Conference dates and location: 27 – 28 September 2023, Naples/Italy

This year’s conference venue will be:

Villa Doria d’Angri
Via Francesco Petrarca 80
80123 Napoli

Program

“War, the climate catastrophe and the crisis of social reproduction: how should the EU cope with the polycrisis?” 27 – 28 September 2023, Naples/Italy

Wednesday, 27 September 2023

Villa Doria d’Angri
Via Francesco Petrarca 80
80123 Napoli

9:00 am – 09:30 am Conference Registration

09:30 am – 12:30 pm Opening Plenary

Welcome Address: Professor Antonio Garofalo (Rector, University of Naples “Parthenope”)

Part I – The Political and Economic State of the Union

Chair: Werner Raza

• Keynote “The Political State of the Union”,
  Ole Wæver, Copenhagen University
• Keynote “A Green and Digital Capitalism? Why Decoupling and Crowding In Investors Will Not Lead to the Radical Green and Fair Transformation of the European Union”
  Angela Wigger, Radbout University

Q&A Session

11:15 am – 11:30 pm Coffee Break

Part II – Panel Discussion: The political and economic situation in Italy

Chair: Claudio Cozza

• Lorenzo Zamponi, Scuola Normale Superiore, Florence, “The political situation in Italy”
• Valeria Cirillo, University of Bari, “The economic and social situation in Italy”

Interview with Giorgio Airaudo, General Secretary of CGIL Piedmont (in Italian language with consecutive translation)

12:30 pm – 01:30 pm Lunch Break

01:30 pm – 05:30 pm Parallel Workshops

07:00 pm Conference Dinner: Ristorante Hache, Via Partenope 6, Naples 

Thursday, 28 September 2023

10:00 am – 11:30 am Plenary on policy proposals from workshops

Chairs: Marica Frangakis, Magnus Ryner

11:30 am – 12:00 pm Coffee break

12:00 pm – 01:30 pm

Final Plenary “The crisis of social reproduction in the EU (ageing, pensions, migration, housing, the crisis of care systems, the role of social mobilizations)”

Chair: Maria Karamesini (tbc)

• Anne Eydoux, Lise/CEET Paris, “The cost-of-living crisis. A crisis of distribution and social reproduction”
• Ipek Illkaracan, Technical University Istanbul, “The crisis of social reproduction in the EU. Emerging policy perspectives from Feminist Economics Debates on Care”
• Grazia Naletto, Researcher and Activist, Former President of Lunaria APS, “Migration, European policies, and social movements. The trap of “permanent emergency”

End of Conference

02:30 pm – 03:30 pm EuroMemo Legal Association – General Assembly Meeting
03:30 pm – 06:00 pm Planning meeting: EuroMemorandum 2024

Key themes of EU policy will be discussed within six parallel workshops during the first day of the EuroMemo Group Conference.

PARALLEL WORKSHOPS, 27 September, 2.00 pm – 6.00 pm

Workshop 1: Macroeconomic Policies (Chair: Magnus Ryner) 

1. Simon Theurl (Vienna): European Job Guarantee
2. Mario Pianta (SNS Florence): Inflation and distributional conflicts
3. Judith Dellheim (Berlin): The German Zeitenwende as a Politico-Economic Problem in the EU context
4. Magnus Ryner (King’s College London): The Stability and Growth Pact review in context: State-theoretical reflections on the political economy of EU fiscal policy
5. Robert Sweeney (TASC): EU fiscal rules: time to reform

Workshop 2: The crisis of social reproduction in the EU (Chair: Maria Karamessini) 

1. Rosaria Rita Canale (Naples “Parthenope”) & Giorgio Liotti (Messina) Poverty, economic freedom and the size of government in the Eurozone.
2. Gemma Gasseau (SNS, Florence) Transnational political contention in the EU: The right to water
3. Maria Karamessini (Panteion University Athens): Social divergences within and across EU member states and the reform of EU governance framework: what alternatives?
4. Linnea Nelli (University Cattolica Sacro Cuore, Milan) and Maria Enrica Virgillito (Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa) More than a She-recession: Long-term feminization and short-term pandemic effects

Workshop 3: The political economy of Italy (Chair: Valeria Cirillo)

1. Guilherme Spinato Morlin (Pisa), Marco Stamegna (SNS, Florence) Simone D’Alessandro (Pisa): Energy Price Shocks, Inflation, and Distribution in Italy: A Simulation Model and Policy Analysis
2. Massimiliano Agovino, Katia Marchesano et al. (Naples “Parthenope”): Yardstick competition in the Italian waste legislation. How much does the type of neighbour matter?
3. Vicenzo Maccarrone (SNS, Florence): Inflation and collective bargaining within the Italian labour crisis
4. Valeria Cirillo (Bari), Rinaldo Evangelista (Camerino), Matteo Lucchese (ISTAT): The consequences of inflation on wages, incomes and inequalities

Workshop 4: Radical approaches to the green and digital transformations (Chair: Ronan O’Brien) 

1. Arturo Hermann (ISTAT): Exploring the Contributions of Radical Ecology and Heterodox Economics in Building an Alternative Political Economy of Sustainability
2. Jakob Nitschke (Naples “Parthenope”/Cote d’Azur): Realities of the Twin-Transition – EU Research Funding, Artificial Intelligence, and Techno-Optimism
3. Ronan O’Brien (Brussels): How to achieve the rapid change required for the climate and other planetary boundaries in a socially positive manner? Assessing the possible contribution of degrowth, post-growth and related approaches in a European and global perspective
4. Wojciech Ostrowski (Westminster): The Twilight of Resource Nationalism: From Cyclicality to Singlularity

