Touching base is powerful!
Last week I participated in the 12th meeting of people experiencing poverty who came from all over Europe. In front of the European Parliament and only 500 metres away from the European Council (who pledged three years ago to reduce poverty by 20 million people and have witnessed only an increase since then) they said: “overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is a task of justice”, “poverty and hunger have no country”, “the poor cannot wait”, “we don’t take no as an answer”, “the Hungarian workfare system is a form of slavery which the EU should oppose”, “never give up” and “I have a dream of a world without poverty”.
Today I was at the first ever Citizen’s summit organised by the Civil Society Contact Group of which Social Platform is a member. The citizens present said amongst others: “we want a basic income”, “we want sanctions for member states and the EU when they don’t respect the convention on human rights”, “we want more participatory democracy”, “reduce inequalities by adopting minimum standards”.
Next Thursday, the European Council that gathers elected representatives from the 27 member states will meet to discuss: the European Semester, the Country Specific recommendations and the Economic and Monetary Union.
The people I met in the last 7 days do not represent all citizens – I won’t make that mistake. But one thing is sure for me: what Social Platform advocates is closer to what they aspire to at the moment. This is why we say to the European Council: when you discuss economic “priorities”, include a prevention and correction mechanism that will ensure that the adopted policy reforms do not undercut or challenge national social standards; and that actions are taken when social imbalances emerge. We want to shield people from the negative impact of the austerity measures and see social progress in Europe.
This is why touching base is so important. It refuels the sense of purpose of our network. What we do for a better social Europe is not done in vain – we are at least doing it with the people we are working for.
Let’s engage!
Pierre Baussand – Director
