Back to duty. │ Editorial of CESI Secretary General Klaus Heeger

Dear members, partners, and friends,

In Brussels, as in national capitals around Europe, summer recess is over and politics is again in full swing again. Welcome back to the crisis mode of before the summer – and of the last years.

The European Commission’s summer economic forecast, issued on September 11, found that the growth of the EU economy slows down more than expected, projecting a sluggish increase of just 0.8% in 2023.

Clearly, the EU economy is starting to pay tribute for the late (and perhaps too late) efforts of the European Central Bank (ECB) to bring down inflation in the Euro zone, which still stands at 6.5%. In September, the ECB’s Governing Council raised the Euro zone interest rates for the 10^th time in 60 weeks. While intended as a monetary policy to bring down inflation, risks to choke off the economy are mounting.

No good news for workers and their jobs and purchasing power. What is particularly worrying: Energy prices have decreased, but costs of other essential goods and services – in particular food and nutrition – have been resurging. What if, on top, a cold winter will drive up gas and electricity prices once again?

Clearly, policy makers must be on duty for workers during the next months. They need to work to bring down prices and safeguard jobs in a thriving economy.

As the political summer recess ends, CESI is also back on duty for workers. Based on our position on impacts of surging inflation on workers, we want to play a constructive role in a balanced response to the inflation and cost-of living crisis – involving policy makers and fiscal policy, central bankers and monetary policy, and social partners and collective bargaining.

With a recession looming, we also need good news for workers’ jobs and support on all fronts. Also here, CESI is back on duty.

Through our new EU co-funded project on active labour market policies (‘Activer’) we want to make sure that workers will be well-equipped and supported to work in greening and digitalising jobs. Nobody should be left behind in the profound transformations that jobs and labour markets are currently experiencing.

And through our continuing project ‘Syncrisis’, equally co-funded by the EU, we want to establish how public services and their personnel can be rendered more resilient to face the perma- und polycrisis that we are living in, to the benefit of workers and citizens.

It could not be timelier: In the area of environment, firefighters have been busy fighting dramatic forest fires across the continent. In the area of defence, supporting military support to Ukraine and further developing the EU’s military strength remains paramount. In the area of health, Covid may see a return to light, with a new and still relatively unknown variant, BA.2.86 or `Pirola’, developing and spreading. And in the area of education, social affairs and employment, the reception and inclusion of refugees, among them the many from Ukraine and African countries, remains a real challenge.

Are we all – workers, unions, public services – ready for this? Stay tuned to find out at one of our next conferences in Berlin on October 29, in Madrid on November 8 and in Vienna on November 21!