A great paradox of our times is that while there is a general consensus that growing inequalities are threatening social, economic and human development, there appears to be little collective reflection on what actions should be taken in order to redress this state of affairs. Inequality is not an accident of history but the product of a series of ideologically embedded, yet ultimately political, choices about the way our economies and societies generate and allocate resources and opportunities.  

The 2022 ETUI-ETUC joint conference will seek to trigger such a process of reflection and debate. The discourse surrounding inequality must now move beyond the important task of mapping out, measuring, and ascertaining the many facets and precise nature of this multidimensional and complex problem, and embark onto the more normative quest of imagining and defining a more equal ;

Ultimately, the profound distributional questions that underpin this quest must be subject to public deliberation and democratic decision-making. But to ensure that this process is genuinely participative and transformative, a space needs to be created for the exploration of egalitarian ideas and principles, and of the role of policies and institutions, to assist and bolster the debate.

The case against inequality has already been strongly articulated. Now is the time to explore what real equality should look

This conference will take place in the shadow of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has generated new inequalities while exacerbating pre-existing ones. It has also illustrated that inequalities make societies less resilient in the face of unexpected crises and rapid changes. Furthermore, in our efforts to deal with climate change, which is a crisis demanding swift action, inequalities are unsurprisingly emerging as one of our most exposed Achilles’

The 2021 issue of the ETUI’s Benchmarking Working Europe report reviewed the many dimensions of the inequality problem in Europe. It argued that inequality is not just incidental to a particular crisis, but a structural problem created by an economic model that, for the past three decades, has progressively redistributed less and less wealth to the bottom percentiles of society while accumulating more and more at the top. Finally, it made the first steps towards identifying a range of policy actions that, with the necessary political will, could help to tackle inequalities.  

This conference will seek to further develop this enquiry, by exploring in greater depth both the effects and the root causes of inequality, and by identifying in greater detail the policies and institutions that have the power to render our societies more fair, resilient, sustainable, and equal.