In 2019, the world witnessed an exceptional wave of climate protests. In this case study, we scrutinise who participated in the protests staged in Belgium. We ask: did the exceptional mobilising context of the 2019 protest wave also bring exceptional protesters to the streets? Were thanks to the unique momentum standard barriers to protest participation overcome? We answer these questions by comparing three surveys of participants in the 2019 protest wave with three surveys of relevant reference publics. Our findings show that while the Belgian 2019 protest was in many ways exceptional, its participants were less so. Although participants – especially in the early phase of the protest wave – were less protest experienced, younger and unaffiliated to organisations, our findings simultaneously confirm the persistence of a great many well-known socio-demographic and political inequalities. Our conclusion centres on the implications of these findings.

In 2019, the world witnessed an exceptional wave of climate protests. In this case study, we scrutinise who participated in the protests staged in Belgium. We ask: did the exceptional mobilising context of the 2019 protest wave also bring exceptional protesters to the streets? Were thanks to the unique momentum standard barriers to protest participation overcome? We answer these questions by comparing three surveys of participants in the 2019 protest wave with three surveys of relevant reference publics. Our findings show that while the Belgian 2019 protest was in many ways exceptional, its participants were less so. Although participants – especially in the early phase of the protest wave – were less protest experienced, younger and unaffiliated to organisations, our findings simultaneously confirm the persistence of a great many well-known socio-demographic and political inequalities. Our conclusion centres on the implications of these findings.

Both on the ground and in the air, attention to detail can make all the difference between safety and disaster. Focused on pilots, Eva van der Fluit investigates what is needed in order to align the perspectives of all professionals they collaborate with so as to facilitate solid judgment and sound sense-making as the basis for their actions. This can lead to disagreements and conflict, which is not necessarily bad when they can manage, constructively, the pinnacle of differing paradigms at crucial moments. This can be defined as the sweet spot of conflict. This spot represents the essential moment at which all perspectives come to the table, are exchanged and lead to new insights. It takes special skills to manage such a process, many of which can be seen as mediation skills. If pilots, most often the captain, can successfully keep the communication process focused on the content and if they do not make it personal, the sweet spot may result in achieving a coordinated outcome, supported by all involved. The way pilots manage what is known as beginning conflict (as distinct from escalated conflict) has attracted the attention of other professionals such as doctors, lawyers, accountants and board members. Even at the lowest level of an organisation, important lessons may be learnt from the best practices developed in the airline industry.

Taking the Green Pledge presents a timely opportunity for mediators, and the corporations that use their services, to come together and maximise their effectiveness. Mobilising collective effort among the global mediation community can not only help to keep mediation uppermost in people’s minds as an option in the resolution of conflict but may also serve to make up, in some small way, the shortfall that arises through prolonged use of oil, gas and coal, in the face of global uncertainty.

Originally, Article 12 of the Dutch Code of Criminal Procedure was intended as a correction mechanism for the prosecution monopoly of the Public Prosecution Service. In a later stage, the private interest of complainants (or victims) became more central. This article argues that a third function now emerges: a valve function for social dissatisfaction. The social conflicts that underly the proceedings in these socially sensitive cases give rise to new democratic legitimacy problems. However, an appropriate normative framework that captures these new democratic demands has not yet been constructed. To this end, this article provides an alternative democratic vocabulary in order to bridge the gap between empirical and normative notions of legitimacy. By means of a historical and normative analysis, it will be argued that Article 12 has an important democratic potential within the characteristically autonomous Dutch system of criminal law.

In a case arising from the sudden collapse of a construction company, the Employment Appeal Tribunal has confirmed the limited scope of the ‘special circumstances’ defence for not consulting on collective redundancies.

The Supreme Court has confirmed that recognised trade unions do not have a veto over employers making direct offers to their members to change terms and conditions of employment. Employers must, however, follow and exhaust the collective bargaining processes with their recognised unions before they may make direct offers with a view to resolving an impasse that has arisen.

The Federal Labour Court of Germany has continued to specify the requirements for the legality of age limits in employer-funded pension plans under German law. In this case, according to the Court, the employer could impose a maximum age of 55 as a requirement of entry to the company pension plan.

The Danish Ministry of Employment has been held liable for a protracted legislative process following the ECJ’s ruling in the Ole Andersen case (C-499/08), which concluded that the Salaried Employees Act was not compliant with Directive 2000/78/EC concerning equal treatment in employment and occupation (prohibition of discrimination on grounds of age).

The Supreme Court has decided that the summary dismissal of an employee for violating a Covid-19 quarantine order by appearing at work is effective and justified.

On 1 December 2021, just prior to the transposition deadline for Directive (EU) 2019/1937 on the protection of persons who report breaches of Union law (the ‘Whistleblowing Directive’), the Irish Supreme Court delivered a judgment that may have an impact on the Protected Disclosures (Amendment) Bill, the piece of legislation intended to be enacted in order to comply with the Whistleblowing Directive. The judgment noted that, while the Oireachtas (the Irish parliament) had envisaged that most complaints for which whistleblower protection would be sought would concern matters of public interest, the actual definition of ‘protected disclosure’ in the Protected Disclosures Act 2014 (the ‘2014 Act’) extends further than that and can cover complaints in the context of employment which are personal to the reporting person. While Ireland has missed the deadline and has yet to enact the Protected Disclosures (Amendment) Bill, one of the intended amendments has been changed since this judgment was delivered.

