Euro zone crisis and climate change: Addressing two targets with one instrument

Germany should invest to convert industry and the energy sector, argue Heiner Flassbeck and Will Denaye

Concertation sociale et transformations socio-économiques en Belgique, de 1944 à nos jours

The socioeconomic development of most European countries has been largely shaped by social dialogue, by negotiations between employers and workers representatives. To that respect, Belgium has played a pivotal role. The Belgian post-WW2 institutions, aimed at fostering social dialogue, are often alluded to as a reference. In sixty years, these institutions have changed, along with the transformations of the economic, social and political context. We study here the dynamical movement that simultaneously transforms the social dialogue, on the one hand, and the historical context in which it is anchored, on the other. We contrast two thirty-year periods: the golden age, followed by an age of upheaval. The former is characterized by the setting up and the extension of a coherent model while the latter rather appears as a defensive withdrawal in a context of crisis and of socioeconomic upheaval. In the midst of the turmoil, the social partners uneasily seek for meaningful responses.

Disrupted continental environments around the Devonian-Carboniferous Boundary: introduction of the tener event

Recent refinements of the palynological stratigraphic scheme around the Devonian-Carboniferous Boundary in southern Belgium result in new questions on the effect of the Hangenberg Biocrisis on spores and on the validity of some ‘biozones’. Verrucosisporites nitidus, the guide taxa of the last Devonian palynozone (LN zone) is lacking in many sections and its presence is only acknowledged in proximal settings. Hence the LN zone is considered as an ecozone rather than a biozone. Moreover, investigation of the uppermost part of the uppermost Famennian shows that the palynological assemblages is dominated by abnormal forms of Retispora lepidophyta, notably by R. lepidophyta var. tener which seems to be characteristic of this interval in Western Europe. It is thus proposed to introduce the global tener event as a potential marker of the Hangenberg Biocrisis on land and in proximal marine settings. This profusion of abnormal spores is thought to be related to climatic variation possibly in link with global cooling below the Devonian-Carboniferous Boundary

Proceedings of the XIth International Symposium on Fossil Cnidaria and Porifera, Liège, Belgium, August 19-29, 2011: Preface

peer reviewe

Proceedings of the XIth International Symposium on Fossil Cnidaria and Porifera, Liege, Belgium, August 19-29, 2011: Preface

peer reviewe