European New Deal

Europe is disintegrating!

Involuntary under employment

is the bitter price of austerity. It is the effect of ultra low investment, of a failure to generate the paid work that Europe needs to meet economic, social, human and environmental needs, and of the European economic stagnation that concentrates most of economic activity in a few regions but drains the rest.

Protectionism is not the solution!

Involuntary economic migration

within the European Union is the bitter harvest of austerity. The vast majority of Greeks, Bulgarians, Spaniards, Romanians, Portuguese and Poles moving to Britain or Germany do so because they must. With no jobs or prospects at home, with a vast and growing income differential between European countries, what else can they do?

Walls and fences are not the solution!

DiEM25’s solution is a

European New Deal

Principles

Basic goods provision

All Europeans should enjoy the right to basic goods (e.g. nutrition, shelter, transport, energy) in their home country, along with the right to paid work contributing to the maintenance of their communities while receiving a living wage, to decent social housing, to high quality health and education, and to a sustainable environment.

Turning wealth into investment

Europe’s future hinges on the capacity to harness the wealth that accumulates in Europe and turn it into investments in a real, green, sustainable, innovative economy. What matters is not to boost of one European country’s ‘competitiveness’ in relation to another European country but the rise of productivity in green sectors everywhere.

Sharing the returns of capital

In the increasingly digital economy, capital goods are increasingly produced collectively but their returns continue to be privatised. As Europe becomes more technologically advanced, to avoid stagnation and discontent it must implement policies for sharing the dividends from digitisation and automation amongst all its citizens.

Democratic macroeconomic management

Europe’s economies are stagnating because for too long macroeconomic management has been subcontracted to unaccountable ‘technocrats’. It is high time that macroeconomic management is democratised fully and placed under the scrutiny of sovereign peoples.

Policies

Taming finance

Regulating banking and establishing a new public digital payments platform that ends the monopoly of banks over Europe’s payments.

Backing the maintainers

in their own communities to stem forced migration through three programs: an Anti-Poverty, a Social-Housing and a Jobs Guarantee Program.

Fixing the Euro

Saving the Eurozone by ending self-defeating austerity and minimising the cost of its disintegration in case of its occurence.

Pan-European coordination

between Eurozone and non-Eurozone to maximise Europe’s recovery, to optimise the economic and social outcomes across Europe and to end involuntary migration.

Green investment

Linking central banking operations with public investment programs and the new public digital payments platforms.

Universal Basic Dividend

Planning for a post-capitalist economy that is authentically liberal and open: democratising the economic sphere and the introduction of a Universal Basic Dividend.

Timeline

Tomorrow

In the very short term DiEM25 is proposing policies that can be implemented tomorrow morning, by recalibrating existing institutions without the need for bilateral/multilateral agreements or EU Treaty changes. Examples include:

  • The new public digital payments platform that ends the monopoly of banks over Europe’s payments,
  • Green investment-led recovery: Linking central banking with public investment vehicles and the new public digital payments platforms,
  • The Anti-Poverty Program and the moratorium on evictions that is part of the Housing Program,
  • the four policies for dealing with the Eurozone crisis.

Short to long term

In the short to medium term DiEM25 is proposing policies that need bilateral/multilateral agreements between governments but do not require EU Treaty changes. Examples include:

  • The complete gamut of bank regulations,
  • A Jobs Guarantee Program,
  • Coordination between Eurozone and non-Eurozone monetary and fiscal policies to maximise Europe’s recovery.

DiEM25’s long term policy proposals are the ones that require deep institutional changes within nation-states and across Europe and the EU. Examples include the universal basic dividend and policies to democratise the economic and financial spheres.

Read the European New Deal paper

Improve the European New Deal paper

Developing the European New Deal greenpaper has been a collective effort by all DiEM25 members, and so is revising it. If you have further amendments before this becomes DiEM25’s whitepaper, please suggest them before May 3.

DiEM25 is a space for participatory, open-source and democratic actions. This paper, as well as our movement’s organizational principles and everything we do, was designed and put together collaboratively.

Join us, and let’s build a new Europe together.