The German Federal Labour Court has held that where a job-filling procedure disregards mandatory procedural and/or promotional obligations in favour of severely disabled persons, this results in the presumption that an unsuccessful severely disabled applicant had not been considered in the procedure and hence had been disadvantaged on account of their severe disability. In the case at hand the severely disabled job applicant was entitled to compensation for non-pecuniary damage.

The Iaşi Court of Appeal in Romania has upheld a decision issued by the Vaslui Tribunal which found that an employee cannot be the subject of disciplinary action for the refusal to perform work during their weekly rest notwithstanding that a working time schedule imposed by the employer was based on the applicability of an internal company policy.

Working as a rider for the Deliveroo platform is a professional activity that can be performed as a self-employed worker, the Labour Tribunal of Brussels has decided, which also ruled out the possibility of Deliveroo riders enjoying the fiscally beneficial status available for workers active on electronic platforms of the collaborative economy (or ‘sharing economy’).

In its judgment of 25 November 2021, the Belgian Constitutional Court has upheld the obligation to call on recognised dock workers for the activity consisting of preparing trailers on a dock for shipment with a vehicle specifically intended for that purpose (known as a ‘tugmaster tractor’). The obligation to rely solely on recognised dock workers for the performance of port work is justified, among other things, by the need to improve safety in port areas and to prevent accidents at work. The identical treatment of, on the one hand, the loading and unloading of ships in the strict sense and, on the other hand, the activity of preparing trailers on a dock for shipment with a tugmaster tractor, does not breach the principle of equality and non-discrimination. Therefore, equal treatment of both types of port labour, with regard to the obligation to call on recognised dock workers, is reasonably justified.

Euroscepticism has long been absent among Belgian political parties. However, since the start of the century, some Eurosceptic challengers have risen. This article examines the effect of Eurosceptic competition on the salience other parties give to the EU and on the positions these parties take in parliament. Using a sample of plenary debates in the federal and regional parliaments, we track each party’s evolution from 2000 until 2019. Our findings both contradict and qualify existing theories and findings on Eurosceptic competition. When facing Eurosceptic challengers, all parties raise salience fairly equally, but government and peripheral parties adopted (soft) Euroscepticism more often than other parties.

Euroscepticism has long been absent among Belgian political parties. However, since the start of the century, some Eurosceptic challengers have risen. This article examines the effect of Eurosceptic competition on the salience other parties give to the EU and on the positions these parties take in parliament. Using a sample of plenary debates in the federal and regional parliaments, we track each party’s evolution from 2000 until 2019. Our findings both contradict and qualify existing theories and findings on Eurosceptic competition. When facing Eurosceptic challengers, all parties raise salience fairly equally, but government and peripheral parties adopted (soft) Euroscepticism more often than other parties.

The underrepresentation of women in politics is a worldwide phenomenon and the Netherlands fit the pattern: about 39% of the Dutch MPs are female. Based on social role incongruity theory, it is expected that female politicians are evaluated more negatively than male politicians since women do not fit the dominant male politician role. However, most research is conducted in the United States, that is, a candidate-centred system where individual characteristics play an important role. This article focuses on the party-centred parliamentary context in which we examine (1) whether gender stereotypes are present among citizens and (2) to what extent these stereotypes influence the evaluation of politicians. We do this by conducting an experimental vignette survey design. We find that at the mass level there is no difference between the evaluation of male and female politicians, although gender stereotypes are present.

This article provides a computer-assisted morality framing analysis of Vlaams Belang’s 2019 manifesto. The VB is regarded in the literature as a prototypical example of the Populist Radical Right (PRR). We first concisely review what PRR politics is and what it consists of, tentatively distinguishing four elements that we hypothesise will materialise in corresponding subframes running throughout the manifesto. We point to a mismatch between the omnipresent role of morality in all PRR subframes and the little attention devoted to the concept in the PRR literature. We introduce a useful theory from social psychology into framing literature to create a novel methodological approach to frame analysis that builds a bridge between a qualitative content and a quantitative context approach. The results support our hypothesis that populism, nationalism, nativism and authoritarianism can be distinguished from one another. Additionally, we detect a fifth PRR subframe, crimmigration, by its unique role of morality.

Following the municipal elections in the Walloon Region (Belgium) on 14 October 2018, 189 political groups won an absolute majority. Twenty-two of these decided not to exercise power alone, but favoured the formation of an oversized coalition by integrating a minority partner. The aim of this article is to identify the motivations behind the formation of a local coalition when one of the partners has an absolute majority. Semi-structured interviews with mayors and leaders of political groups in these municipalities make it possible to identify the motivations for, first, the choice to open and, second, the choice of a minority partner. By distinguishing between necessary and supporting motivations, this article shows that the search for greater representation is a necessary motivation for the choice to open, whereas personal affinities and memories of the past are necessary motivations for choosing minority partners. By prioritising motivations, this article shows that.