24th Conference on Alternative Economic Policy in Europe

10 years into the crisis – What prospects for a popular political economy in Europe?

from 27-29 September 2018

The EuroMemo Group conference 2018 was jointly hosted with the University of Helsinki. The conference venue was the University of Helsinki (main building).

Against the background of an increasingly alarming influence of right-wing nationalist and populist forces, the conference wanted to facilitate discussion on progressive ideas, concepts and policies, on how to reconstruct a political integration project in Europe that is responsive to the economic and social needs of all groups and people affected by the severe economic crisis of the last ten years, and in particular of workers, the unemployed, the precariat, migrants and other vulnerable groups, also in a gender perspective.

The programme was as follows:

Thursday 27 September

1:00 – 2.30 Public pre-conference event ‘The future of the EMU’ (organised by the University of Helsinki, Päärakennus, Pieni juhlasali / Main building, Small banqueting hall)

2:30 – 3:00 Registration (in front of Päärakennus, Pieni juhlasali / Main building, Small banqueting hall)

3:00 – 7:00 Opening plenary on the state of the Union (Päärakennus, Pieni juhlasali / Main building, Small banqueting hall)

Chair: Werner Raza and Heikki Patomäki

• Hannu Nieminen (University of Helsinki, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences): Welcome Address
• Mary Kaldor (London School of Economics and Political Science): Political State of the Union
• Mario Pianta (Roma Tre University): Economic State of the Union
• Hanna Kuusela (University of Tampere) and Pertti Haaparanta (Aalto University): The Finnish economy and society
• Open discussion

8:00 Conference dinner (address: Unioninkatu 33, 00170 Helsinki)

Friday 28 September

10:00 – 1:30 Six parallel workshops

• Workshop 1 – Macroeconomic policies and EMU reform (Main building (new side), Hall 21)
• Workshop 2 – Monetary and financial policies (Main building (new side), Hall 19)
• Workshop 3 – The productive structure of the EU: analysis and policy proposals for productive transformation (Main building (new side), Hall 16)
• Workshop 4 – Social policies in the EU and the Nordic Welfare model: assessment and future prospects (Main building (new side), Hall 4)
• Workshop 5 – New democratic challenges and alternative conceptualizations for a popular political economy (Main building (new side), Hall 9)
• Workshop 6 – Politics of structural reforms: critique and alternatives (in cooperation with the Finnish Society for Political Economy Research) (Main building (old side), Auditorium I)

2:30 – 4:00 Plenary on policy proposals from the workshops (Päärakennus, Pieni juhlasali / Main building, Small banqueting hall)

4.15 – 6.00 Special plenary on the conference topic ’10 years into the crisis – What prospects for a popular political economy in Europe?’ (Päärakennus, Pieni juhlasali / Main building, Small banqueting hall)

• Birgit Mahnkopf (Berlin School of Economics and Law)
• Laura Horn (Roskilde University)
• Werner Raza (Euromemo Group and Austrian Foundation for Development Research)

Saturday 29 September

9:00 – 12:00 Planning meeting: EuroMemorandum 2019 and other activities
(Päärakennus, Konsistorin sali / Main building, Hall 2 Council hall)

Workshops & Papers

24th Conference on Alternative Economic Policy in Europe, on 27-29 September 2018, organised by the EuroMemo Group and jointly hosted with the University of Helsinki

The second day of the EuroMemo Group conference (Friday, 28 September) was dedicated to key themes of EU policy within six different workshops (Workshop Programme as pdf-file).

Workshop 1 – Macroeconomic policies and EMU reform

Coordinator: Achim Truger

• Jacques Mazier / University Paris 13
  The Euro zone: from impossible reform to bifurcation
• Hubert Hieke
  Financial Imbalances and the instability of the EU/Euro-Zone
• Christoph Paetz / University Duisburg-Essen; Macroeconomic Policy Institute (IMK)
  Have fiscal rules made discretionary policy more countercyclical? Evidence from fiscal reaction functions for the Euro area
• André W. Heinemann and Leonie Backeberg / University of Bremen, Institute Labour and Economy (iaw)
  Corporate Taxation, Economic Growth, and Inequality: Implications of Tax Competition within the European Monetary Union
• Sarah Godar / Berlin School of Economics and Law
  The way forward: Taxing multinationals in the EU

