving public expenditure management. Governments should also encourage private firms to contribute more to social insurance programs. After many years of high growth, the Asia and Pacific region is in an excellent position to invest in better social protection systems that are attuned to the needs of its people. 

The Economist has drawn upon the SPI's rich data and analysis in its latest issue: 
http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21580531-asias-emerging-welfare-states-spread-themselves-thinly-widefare 
 
Regards,
Bart W. Édes,
Director Poverty Reduction, Gender and SocDev Division
Regional and Sustainable Development Department
Asian Development Bank

Dear Friends and colleagues, 
 
The heralded end of welfare states is reminiscent of the 1980s when the neo-liberal regimes across the Atlantic cut public spending, rolled back the state, and propagated the idea of the welfare state as a public burden. The end result, at least up until the late 1990s, was not a drastic cut in welfare expenditure but a change in the balance of different welfare programmes. The proponents of the welfare state, in particular those arguing for the role of the state as a
guarantor of social equity, or equality, may not have been satisfied with this result but in fact had complacency about the fact that the size of the welfare had not been drastically reduced.   

One of the most serious issues that attracted less attention from the perspective of proponents of the welfare state in the North was the implication of the changes in the balance of different programmes, and the nature of “publicly” provided social services. Universal elements in terms of coverage and quality of service and transfers were gradually reduced, and selectivity became a main approach in the public service provision. Together with these changes, the reinforcement or introduction of market principles in the public service provision and market criteria to structure, manage and evaluate the public social service programmes,
weakened role of the state in regulation of public services, and the privatization of potentially profitable public services were the representation of the radical break from the post war consensus on the social reform of which the welfare state was at the centre.  The neglect in attention to this
fundamental change has led the proponents of the welfare state to understand these changes as just as “retrenchment of the welfare state”. This sort of complacency resulted in the deficiency in correcting the welfare states’ problems which made social service clients and others be tempted to believe that neo-liberal changes could be a solution such as a lack of democratic participation of the beneficiaries, increasing inequality in terms of quality of service and benefits, and bureaucratic professionalization. In a nut shell, all those concerned with social justice and equality in fact may have failed to recognize the imperative to radically redesign the welfare states in the way to strengthen its social aspect and address new challenges and risks. 
 
At the centre of the failure of appropriate counteraction was that the proponents of the welfare state framed their ideas, theories, and policies within those they aimed to criticize. For instance, growth was consistently understood as economic growth, and productivity gains from social services were rarely taken into account in development strategy. Statistically, the welfare state was composed of a variety of expenditures which do not influence the economic growth rate. Increasing inequality attracted less attention than that of overall size of the welfare state. At best, inequality was only dealt with in the dimension of income and wealth. Distribution of status and power, a critical principle on
which post-war welfare state had been built, was not seriously regarded as a critical issue constituting the alternatives to neo-liberal policies.  It was pity for the critics could not go further to suggest genuine alternatives to
address all the defects of the welfare states. 
 
We are facing another attack on the welfare states, i.e. widespread austerity measures threatening the welfare state to the extent that some commentators worry about
the end of welfare states. This attack, however, may be just an extended form of the fundamental change in welfare states which have been with us since the 1980s. 

What would be the critical issues of the genuine and constructive alternatives to neo-liberalism? The structural changes should be taken into consideration of alternatives. Conventional manufacturing sector which used to absorb the labour seem to have reached its limit in terms of absorption capacity. Many countries in the North are searching for a new engine of economic production. It should be
eco-friendly also. These structural changes have a significant implication of the labour market and consequently the welfare states. In addition, the current
labour market produces a large share of non-standardized forms of employment, and unemployment. The youth unemployment, as the previous postings have
highlighted, are the serious problems. And more politically awakened mass took the street and politicians are naturally pushed to produce short-term remedial policies rather than long-term policy for structural transformation. The new
solutions to the welfare states to these problems and challenges should be incorporated to the alternatives to the neo-liberal policies.   

Then how to address these issues? One of the recommendations is to take a radical departure
from the subordination of the social to the economic. The most significant success of the neo-liberal was to subordinate the social to the economic by disembedding the “economic” from the “social”, and privileging the “economic”. It has resulted in the market where the unbridled profit incentive rules. Such forms of economies as community and association based moral economy in which the “social” is deeply embedded have been gradually crowded out by the expanding market economy. The term “economy” became equated with market economy and the
value of economic activities began to be judged only by the profit criteria. Increase of economic growth represented as GDP, which does not show economic well-being but the economic activity has been hailed as economic success.
Declining wage share coupled with the increase of speculative financial capital which is a significant failure of allocation of economic resources, has been put under the carpet. Another result is that social policy became an “after-thought” of economic policies. All the criteria to judge the validity of policy have been from the economic efficiency criteria (ex. the least-cost principle) and social policy itself has been judged by the economic efficiency criteria. Economic accounting is predominant in judging the efficiency and effectiveness of social policy programmes. 

