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Focusing on two key instruments, the Just Transition Fund and the Social Climate Fund, this article assesses to what extent the EU's pledge for a 'just transition' has the potential to foster greater social justice while implementing the European Green Deal. We analyse the related objectives, policy tools and patterns of political conflict and find that both Funds have narrow objectives anchored in a reactive logic complementing existing social investment initiatives with a focus on reskilling the workforce hit by decarbonisation. Both instruments rely on multi-level investment aiming to generate green growth, combined with targeted compensation for the more vulnerable. This, we argue, is not conducive to a just transition that addresses the intersection of environmental and social problems in a holistic way. Finally, various political fault lines pose the threat that EU action will be insufficient to tackle exacerbated inequalities in the future.

In 2021, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) turned 20 years old. With "Shanghai Spirit" as its guiding principle, the scope of SCO's activity has significantly expanded, recently adding India and Pakistan to its members. As a result, SCO policy has heavily influenced the Central Asia region. In response, in 2019, the EU launched a new strategy for Central Asia, adopting "connectivity" as its core concept. As a result, both SCO and EU strategies in Central Asia tend to conflict with each other, thus leading to uneven and inconsistent development of the region. Therefore, this paper aims to identify contradictions between SCO's "Shanghai Spirit" guiding principle and the EU's concept of "connectivity" by comparing the SCO and EU strategies toward Central Asia. The methodology in the paper involves a qualitative comparative method, including two qualitative case studies, represented by the SCO's "Shanghai Spirit" and the EU's concept of "connectivity" in their strategies on Central Asia. The article concludes that contestation between the SCO and the EU policies in Central Asia impedes stable development of the region, and therefore, a compromise between both policies in Central Asia is suggested.

The difficulties of access to the labor market remains in the post-crisis period, particularly for younger people and for those countries more affected by the crisis. The economic conditions with the precariousness of the labor market and higher unemployment taxes for youth, draws a scenario where the risk of poverty and social exclusion could influence young people and discourage them from social and economic participation, and thus the number of young people not in employment, education, or training (NEETs) will increase. The sustainable development in general and the social sustainability in particular needs to solve this important issue to get a balanced and fair social and economic scenario. In this work, the influence of socio economic variables related to the level of prosperity of the country and social protection as well as the risk of poverty and social exclusion on young NEETs is evaluated based on the EUROSTAT data for the year, 2016, for young people. The method was a structural equations model and the results confirm that the key important factors for explaining the situation of the NEETs' are more related to poverty and exclusion than to the economic environment. The main conclusion from these results is the importance of implementing some inclusive actions to prevent an increase in the number of young NEETs, and boosting, in this way, a more balanced and sustainable society.

[Abstract]: The difficulties of access to the labor market remains in the post-crisis period, particularly for younger people and for those countries more affected by the crisis. The economic conditions with the precariousness of the labor market and higher unemployment taxes for youth, draws a scenario where the risk of poverty and social exclusion could influence young people and discourage them from social and economic participation, and thus the number of young people not in employment, education, or training (NEETs) will increase. The sustainable development in general and the social sustainability in particular needs to solve this important issue to get a balanced and fair social and economic scenario. In this work, the influence of socio economic variables related to the level of prosperity of the country and social protection as well as the risk of poverty and social exclusion on young NEETs is evaluated based on the EUROSTAT data for the year, 2016, for young people. The method was a structural equations model and the results confirm that the key important factors for explaining the situation of the NEETs' are more related to poverty and exclusion than to the economic environment. The main conclusion from these results is the importance of implementing some inclusive actions to prevent an increase in the number of young NEETs, and boosting, in this way, a more balanced and sustainable society.

The difficulties of access to the labor market remains in the post-crisis period, particularly for younger people and for those countries more affected by the crisis. The economic conditions with the precariousness of the labor market and higher unemployment taxes for youth, draws a scenario where the risk of poverty and social exclusion could influence young people and discourage them from social and economic participation, and thus the number of young people not in employment, education, or training (NEETs) will increase. The sustainable development in general and the social sustainability in particular needs to solve this important issue to get a balanced and fair social and economic scenario. In this work, the influence of socio economic variables related to the level of prosperity of the country and social protection as well as the risk of poverty and social exclusion on young NEETs is evaluated based on the EUROSTAT data for the year, 2016, for young people. The method was a structural equations model and the results confirm that the key important factors for explaining the situation of the NEETs&rsquo ; are more related to poverty and exclusion than to the economic environment. The main conclusion from these results is the importance of implementing some inclusive actions to prevent an increase in the number of young NEETs, and boosting, in this way, a more balanced and sustainable society.

This paper was published in the journal Applied Ergonomics and the definitive published version is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apergo.2016.08.034. ; This paper focuses on the challenges of meeting agency requirements as it pertains to the application of human factors in the medical device development (MDD) process. Individual case studies of the design and development process for 18 medical device manufacturers located in the US and EU were analysed and compared using a multiple case study design. The results indicate that there are four main challenges in implementing international standards. These include a lack of direct access to users for the purposes of device development; a lack of understanding by users with regards to the impact of their feedback on the development process; contract formalities limiting user exchanges; and the attitude of clinical users directly impacting on the device developer's invitation to participate in the development processes. The barriers presented in this research have the potential to be resolved but only with greater commitment by both medical device users and developers.

This article analyzes the relationship between the social and climate policies of the European Union member states and examines the concept of the eco–social state. In the climate crisis era, the need for a close link between social and climate policies is particularly acute. The European Green Deal and other EU strategies reflect a political agenda with a specific interest in social and ecological goals. We aim to answer whether more significant state efforts in the social field are related to a similarly more substantial commitment in climate policy or whether a greater focus on one means less attention on another.
On a theoretical level, we discuss the challenges of climate change for social policy and present the concept of climate justice. The similarities and differences between the ecological and the welfare state are also examined. We argue that the concept of climate justice highlights the phenomenon of a double and even triple injustice on a global level, which requires joint efforts in spheres of social and climate policy. Eco-social state combines social and environmental institutions intending to ensure welfare and sustainability and thus complements the traditional concept of the welfare state. The Koch-Fritz (2014) classification, which distinguishes between the established, deadlocked, emerging, and failing eco-social states, is presented in the paper and used for the empirical analysis.
The empirical part of the paper employs non-parametrical correlation and hierarchical cluster analysis. The former allows for exploring the links between the ecological and social indicators. The latter enables countries to be grouped according to social and climate indicators and compared to the traditional classification of welfare states and Koch-Fritz models of eco-social states. The analysis is based on social and climate indicators of the Europe 2020 strategy. The study found that countries that provide relatively more significant funding for traditional social problems also perform better in climate change adaptation and mitigation policies by reducing greenhouse gas emissions in an effort–sharing sectors and final energy consumption. We show that clusters of the EU member states in terms of social and climate indicators (eco–social state models) are very similar to their membership in the traditional welfare states' classification.
Moreover, social democratic welfare states are better prepared to address climate change than countries representing other types of welfare states. Thus the analysis confirms the social democratic welfare states as established eco–social states, while the conservative-corporate and liberal welfare states can indeed be called deadlocked eco–social states with average results. We show, however, that Lithuania, together with other Eastern European and Southern European countries, fluctuates on both the best and the worst social and climate change mitigation outcomes. Hence those should be attributed to a group with the mixed results and can be named as failed-emerging eco-social states.