News

In the midst of preparations for our conference in Greece with dozens of Greek NGOs (Dec 11), the consultation meeting on the future of migration with DG Home Affairs (Dec 3), the side event on migration and poverty at the convention on poverty (Nov 26), the breakfast debate on social innovation (Dec 18) and the conference on tax-justice and climate change (Dec 5) in the European Parliament….. I went home… 600 km away from Brussels.

There… I plugged into current national debates. I often heard that Brussels is far away from citizens’ concerns. That might be true, but the issues at stake remain the same. For example, you may have read in the news that in Brittany, in the western part of France, red cap demonstrations turned violent last week. Demonstrators expressed their fear for the future. Over the last months they have seen many job losses in the region’s main industry, agribusiness. They see their neighbours falling into poverty, and whole villages are questioning their sustainability with all of their population unemployed. The feeling is so strong that all demonstrators wore the same red cap as a sign of solidary despite the fact that, in a previous life, they would not have walked together: company owners, employees, trade union members, political parties, extremists. What a mix! At the moment, there is no national political response to their anger.

Despite being far away from Brussels, I found links with the work Social Platform does on:

• austerity measures and the impact on poverty,
• the work on taxation and climate change to ensure that the most vulnerable also benefit from it without being the hardest hit,
• the need to change current economic policy to ensure the wellbeing of all.

We cannot really escape the issues we are facing. I might drive away from Brussels, but the issues remain and still need to be tackled. Brussels might not be the solution, but it must take its share of the responsibility and the solution.

Let’s engage!

Pierre Baussand, Director