Blog Articles

By Maxime Gehrenbeck, Social Platform Intern working on Social Policy

The European Social Observatory and European Trade Union Institute’s joint lunchtime session I attended last Thursday [3 September] addressed a crucial issue that was recently brought back onto the public agenda by Thomas Picketty’s famous book: inequality. An intellectually stimulating conversation was organised between Dr Lorenza Antonucci, Lecturer in Social Policy at the University of the West of Scotland, and Lord Stewart Wood, Labour peer at the House of Lord and former adviser to Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband. Although many other important issues were discussed, the concept of pre-distribution that has been largely developed by Lord Wood deserves specific attention. The main idea is that although redistribution is important in order to reduce inequalities, taxes and transfers only provide a part of the solution. The pre-distribution approach proposes an alternative, or rather a complementary answer to this problem by trying to tackle inequality at its roots. It suggests that changing the rules of the economy could largely prevent inequalities from appearing. Decent wages or adequate education services are ways to intervene earlier, to fight the causes of inequalities instead of trying to compensate them afterwards.

Questions were raised, however, on how these innovative ideas could be put into practice in the near future. Dr Antonucci’s research on the European Semester shows how challenging it is to promote social policies in the current European context. As she explained, the role of the Economic and Financial Affairs (ECOFIN) Council is clearly dominant in the process, while civil society organisations have better access to less powerful committees focused on social affairs. According to her, they are too often given the opportunity to make propositions when decisions have already been taken, allowing little to no scope for influence.

Both speakers agreed on the numerous challenges civil society organisations and trade unions will have to face in the future, even though Dr Antonucci insisted on the fact that such debates have an important role to play. New ideas are at the foundations of new policies, and I am convinced that creativity in the field of social affairs is essential to shed light on key values that are at the heart of our actions.