By Steve Coulter, LSE

Laszlo Andor, the EU’s Commissioner for Employment, recently spoke to the Hans Boeckler Stiftung on how to tackle social imbalances in Europe. Andor, generally seen as a friend of the European labour movement, made a couple of interesting points. He pointed out that national divergences in poverty within the Eurozone had sharpened considerably since 2007, with data on household income indicating particularly large swings in median incomes.