URFIG-supported Document about UE
Common Declaration of Progressive Forces
for
a European Union
The
Convention on the future of Europe started its delicate mission last March. Its
members are responsible for developing the foundations of tomorrow’s European
Union. Considering that at least ten more countries will soon become members and
that our several national economies are more and more dependant, fundamental
changes have to be implemented ; they should affect its institutions but also
its mode of functioning so that its retrieves both transparency and legitimacy
instead of being perceived as complex and removed from citizens' concerns. The
failure in democratic accountability and the failure in developing a social
policy feed each other. They have to be both countered if European citizens are
to adhere to the construction of Europe, otherwise it will happen completely
apart from their legitimate concerns.
The
European Union often appears as a juxtaposition of private interests rather than
a genuine community of women and men trying to generate a social model relying
on humanism, solidarity and generosity. The Convention works within a situation
where a significant global social and environmental unbalance dysfunctioning
cannot be corrected unless through a paradigmatic change in the modes of
production and of consumption. The Convention's aim is to turn the EU into a
political partner that can have its say in international negotiations, with our
objective being to regulate the globalisation of markets and of economic
partners. Many citizens want Europe to be a space of social cohesion. Turning
this wish into reality will undoubtedly attract citizens to the European
project.
Eight
months after the Convention was launched we feel worried about the direction
debates take, the way they are directed and the indifference with which they are
met. On the one hand the reform and improvement of existing treaties does not
draw public attention as much as it should. On the other hand expectations that
progressives may have harboured when it was launched have by now dissipated into
thin air : the views that are voiced during debates are a far cry from our
demand that Europe be at last built on solidarity. We want the future
constitutional treaty to acknowledge and consecrate the values of liberty,
equality and fraternity. Liberty,
freedom because this is what men and women need to be aware of their own dignity.
Equality because without its distributive mechanisms there is no
solidarity and freedom turns into the law of the stronger and stifles solidarity. Fraternity because it seals a human community in that it
transcends differences.
In
spite of a generally healthy European economy, the rate of unemployment is much
too high, and social inequalities keep increasing. The construction of Europe is distorted in that it all too
often sets trade, finances and economy above all other concerns in its
priorities. Solidarity between
different generations and social and occupational categories, proper
consideration of such fundamental rights as access to health care, education and
employment, or concern for environmental integration are almost systematically
perceived as secondary issues. A
stubborn determination to favour competition and competitiveness accounts for
policies that lead to more redundancies, increase wage differences, stress the
importance of workers' flexibility, and jeopardise the status and rights of
workers and employees. The future
of public services and those very principles on which services to the public are
bases are seriously at risk because of this determination to speed up structural
reforms that are based on competition.
The
platform that we represent and which brings together partner associations from
the economic, social and political fields decided on calling upon all those who
like us want to change the course of things before it is too late.
1.
Develop and reinforce the European social model
The
European social model, which relies on a balance between economic prosperity and
social justice, should be explicitly referred to in the future treaty, in which
it must be made clear that the single market and the economic and monetary Union
are only tools to achieve social and environmental goals.
The current European treaties already set the Union such general
objectives as promoting a balanced and sustainable economic development, a high
rate of employment and of social protection, and improving the standard and
quality of life. However, when we
look at facts, we notice that no concern or consideration can prevail against
the rules of a free market (relating to capital, people, goods and services),
against the imperatives of competition, or against the growth and stability Pact.
The
way public services are dealt with strikingly illustrates this distortion. The
market competition to which they are increasingly subjected does not yield the
promised results. In this respect
area as in others it is now urgent to regulate competition and to keep it out of
those areas that cater for the common good.
This
is why we want the Convention to do away with this distortion by reinforcing the
social and environmental objectives of European integration in the text of the
future treaty. This means a. o.
reinforcing the recognition of the part played by public services and General-
Interest Services (GIS) in implementing such principles as solidarity,
universality, fairness, quality, accessibility and adaptability.
We could then feel sure that no liberalisation be decided without
thorough impact studies being carried out, which would examine what social and
environmental costs it might result in. This
will also make it possible to pass a framework directive on GIS which will
guarantee the primacy of general-interest missions on any form of competition,
universal access to a high-quality GIS, a legal hedging to financial subsidies,
and the participation of both social partners and users to its definition.
Moreover
the present recommendation implies that full employment should be one of the
EU's top priorities in order to ensure economic and social security to all.