Workshop 2 – Monetary and financial policies

Coordinators: Marica Frangakis/ John Grahl

• Vanessa Redak / Oesterreichische Nationalbank
  Is the financial system safer ten years after the crisis?
  Presentation
• George Perendia
  Why Are Real Interest Rates So Low? Or, are we suffering a delusion of interest rates …

Workshop 3 – The productive structure of the EU: analysis and policy proposals for productive transformation

Coordinator: Joachim Becker

• Davide Antonioli, Claudio Di Berardino and Gianni Onesti / University of Chieti-Pescara
  Specialization in the Euro Area: A Vertically Integrated Sector Perspective and the Role of Knowledge Intensive Business Service
• Antje Bollen / University of Bremen, Institute Labour and Economy (iaw)
  The Rise of Platform Economies: Analysis of Regulatory Requirements in Europe and Implications for Employment Relationships
• Scott Lavery and Patrick Kaczmarczyk / Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute (SPERI), University of Sheffield
  German Hegemony, FDI flows and Eastern European Supply Chains in the aftermath of the Eurozone crisis
• Joachim Becker and Koen Smet / Vienna University of Economics and Business
  The Socio-Economic Programmes and Praxis of the Nationalist Right in the EU: the Core-Periphery Divide
• Zhen Im / University of Helsinki
  Automation and the Gender Gap: the compounding effect on labour market stratification on welfare preferences
• Joanna Mazurkiewicz and Piotr Lis / Poznan University of Economics and Business
  Diversification of energy poverty in Central and Eastern European countries

Workshop 4 – Social policies in the EU and the Nordic Welfare model: assessment and future prospects

Coordinator: Laura Horn

• Ernst Hollander / University of Gaevle
  European lessons from Nordic Model Changes
• Eirikur Bergmann / Bifröst University
  Iceland’s procyclical political economy and the new critical order
• Stein Reegård / LO-Norway
  Norwegian perspective: State Aid Rules- Restricting room for social policy and public service?
• Laura Horn / Roskilde University
  Beyond utopia? Basic income in the Nordic countries
• Bernhard Zeilinger / UAS BFI Vienna
  Trajectories of dismantling the welfare state under the new socio-economic governance regime
• Pascal Petit / CEPN Centre d’économie de Paris Nord
  Distribution policies to help a challenged European Union

Workshop 5 – New democratic challenges and alternative conceptualizations for a popular political economy

Coordinator: Werner Raza

• Martin Pachel / UAS BFI Vienna
  A sad-go-round: The austere radicalization of society
• Marcella Corsi / Sapienza University Rome, and Fabrizio Botti / Guglielmo Marconi University
  Gender and populism in Europe
• Jorge Buzaglo
  From Pareto economics, to Pareto politics, to fascism: A Rochambeau model of elite circulation
  Presentation
• Ronan O’Brien
  What might a socio-ecological transformation look like in a reconstructed project of European integration?
• Filippos Proedrou / University of South Wales
  A public policy approach to climate policy: the case for a de-centralized model of energy transition in the residential sector
  Presentation

Workshop 6 – Politics of structural reforms: critique and alternatives

Coordinator: Teppo Eskelinen
in cooperation with the Finnish Society for Political Economy Research

• Olli Herranen / University of Tampere
  Towards a consolidation Empire?
• Pia Ljungman / SOAS
  Remodelling the EMU area: re-reading policy causes, rethinking alternatives
• Heikki Patomäki / University of Helsinki
  Alternative approaches to structural reform
• Antti Alaja / Sorsa foundation
  Structural reform policies in Finland – evolutionary perspectives

Background paper

• Carlo Giannone / Università degli Studi del Sannio, Benevento
  Interest Groups and Redistributive Choices in the EU
• John Weeks / SOAS
  Economic rules for a better Union: facilitating policies that enhance not constrain economic policy
• Károly Lóránt
  The bottlenecks of the European integration

Further information

24th Conference on Alternative Economic Policy in Europe, on 27-29 September 2018, organised by the EuroMemo Group and jointly hosted with the University of Helsinki

The EuroMemo Group conference 2018 took place at the University of Helsinki. The main building is located in the centre of Helsinki and is well connected to public transportation (address: Fabianinkatu 33).

Conference participants should make their own bookings. Below you can find a document with a list of recommended hotels and information on accommodation. You are strongly advised to book early.

Please note that there will be a conference fee collected at the venue to cover the cost of the conference (30 Euro / 10 Euro for students / 80 Euro for participants with institutional support).