SEER Journal for Labour and Social Affairs in Eastern Europe

This study focuses on the online community of Romanian-speaking mobile migrants who live or regularly return to Berlin. Engaging with theories on transnationalism and social media, this article addresses how digital transnational social spaces...

Romania has been, for the past decade, not only the country with the highest in-work poverty among EU member states, but – unlike most of the others – also a country with a steadily growing welfare polarisation of the workforce. This article...

This article reviews the main results of recent empirical research on the topic of income and wealth inequalities, with a special focus on Bulgaria, taking extensive account of the impact of Covid-19 which, according to the data, is responsible for...

Romania's transformation from a socialist to a capitalist market society resulted in massive negative social and economic consequences which, ultimately, have become push factors for labour migration. However, little research has been done on the...

During the last three decades, Albania has maintained steady economic growth which has significantly improved the poverty rate and living standards. However, demographic change has influenced differences in regional development, pressuring the...

The concept of social security – a contemporary, global norm – and the accompanying public expenditures are the products of a search for security against the dangers that may be faced by individuals in society. Social security spending is...

This article reviews the state of the automotive industry in Romania and its level of preparedness for electrification scenarios associated with the drive to reduce CO2 emissions across Europe stemming from the EU’s ‘Fit for 55’ package. The...

In the context of the provision of mutual legal assistance, prosecutors, judges and criminal defence lawyers are frequently confronted with criminal proceedings established in east European countries inside or outside the EU. For this reason,...

This article – written originally as a blog post for the think tank Bruegel – reviews the decisions made in June 2022 to allow Croatia into the euro zone but, in contrast, to make no change in the status of Bulgaria which, nominally, thus...

This article examines the structure and scale of taxation in four western Balkans countries – Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia – in the context of the work of the international trade union organisations (the ITUC...

This article was invited from the author in response to the June 2022 Bruegel.com blog post by Zsolt Darvas – and see the separate article in this issue – about the decision to let Croatia into the euro area while keeping Bulgaria out; and...

In this essay, introducing a new volume considering Sarajevo as a ‘multiplex city’ – ceaselessly active and perpetually changing, rooted in the existence of a multidimensional and collaborative system composed of separate projects – the...

It is a global phenomenon that poverty is an everyday experience which can, however, be found universally amongst minorities, refugees and lower class migrants. All of these groups have in common the lack of access to a ‘normal life’ – an...

This article explores a recent successful threat of industrial action at the ArcelorMittal steel plant at Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Building in interviews with trade unions leaders, the author locates the campaign against the background of the...

Demographic change in Albania during the last three decades has influenced the socio-economic development of the country but has also contributed to the creation of new economic areas with high socio-economic development potential. During 2011-2021,...

This article focuses on an analysis of the digitalisation of enterprises in Albania and its impact on their performance with a view to understanding better the role of digitalisation and the experience of private sector firms in this area. The...

This article reviews the current political, social and economic situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina just after the thirtieth anniversary of the start of the war (April 1992). Drawing on a variety of judiciously-chosen contemporary sources in the German...

Social welfare is gaining prominence in the pursuit of global aspirations to fight climate change, one of the preeminent collective concerns of our time. A series of recent landmark judicial decisions in countries including Germany, France and the...

Within the current geopolitical atmosphere of instability and insecurity on the eastern borders of the EU, enlargement has resurfaced as a topic of high priority, being a basic condition for the future of European integration. The effectiveness of...

This article was written in review of the 27th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide which, in 2022, overlapped with the Eid al Adha celebrations. The author recalls some of the facts related to the Bosnian genocide and the horrific, inhumane...

EU citizens and third country nationals are formally in very different situations when it comes to mobility and rights in the EU, a picture which looks more blurred when we examine workers from south-east Europe. The newest, poorest members of the...