How do Europe’s fraught governments navigate their way beyond an ever-intensifying accumlation of crises threatening to overwhelm them? They feel pummelled from all sides: by the cost of living and rising inequality, by technology-assisted precarisation of the labour market, by climate change and extreme weather events, by brutal wars in Ukraine and the Gulf.

The simple formula which had prevailed for decades since the 1980s—leave it to the market to find a natural equilibrium—had been discredited by the first of those crises, the 2008 financial crash. Yet if government is back in the frame, growing public mistrust enfeebles its efforts.

That is exploited by populist parties which, as in the 1930s, offer nostalgic national myths as snake-oil ‘solutions’ but find an audience among the socially insecure for their assaults on universal norms. And the rules-based international order which might help Europe’s governments calm this perfect global storm has been brought to the brink by that odd couple of far-right leaders, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin—united only in their determination to turn history backwards and to put collective Europe back into national containers.

Disarmingly modest

A disarmingly modest phrase is, however, emerging, which not only captures the need of the moment but offers palliatives at least in all these critical arenas. And they turn out to be mutually reinforcing prescriptions. Moreover, this notion gives Europe a new way to set a moral compass for, and regain its legitimacy among, the wider world. It is the idea of social rights.

The European Union has seemed hopelessly divided in recent times, particularly over Trump and his support for brutal military campaigns, driven by the far-right regime in Israel, in Gaza and Iran. Yet under the auspices of the other key, and much larger, European institution, the Council of Europe, a remarkable consensus is emerging and indeed consolidating.

The process began with a summit of the 46 Council of Europe member states in Reykjavik in 2023, demonstrating unity against the Russian aggression in Ukraine, where the heads of state and government affirmed: ‘Social justice is crucial for democratic stability and security and in this regard we reaffirm our full commitment to the protection and implementation of social rights as guaranteed by the European Social Charter system.’ A High-level Conference on Social Rights signalled there took place in Vilnius in 2024 and the momentum was sustained at a successor conference this month in Chișinău, under the Moldovan presidency of the organisation.

In the opening session, the secretary general of the Council of Europe, Alain Berset, captured the impulse behind the new thinking: ‘There is no democratic security without social rights. At a time of war, economic shocks and rising inequality, delivering on the European Social Charter puts social justice where it belongs—at the centre of democratic stability.’ Speaking of ‘a world in rupture’, he said: ‘Moments of rupture force choices.’

Connecting narrative

The discussion in Chișinău saw a narrative appear connecting the various elements of the ‘polycrisis’, as Aoife Nolan, president of the European Committee of Social Rights (ECSR), which monitors member-state compliance with the European Social Charter, described it. It was ‘profoundly worrying’, she said, that ‘the social rights of many have been squeezed to breaking-point’. Added to this was the ‘democratic crisis in Europe’ associated with ‘real and perceived failures’ by governments to deliver social inclusion. The link between democratic stabilty and social rights had been ‘never more urgent’ and the charter ‘never more important’.

The United Nations rapporteur on extreme poverty, Olivier de Schutter, who is also a member of the ECSR, pointed to research showing that for every percentage point increase in the Gini coefficient of income inequality there was a roughly identical increase in support for far-right parties. Measures introduced by mainstream parties in government, such as tightening eligibility and rendering harsher conditions for welfare benefits, had fuelled ‘distrust and disenchantment’ amid increasing precarity, weaker unions and a declining labour share in economic output. The ‘fight against poverty’ was thus ultimately a ‘fight for democracy’, he said.

As speaker after speaker from among the member states—as well as the professional experts and the non-governmental organisations—went on to reiterate, inequality and exclusion foster insecurity and mistrust, which in turn feed democratic backsliding and international conflict. Conversely, social rights provide the foundation for resilience against social risks, for the humanistic management of the digital and green transitions at work and for democratic stability and security. The European Commissioner of human rights (a Council of Europe position), Michael O’Flaherty, said member states thus had to ‘join the dots across systems’ to provide coherent responses, as well as engaging local and regional governments.

Social investment

A key intellectual link in this narrative is the concept of ‘social investment’ developed in recent years by the welfare-state expert Anton Hemerijck and colleagues. What the market fundamentalists dismissed as the welfare ‘burden’ on the taxpayer, fostering ‘dependency’, has been re-presented as a win-win formula for social inclusion, gender equality and fiscal stability—for instance through providing universal childcare, with its enduring benefits for women’s career development and the prospective life-chances of the child.

After the searing experience of the austerity response to the eurozone crisis of the early 2010s, social investment has come to be embraced increasingly by Europe’s governments. At the conference, Carlo Monticelli, governor of the Council of Europe Development Bank, described it as the ‘lynchpin’ of the European social model.

The ‘Chisinau declaration’ agreed at the conclusion of the conference encapsulated this new consensus. It said:

Investing in social rights is both a moral imperative and a strategic choice for building sustainable, resilient, just and inclusive societies. Such investment reduces inequality, fosters social cohesion and intergenerational justice, and enhances democratic stability and security. At the same time, it reinforces trust in institutions and public authorities at all levels of governance. Investing in social rights means investing in the future of democracy itself. Democratic stability and security can only be achieved where social rights are adequately protected.

Indeed, eight member states announced at the conference that they were accepting additional rights obligations from the menu of options the charter provides. The non-governmental organisations represented there meanwhile urged them all to accept the charter’s provisions in their entirety and its procedure for collective complaints against member states, adjudicated by the ECSR.

Seamless recognition

Why was this consensus apparently so easy to arrive at? Frequently, particularistic identity politics has been met with cries of ‘woke’ by conservatives, but this is a criticism hard to apply to rights claimed which all can and should equally enjoy. And while centre-right politicians have often baulked at efforts to enhance workers’ rights—typically counterposing those of ‘consumers’—there was a seamless recognition in Chișinău that in the new world of work workers’ and human rights went hand in hand.

During both the postwar trente glorieuses, associated with Keynesian demand management in much of western Europe, and the successor neoliberal era, characterised by the revival of market fundamentalism, the workplace remained largely an economic-policy ‘black box’, except for the co-determination arrangements in Germany and Sweden. But conference participants clearly felt impelled by the application of new technologies to the labour process to open up that box and look inside themselves.

Many expressed concern that digitalisation was taking a form—with platform companies using algorithmic management and the advance of artificial intelligence at work—enabling what George Theodosis, vice-president of the ECSR, called ‘a profound power imbalance’. There was a need to ‘place people at the centre of social and economic change’, with human oversight and rights for workers to contest decisions and a green transition that was also just. ‘Dialogue breeds legitimacy,’ he said, with ‘human dignity’ key.

Indeed, the mood in Chișinău of welding together the social and political, rather than pursuing a night-watchman state, meant social dialogue was another recurrent theme. The International Labour Organization representative reminded participants that the ILO had been formed (in 1919) on the principle that lasting peace was founded on social justice. This’ required strengthened social protection, clarified employment relationships and the placing of social dialogue at the centre of policy-making, he said.

Isabelle Schömann, representing the European Trade Union Confederation, welcomed the ‘great political will’ on show at the conference. The need was to deliver, she said, including by member states ratifying the Council of Europe Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and supporting collective agreements. The conference concluded with Portugal offering to organise a further successor event during its Council of Europe presidency in 2029. The fate of the developing social-rights consensus will be clearer then.

The text of an exclusive interview with the Council of Europe Secretary General, who sat down with Social Europe during the conference to discuss these issues in depth, will appear shortly.