In this context, defending or renovating the welfare state should start from tackling the explicit and implicit forms of the subordination of the “social” to the “economic”. Economy should be reinterpreted and reorganised in the way to allocate resources, produce products, and distribute gains for the majority rather than a few, and social policy concerns, in particular inequality and poverty, should be systematically addressed by all policy sectors including
  economic policy. Since economy by definition implies a planned activity to  allocate available means towards reaching an end, when we accept the priority of social concerns, it is not a difficult job to formulate economy in
  which “the social” is mainstreamed. In this sense, recently surging interests  in “reviving economic planning”, in particular in Africa, are noticeable. In  fact the discussion is still in initial stage, the core idea is to introduce planning ideas and practices for social progress.

Several experiences which offer valuable lessons to those searching for alternatives can be also found in both developed and developing countries. Firstly, over the last decades Attempts to measure the impact of the welfare state or social policy such as community confidence, social exclusion, and the environment have been made in both developed and developing countries. In particular social impact assessment as a part of integrated assessment in European countries, although in its infancy, is notable examples. Also notable are the subjective well-being (SWB)
and its related approaches.  Developed over the last two decades, despite some problems, such approaches as SWB, the World Data of Happiness, and socially perceived necessities methods have shown a potential to establish a new methodology to measure the contribution of the welfare state to diverse social and economic dimensions. Despite limitations such as comparability, and cultural
biases, they have opened up the space of debate on the people centred approach to methodology of impact assessment. These efforts in the domain of
methodologies can help the governments to analyse the effectiveness of currently implemented social policies and institutions, conduct an ex-ante assessment of short, medium and long-term social policy plans, and establish a strategy to establish a wide range of social policies promoting equitable growth, political democracy and environmental sustainability.   
 
Secondly, the new methodology can contribute to establishing a long-term planning of social policy which moves beyond needs-based assistance to rights-based social
security.  Planning and its related policies and institutions, be it explicit or implicit, have been a driving force behind the welfare state development in advanced countries. The welfare states in Nordic countries which fully committed to universalism, comprehensive risk coverage, generous benefit levels and egalitarianism took a long time to reach their mature forms which we can find only after the mid-1960s. Decades of strong, even hegemonic, social
democratic rule played a significant role in establishing and maintaining long-term vision and plan to transform their liberalistic social policies into universal, comprehensive and egalitarian welfare states. The experience of developmental welfare states in East Asia also shows the importance of
universalism set as a goal to be achieved in the future, although it may not yet be a reality. National health insurance in the Republic of Korea, for instance, did not cover the entire population when it was first launched in the 1970s, but the programme was designed as a universal scheme which was intended to cover the entire population. The rationale of universalism within the policy design shaped the political discourse and became a driving force for achieving a fully universal programme.  The challenge is to build methods and techniques for planning for a new social policy in a way that addresses all the new challenges
and risks explained above. A great deal of research done for developing countries after the Second World War was concentrated mainly around economic growth, focusing on available resources and projects needed to meet demand.
Social services were mostly ignored or at best supplementary to the policy for labour supply for economic plans. Setting the economic growth as a target based
on past experience and planning project based on the estimate of available resources was at the core of planning in those days. Should we include social and environmental goals as well as economic goals, we may need a new method and technique for planning. Microanalysis to deal with such questions as to what extent income distribution should be equal to stimulate efforts around education, savings and environmental protection becomes increasingly important, since the degree of subsidy to education, savings and environmental protection may have to be incorporated into the estimates for the planning of economic, social and environmental development. 

Thirdly, historical experiences in the mix of private and public provision of social services may help us to establish a new approach to the private sector. The dichotomy of the public and private in a certain way becomes highly polemical
and leads us to overestimate or underestimate the nature and consequences of the public and private provision. It also leads us to treat the issue as a choice of “either/or. It is problematic since public welfare provision has always had some market elements. It is particularly problematic in the cases where the public and private mix is a main characteristic of the welfare provision we have to
deal with. In addition, private sector’s engagement with hitherto public social provision is expected to be more expanded given the prominent place of public-private partnership agenda in post MDG debate. This circumstance demands diverse strategies to deal with the private sector in different contexts. History shows that welfare state was built not by the destruction of existing institutions, but by the reform and renovation of the existing ones. In the
cases where the private and public mix does not make a social catastrophe, the challenge, therefore, would not be to completely reject the options offered by the private sector but to find a way to maximise the potential capacity of the
private sector to generate the public goods and services. In the case of wealth redistribution such as land to tiller reform, government also can force private capital of former land lords to invest in public goods and services with less
profit purpose, and utilise the potential of private sector to contribute to produce public goods and services. Strong regulatory capacity in a wide range of policy domains which narrow the gap between the public and private services in
terms of quality, accessibility, affordability should be the precondition for the private sector generating public goods and services. In the cases where there are fundamental failures of the private sector in providing social
services, and not many private sectors exist in the social service provision, the strategy to strengthen the state sector should be the option. Active participation of the empowered people to check the quality, accessibility and affordability of social services should be the precondition for this option. 
   
