Felix Syrovatka is a political scientist and postdoctoral researcher at Freie Universität Berlin. He conducts research on European labor and social policy, and is currently a visiting scholar at University College Dublin. Most recently, he published New European Labor Policy (Campus Verlag, April 2022).
A proposed minimum wage for the European Union promises to end the race to the bottom on pay — and instantly improve 25 million workers’ conditions. Faced with a cost-of-living crisis, the move is a welcome step to support incomes.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has apologized to Italy for the EU’s underwhelming response to coronavirus. But faced with economic meltdown, battle lines are hardening between the German-led bloc and the states of the Southern periphery — and the splits are about to become even more irreconcilable.