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“In our textile factory there is no union. This allows our bosses to manipulate us. In a company near ours, the union representative is close to the owner, so it is no better there.

“I got fed up, so I started sending complaints to the labour inspectorate. One was for mobbing [harassment] – for not letting employees visit a toilet. Another was for unpaid overtime and one was because [the bosses forced me] to hand back part of my salary. But it was futile as I sent the complaints anonymously, because I feared being fired. 

“Fear kills our hope.”

This 47-year-old single mother from Stip, North Macedonia, insisted on anonymity. During communist Yugoslavia, she said, women in her town were proud to be textile workers. The status meant emancipation and a decent wage. Through the active union, they also had a say in how the factory was run.

Now, the industry is a symbol of exploitation. The union has long turned into a puppet where owners and politicians, not workers, have control. This has stifled the voices of women, in particular.

Ludovic Voet is confederal secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) and responsible for its work on the rights of platform workers, such as delivery drivers, cleaners, translators and web designers.

Why is it so difficult for unions to organise those employed in the platform economy?

The main reason is the imbalance of power and information asymmetry between platform workers and companies, who may have access to more data, resources and influence, and who can use various strategies to discourage unions from organising, such as surveillance, manipulation, intimidation or retaliation.



What are the problematic working conditions in the platform economy?

Companies often use the veneer of technological innovation to undermine workers’ rights by providing a service that is paid for by the task or by the hour, rather than by a salary or fixed contract. Workers have little or no control over the price of the service or their schedule. They are often classified as self-employed and have limited or no access to social protection or collective bargaining.

What improvements does the EU Directive on platform work bring?

The EU Directive should address these issues. However, some of the measures that would achieve this are actively being derailed by lobbyists. 

At the core of the struggle is the employment status for platform workers. We have been clear from the start: no more bogus self-employment. We are also pushing for platform workers to have collective bargaining rights and trade union protection. 



A right to transparency means that platform workers will be able to understand how the platform operates and how it affects their work and income. There should also be a ban on robo-firing, where workers are dismissed through automated decision-making systems.

What are examples of where platform workers have achieved improvements?

Workers have gone through years of legal process. But corporations attempt to stymie this progress by only applying the rulings to individual workers covered by the case, or not applying the rulings at all.

Against all odds, some workers have managed to organise, but these are rare exceptions. In Italy, for example, the Riders Union Bologna, negotiated a collective agreement with the food delivery platform Sgnam.

Just one of every 17 workers – six percent – is part of a trade union in Estonia. This is the lowest proportion among all the OECD countries. According to a labour expert, unions’ low popularity is driven by a “a particularly radical manifestation of neoliberal ideology”.

Kaja Valk, the newly appointed chairman of the Central Union of Estonian Trade Unions, admitted that it is “a very small number of people”, but she hasn’t presented how she plans to grow union membership.

A small number leads to a minor role for Unions in policy-making. The Unions do have a say in agreeing to the country’s minimum wage and the unemployment insurance tax. Outside of these responsibilities, they are hardly visible.

In Germany, many people see strikes as a nuisance, especially when it affects them personally. A train drivers’ strike last week is a good example of the reactions this industrial action provokes in Germany. Their union is small, but its members occupy central positions in rail operations. 


A recent poll reveals that only 40 percent of those surveyed show an understanding of the actions of the train drivers, and 44 percent for recent strikes in the public sector. Some people complain that the strikers are taking the whole society as a “hostage”. 

But there are other, much more sympathetic reactions to strikes in Germany. 


In April this year and for more than two months in late summer, there were strikes by truck drivers at a highway station in Gräfenhausen. At times 120 drivers, mostly from Georgia and Uzbekistan, who worked for the Polish company Mazur, but mainly drove in Germany and Austria, parked their trucks for weeks because they had not received their already meagre wages. 