Fourthly, we can also find new approaches to identify and increase productive gains of social policy programmes. The output of increased public social service such as more
educated citizens is not always translated into productivity gains. One of the major tasks of education system in many newly independent countries after the Second World War was to reform the contents of education generating the tendency to be averse to manual labour. Without supporting institutions linking social service and productive works such as the policy to promote investment in capital formation rather than speculation, occupational training for productive and job creating industry, and labour market policy to increase the wage share in income distribution, increased social service can result in more unequal and unsustainable economic growth.  Cases of China, Brazil and South Korea can show some good examples of key institutions and policies to increase productive gains of social policy programmes.   
 
Fithly, we are witnessing various attempts to establish strategies of the welfare state to address multiple new challenges.  Climate change is among those new
challenges. Many approaches to social policy, in particular those in developing countries have rarely factored climate change related issues in social policy programmes despite inequality, poverty and quality of life are overwhelmingly
influenced by climate change and environment related disaster risk. Several policies such as forestry code, agro-business policies and transition from fuel subsidy to cash transfer show the awareness of environmental factor in social policy but the genuine impact of those policies on equality, poverty, and environment are still in questions. Incorporating largely abandoned issues such as attitude and behavioural changes in favour of tolerance, respect for
diversity, non-violence, solidarity, and trust is also crucial to equip social policy to respond to the multiple challenges. Conflict prevention or contribution to reconstruction of post-conflict countries is also the areas where social policy including both short-term food-aid type protection and
medium and long-term social assistance, insurance, and services can play a significant role as we can see in the cases of Afghanistan and Nepal.  The establishment of strategy of the welfare state and social policy which more
adequately address the issues treated as non-conventional social policy issues is crucial in formulating alternative strategy. 
 
Six, there has been a great interest in regional and global social policy in terms of financing, provision and regulation of social policy programmes, and some
developments on this front can be seen. In the past the welfare state and social policy was, in large measure, confined to national boundaries and the policy solutions have not successfully moved beyond the national boundary. Increased interdependence between countries such as capital, labour, technology, and environmental influence, social policy designed and implemented within a national context have more challenges which they have a limited control. Inter-national policies to address the issues of redistribution and protection as well as production are more needed than ever.  Several examples to meet these challenges can be identified. One example can be found in an experience of policy transfer between nations and policy formulation within countries. In Nordic countries, in particular from around 1900 and especially from the 1930s,
inter-Nordic comparison and mutual inspiration generated from a long history of cultural community and communication have been important dynamic factors in the
development of welfare policies in the five Nordic countries Iceland, Finland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway. The recent phenomenon of solidarity networks such as the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) on the formulation of education and health policies may be a contemporary example indicating the necessity of analysis beyond national boundaries.  Analysis on regional or global forms of cooperation for “cooperative advantage” is particularly of importance since they tend to oppose competitive advantage suggested by market-driven development
strategies. Other examples are regional and global policies and institutions to address transmittable diseases, global or regional financing mechanisms to address inter-country imbalances and inequalities in many dimensions, labour
  regulations to maintain the adequate labour standards for all, regional cooperation for the provision of water and electricity  to name but a few.Paying attention to global and regional social policy is particularly important in the context of developing countries since social policy prescriptions for national social policy is increasingly being articulated by
  global actors.  New challenges, such as regional and national conflicts  and climate change, increasingly demand for supranational social policies and mechanisms of global redistribution, global social regulation and global social
  rights.

Seven, moving towards universal social service in developing
countries, in particular those emerging economies such as Thailand, Brazil and China with relatively fast speed shows diverse ways of reaching universal coverage with different challenges and opportunities. It is counter-evidence to
the linear understanding of universal welfare state, i.e. universal welfare scheme when you are rich, and challenges euro-centric understanding of universal welfare state, i.e. something similar to welfare regime theories.  Implementing various kinds of cash transfers which demand the effort from the informal sectors, including community and family as conditions, and moving towards a universal system of education and health through the improvement of
social infrastructure can be a representation of the strengthened capacity of the state in regulating the non-public sector for development. The reinforcement
of gendered role in many cash transfer programmes, of course, should be critically examined in order to shape the state’s regulation for gender equality. Many questions related to this trend remain unanswered: Are we
witnessing an emergence of alternative welfare states and social policies in emerging economies? If it does, what are the nature of these alternatives and their consequences? How different are they? What are the implications for those
  trying to catch up these countries? Answering this set of questions should be  an important part of our endeavour to establish alternative framework. 