Workshop 5: The changing world order and its effects on the EU (Chair: Heikki Patomäki) 

1. Heikki Patomaki (Univ. of Helsinki): The Current Political Economy of Global (In)Security
2. Ingar Solty (Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, Berlin): The War in Ukraine and the new asymmetrical transatlanticism
3. Birgit Mahnkopf (Berlin School of Economics): US tech geopolitics against the European Green Deal
4. Claudio Cozza (Naples “Parthenope”): Blurring boundaries: an analysis of the digital
   platforms-military nexus
5. Bryn Jones ( Bath, UK) Reforming an ‘Empire’? Neo-nationalism, Fiscal Seizure and ‘Barbarian’ Threats

Workshop 6: The discourse and policies on migration and refugees in the aftermath of the war in Ukraine’ (Chair: Mahmood Messkoub)

1. Mahmood Messkoub (ISS – Erasmus University of Rotterdam, The Hague): ‘Is there a Level Playing/Telling Field in the discourse and narrative on migration: where is the migrants’ ‘voice’ in the EU migration policy making?
2. Michel Debruyne and Sofie Put (Beweging, Belgium): The Cross Talks, rebalancing the voices of migrants.
3. Aly Tandian (GERM, Université Gaston Berger de Saint-Louis, Senegal): I travel therefore I exist
4. Dora Kostakopoulou (HIVA, Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium): Towards a statute on European Union Citizenship

Background Papers: 

Afraim Mammadow: New Energy Provider of Europe: Azerbaijan

Yannis Tolios (MAHOME, Athens): The transition to a multipolar world, the role of the EU and the case of Greece

Janusz Tomidajewicz: EU socio-economic policy in the face of the challenges of the struggle for a new world
division

You can find some practical information for Napoli’s visitors here

You can find our information on Hotel accommodation and Conference Venue in Napoli here

You can find information for taxi tariffs in Naples here.

You can find and pay the conference fee here.

** Call for papers closed for 2023 **

We would like to invite you to attend the conference and to submit paper proposals for contributions to the workshops.

We invite proposals for papers that address any aspect of the conference theme War, the climate catastrophe and the crisis of social reproduction: how should the EU cope with the polycrisis?” In particular, we encourage submissions that relate to recent European developments that pertain to one of the following topics:

• Growth? – degrowth? – sufficiency? – sustainability? What mode of production and consumption is needed for socio-ecological transformation in the EU, but also on the global level?
• Fiscal policy for the EU in the 21st century and the reform of the Stability of Growth Pact (SGP)
• National recovery and resilience plans: state of implementation and preliminary assessments
• The return of inflation, ECB monetary policy, and its distributional implications
• Implementation of the European Pillar of social rights vs. contradictory national level reforms (e.g. the planned pension reform in France)
• Labour struggles, trade unions, productivity and wages in an era of high inflation
• The discourse and policies on migration and refugees in the aftermath of the war in Ukraine
• The economic and political agendas of the far-right governments and political forces in the EU in the current conjuncture (e.g. Italy, Poland, Hungary, France)
• The political economy of energy and the energy transformation in the EU
  The European Green Deal: its state of implementation, its limits and the challenges for achieving the socio-ecological transformation of prevailing production and consumption models
• The challenge of a just transition in the EU that stays within the 1.5°Celsius target
• The global dimension of the climate and biodiversity catastrophe, the importance and implications of global climate and ecological justice, and the discussion about loss and damage and similar mechanisms
• The green transition and the perils of resource extractivism, especially in the Global South, including structural dependencies of the EU (minerals, rare earths etc.)
• Implications of militarization, the military-industrial complex and of increased global divisions for socio-ecological transformation and the European Green Deal
• The role of the EU in Europe and in the world, relations to the US and China
  The political economy of regions, and of “core and periphery” in the European Union, with a particular emphasis on Central & Eastern Europe, the Western Balkans (enlargement), as well as Southern Europe.

Proposals for papers together with a short abstract (maximum 250 words) should be submitted by 16 June 2023 to info@euromemo.eu.

We strongly encourage applications of participants from CEE countries and different networks of heterodox economists. If possible, please indicate the topic which the proposal is intended for. If accepted, completed papers should be submitted by 31 August 2023.

We strongly encourage participants to submit short papers (5000 – 6000 words) and to explicitly address policy implications.

If you would like to submit an abstract and/ or participate in the conference, please fill in the registration form (only available until the deadline for this call for papers), and send it to to info@euromemo.eu.

Please note that there is no deadline for registering for participation only.

All submitted abstracts will be reviewed by the Steering Committee of the EuroMemo Group. Accepted papers will be published on the conference website and there is also the possibility to publish selected papers presented at the conference within the EuroMemo Group Discussion Paper Series.

Please note that there will be a conference fee to cover the cost of the conference.

Our plenary sessions are now available on youtube!

Our opening and closing panel discussions are uploaded by Parthenope University of Naples on youtube. HERE you can find the link.

Click below to watch:  

• Ole Wæver (Copenhagen University) discussing The Political State of the Union and
• Angela Wigger (Radbout University) whether green and digital capitalism can be combined;
  
• the political situation of Italy presented by Lorenzo Zamponi (Scuola Normale Superiore, Florence) and
• Valeria’s  Cirillo (University of Bari) analysis on political and social conditions in Italy;
• the interview with Giorgio Airaudo, (General Secretary of CGIL Piedmont) and discussion with Mario Pianta (Scuola Normale Superiore, Florence) on Italian and European trade union movement;
• the Conference’s policy