They succeeded: In the end they received the money to which they were entitled. Very few of these drivers were unionised. Nevertheless, there was a great deal of support for the strike from the trade unions: people brought food and, if needed, drove strikers to see a doctor. 


This support probably meant that the strikers were able to endure their action for so long – and that in the end their strike was successful. This contrasts with other European countries, where the striking Mazur drives did not resist for such a long period. Even though the Gräfenhausen strike was not conventionally organised through a union structure, solidarity from unions somehow made the difference.

Twenty years ago, no one would have bet that Poland’s accession to the European Union would be a great success for the country and Europe. The dominant fears were that Poland needed more reforms, had a weak economy and high unemployment, so its people would flood the Western countries’ labour market.

Poland joined the EU on credit. Successive governments implemented the required reforms. Poles did indeed travel en masse to work in EU countries, but the Polish plumber became the symbol of a hard-working, reliable craftsman.

Since Poland’s accession to the EU was a success, it was thought this would be the case for other countries. In 2007, Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU. This is where serious problems began, as these countries, plagued by various political conflicts, failed to carry out the necessary systemic reforms.

Soon the economic and migration crises began to reach Europe, serious enlargement was postponed for an unspecified period. On top of that, it turned out that Poland – a recent front-runner in Europe – started to cause big problems. Those in power since 2015 started to demolish the rule of law, one of the main pillars on which the EU community is founded.

Moreover, it turned out that there is no effective way to discipline Poland, because the EU has no tools to do so.

The Union is once again at a crossroads: accepting new countries or reforming to prevent it from breaking up? The example of the Polish experience shows that both are necessary. Without enlargement and the will to admit more countries, the EU loses its credibility. But it must have the tools to discipline countries that break its rules.

Two decades ago in Thessaloniki, the EU promised the Western Balkans full membership in the political bloc. Fast-forward to today, and it seems nothing has moved on.

Sure, last week Brussels uttered a conditional ‘Yes’ for Bosnia’s start of accession talks, while demanding more reform, and slapped the other five states on the back for their commitment to the accession process.

The EU also launched its new Growth Plan for the Western Balkans with an aim to double the size of the economies of the six countries, bring their markets closer, and has pledged six billion euros for reforms.

No one in the Western Balkans was excited. Here lies the catch. The EU has simply lost the hearts and minds of the region’s people.

Bosnia remains stuck in an inter-ethnic and legal nightmare, Serbia and Kosovo feel they should cut off one of their arms and legs to progress, North Macedonia remains de facto blocked by EU member Bulgaria over sensitive identity issues, Albania is forced to wait for North Macedonia, and Montenegro has fallen victim to domestic political deadlock.

People have already subscribed to the well-conceived anti-EU narratives. I hear many say “Brussels is hypocritical” and “The EU is on the brink of falling apart.”

The EU needs to decide. Either they muster the courage to export stability to the region, and reap the long-term benefits of a greater union, or the region slips into disarray, and they must brace for importing instability.

Brussels will need to show strategic forward-thinking, a vision. In the same way it did during its enlargement with eastern European countries in the 2000s. Or let’s stop sugarcoating the bloc’s lack of will or capability. In that case the EU will be thrown out on its own doorstep, and we will become the site of a shipwreck, where the EU values went to die.

“Ukraine is as far from EU membership as Makó is from Jerusalem,” Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán stated jokingly in the Hungarian state media, a day after the European Commission gave the green light to the wartorn state’s accession negotiations.

The old proverb quoted by the Prime Minister refers to Makó, a remote, rural town in Hungary, and is, therefore, a measure of large distance.

Would Ukraine be a more faraway country for the Orbán cabinet than Moldova? The Hungarian government seems to have no serious concerns about Moldova’s EU accession. Hungarian foreign minister Péter Szijjártó visited Romania ahead of these negotiations, where he discussed energy cooperation with his Romanian counterparts and raised no objections to Moldova’s accession, which is important for Romania. But with Ukraine, Szijjártó says “war would come to the EU”.