  And finally, we need to find appropriate policies and political strategy to  empower people and realize the meaningful participation of people. Empowerment and participation are the buzz words of the both proponents
  of neoliberal policies and their critics. The nature and degree are the key  issues. Without providing adequate education and training to equip people with knowledge and skills to deal with policy issues, the empowerment and
  participation may end up with a service to the powerful and the rich. Political  strategy to reform political system in the way to make participation more meaningful is also crucial. For instance, the establishment of new constitutional foundations for the expansion of new social protection
  programmes can be the establishment of a mechanism to redistribute status and  power. With this strong constitutional element, people can claim benefits, and
  bring cases to the judiciary process or political arena more actively. Measures  of welfare state development should include an indicator for this dimension  which assess the degree of empowerment and participation that results from
  policies to redistributive status and power. 
 
Extracting lessons from the experiences above and others is an important first step towards a constructive alternative strategy to renovate and rebuild welfare state. In this process, we should bear in mind one of the most important caveats: our conceptual, theoretical and policy framework should be radically different from that of neo-liberals. Otherwise, our alternatives again would serve the
extension of neo-liberal reforms of the welfare state.


----------------------
ILCHEONG YI
Research Coordinator
United Nations Research Institute for Social Development
Palais des Nations, 1211, Geneva 10, Switzerland
Email: yi@unrisd.org
  ---------------------------------------------

The end of welfare states?

 In December 2012, the European Council – the meeting of 27 national governments with the European Commission – decided to further examine the ‘social dimension’ of the Economic and Monetary Union. After the Council meeting of 27 and 28 of June 2013, those who thought this might be a step in the direction of the so often claimed ‘social Europe’ must be very disappointed.

 The European Council only confirmed a ‘recommendation’ to the Member States that had already been adopted by national governments, in order to fight youth unemployment. It means that young people who do not find a job have to receive within four months an offer for either a quality job, a training or an apprenticeship. The importance of such a measure should not be underestimated, but it is not legally binding.

 This lack of political will and the continuing focus on austerity policies is particularly bad news for  all people in the European Union. 
 
According to the most recent report of the European Commission, unemployment in the EU stands at 10,8 % and
at 11,9 % in the Eurozone. Nearly 6  million young people have no job. In Spain and Greece youth unemployment stands at more than 55 %. More and more families live in financial stress and do not know how to survive. They have more and more debts. Almost one quarter of the EU population lives with a risk at poverty. Emigration within and without the EU is growing.

 In spite of these social problems – or even a humanitarian crisis in Southern EU-countries – most governments continue to reduce their social expenditures. To-day, social
protection does not play its role of ‘economic stabilizer’ anymore. Even wages are falling and labour markets are
flexibilized.

 Nevertheless, what the ‘social dimension’ of the EMU will mean is that social expenditures will become part of the European ‘Semester’ and fall under the surveillance of the European Commission. They will follow the logic that was announced in the ‘Social Investment’ package of last March, which means that the objective of social protection becomes the development of human capital and the promotion of growth. It is social protection at the service of the
economy.

 We should not blame ‘Europe’ for these developments, since all our governments are following exactly the same
logic, very often long before the European Commission puts its proposals on paper. The ‘enemy’ then should not be an institution,  but an ideology that destroys societies, that bans redistribution and solidarity from its discourses
and makes a dogma of competitiveness. This could be the deathblow to the ‘European social model’. In the end, these policies may also threaten democracy.

 It is particularly ironic that this happens at a moment when international organisations – including the European Commission – are promoting ‘social protection’ in third world
countries.

 What we need, in Europe and in the rest of the world, are legally binding standards to protect people and to
protect societies. All people need protection, in whatever political regime they are living. And the best protection is a system of social, economic and solidarity rights.

 What we also need, in view of the changing world and social needs of people, is to re-think our social
protection, in order to improve it, make it more coherent and more participative.

 To this end, we think it might be useful to change the concept of ‘social protection’ into ‘social commons’, in order to focus on what we all share and on what we should try to
preserve: the life and survival of humankind and of the
planet.

 For more details about the European Council meeting and the challenges for 2014: please see http://www.globalsocialjustice.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=461:the-end-of-european-welfare-states&catid=10:research&Itemid=13

 For an e-book on ‘re-thinking social protection’ and a proposal for ‘social commons’, see www.globalsocialjustice.eu under ‘Research’.

 Francine Mestrum lives in Brussels, has a PhD in social sciences and coordinates the global network of
Global Social Justice.