But the European social model does not stop there : the EU must also make
sure that all its citizens are socially integrated and that national system of
social protection are viable by seeing to it that there is a balance between a
sustainable public financing of pension allowances, their social finality and a
fair intergenerational distribution of contributions.
2.
Integrate the Charter of fundamental rights into the future treaty
Reinforcing
the European social model means including the Charter of fundamental rights into
the future treaty. Apart from the
symbolic bearing of such a declaration of rights and duties, the Union will thus
prove how much it cares for the respect of social rights.
Including
the Charter into the treaty can only be a starting point, however.
The Charter will have to be improved upon and enlarge to include other
rights. This is particularly true
of trade union rights such as the right to go on strike, the right to
accommodation, the right to a minimal allowance, the right to health care, the
right to access to public services and general-interest services, or the right
to education, both initial and continued.
The
Charter's inclusion into the treaty should not induce us to forget the need to
endow the EU with a legal personality so that it can subscribe to the European
Convention of Human Rights and to other international instruments such as the
social charter of Turin, which was adopted by the European Council.
3.
Set up a European social and economic government
Once
we have defined social objectives that the EU should meet, we must develop the
instruments to implement them. We
need an efficient and legitimate decision-making procedure which will include
the economic, social and environmental dimensions and will share the power of
the Ecofin council whith the social and economic council.
This
also requires that qualified majority voting must become the rule and that the
European Parliament be involved in all decisions.
While
the monetary policy is now fully integrated with the introduction of the Euro,
the various economic, budgetary and fiscal policies are hardly coordinated.
Furthermore, the EU has developed an employment policy.
On paper at least, it added a strategy to coordinate economic, employment,
social and environmental policies. Finally,
other coordination mechanisms were added in the field of social exclusion and
social protection.
The
result of such step-by-step development is a failure at achieving a balanced and
coherent coordination. In the
treaty the Convention should set up an economic and social government whose
decisions should take into account the EU's economic, social and environmental
objectives, including on the basis of quality indices.
The
role of such a coordination mechanism will be to define (by qualified-majority
votes) general directions in the economic, social and employment policies and to
see to it that they are implemented. It
will also have to take into account the relative weight of the economic and
financial, social and environmental orientations within the Council.
The
EU's economic and social government will not make any decision on its own.
It will have to consult with the European parliament on general annual
directions, and not just pass on information, as is the case today. Similarly,
national parliaments will also have to be consulted.
It
is necessary to reinforce a European social dialogue. It will be useful to set up a European Labour Council, which
will on the one hand develop European collective conventions (bilateral social
dialogue) and on the other hand organise a genuine trilateral consultation
(employers
- trade unions – EU) on all general decisions to be made in economic, social
and employment policies. Moreover,
participative democracy will be set up thanks to specific institutions and
appeal procedures.
The
European Central Bank will dialogue with the economic and social government in a
way that will both respect its independence and make it possible for the latter
to achieve other objectives than the stability of prices, for instance
sustainable growth and full employment. The
Central Bank will be accountable to the European parliament and will have to
function in a more transparent way.
4.
Reinforce the coordination of economic policies
In
order to coordinate economic policies the EU's jurisdiction will have to be
enlarged to prevent individual governments from organising social or fiscal
competition and thus jeopardising the necessary solidarity among The State
members.
This
presupposes that the growth and stability pact be revised to enlarge its power
to promote growth, particularly thanks to an approach based on structural
deficits and on the exchange of information among countries before any decision
is made. More concretely, the growth and stability pact must be made more easily
adaptable by introducing a distinction between structural and conjunctural
deficits, by including public investments and programmes for the cancellation of
the debt in developing countries into the construction of the deficit, and
lastly by accounting for deficits not on an annual basis but for much longer
periods.
Fiscal
policy also has to be better harmonised if we want fiscal pressure to be fairly
distributed among the various production factors so that all can benefit from
the created wealth and EU economic agents are encourage to work in a perspective
of sustainable development.
To
achieve this, qualified majority voting has to be adopted within the Council.
Setting up a minimal rate of taxation on companies, a European taxation
system on returns on savings, taxation on energy consumption and on movements of
capital is another set of necessary measures.
ATTAC
OXFAM
SOLIDARITE
CSC
FGTB
ECOLO/AGALEV
PS/SP