Above all, warned MEP Kinga Gál from Orbán’s Fidesz party, “the EU must first fulfil its promises to the Western Balkans, including Serbia [a close ally of Budapest].”

Most of the work regarding Ukraine’s accession to the EU is still to be done, reveals one of Ukraine’s leading European integration experts, European Pravda editor-in-chief Sergiy Sydorenko.

The European Commission has acknowledged Ukraine’s accomplishments in reforming since the summer of 2022. But were these substantial reforms, or mostly bureaucratic?

I strongly oppose the narrative that there is a difference between “true” and “paper-based” reforms. Most reforms are actually done in the spheres of legislative acts, and procedural changes, among others. In terms of reforms which can transform the country, often there is no element that is really tangible [to the people at large].

If you take into account the situation in Ukraine, in a year’s time a lot has been done. Even EU bureaucrats who aren’t supportive of Ukraine have acknowledged this. But if we really want to join the EU, we are still doing too little too slowly. The amount of work to be done is about ten times larger than for us to become an associate member of the EU.

Which key challenges do you see?

If you are waiting for the words “anti-corruption” from me, I won’t say them. I think there will be harder challenges, but we can’t even imagine them now. For example, environmental reforms are usually really hard to implement. But maybe in Ukraine things will happen differently.

Ukrainian politicians say it’s possible to end the EU accession talks in about two years. Is there any other country which has done such a large amount of work this fast?

I don’t think two years and even four years are realistic. But comparing Ukraine to other countries is a trap: The EU has changed since its most recent substantial enlargement. It’s more loyal and faster in some things, such as accepting new members which are in its security interests. This is the situation now, though. If in France, for example, Marine Le Pen will become President instead of Emmanuel Macron, the story will change.

The German Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock is a passionate advocate of EU enlargement. Yet, it remains unclear if Germany will consent to the swift accession of Ukraine and other candidate states. There is a major worry that the EU will repeat previous mistakes concerning corruption and the rule of law.

To avoid this, Baerbock has reiterated the necessary steps to reform the Union, such as removing the unanimity principle in decision-making. But this suggestion is also controversial, even inside the coalition leading Germany, such as with the liberal FDP. The party objects to Germany losing its power of veto when it comes to financial and taxation issues.

Furthermore, support for Ukraine’s rapid accession to the EU is decreasing among the German population. In May 2022, 63% were in favour, but by June 2023 this dropped to only 45%, with 42% showing strong dissent.

As I was dragging my suitcases across the Hungarian-Serbian border in the summer heat, I had my doubts about taking the train. The year was 2004, the destination was Montenegro, and I was ready for a 20-hour night journey from Subotica, Serbia to Bar on the Adriatic coast. However, due to a huge queue of cars, we had to cross the border on foot to reach our departure point.

With these beginnings, the holiday was – naturally – the best time of our lives.

Since that August day, I have become a firm believer in rail travel, criss-crossing the continent from Narvik to Naples. It was a far cry from the 90s, when Hungarian students travelled around Europe on fake interrail tickets, but it was cheap, efficient – and a real coming-of-age-adventure.

The years went by, my love of travel remained, but with the advent of budget airlines, I became a frequent flyer. Although it is fast and inexpensive, I miss the train journeys where I could comfortably stretch my legs and watch the forests pass by.

The problem is: I could not travel by train even if I wanted to. Our night train from Budapest to Venice has been cancelled, there are no more trains from Budapest to Montenegro, and to travel to Brussels – a trip I make every month – I would have to drive to Vienna, where the train departs.

Passenger rail transport has sadly become unprofitable in Europe. While governments support national lines, international ones are so expensive that people choose to fly, even for smaller distances.

After more than a decade, I finally managed to take a night train again this May. Memories instantly came rushing back, as I lay in the compartment taking me from Chełm in Poland to Kyiv, where the train is a lifeline for the war-torn population. Ironically enough, sometimes it takes a war to make us appreciate what we have.