For a Social and Ecological Economy

Part I

People First

Policies must be based on economic & social development as well as on environmental protection. They should aim to defend and further develop social achievements. Therefore, policies should be guided by values such as solidarity, cooperation, full employment and a rational relationship with nature.

These goals are only possible to attain by changing the existing rules of the economic and financial system.

The changes needed depend on being able to refound the Europe Union on the basis of new parameters, focusing on people and their rights before profits. Workers must not have to pay for the crisis while banks and finances are bailed out. The logic of the G7´s plan regarding the EU is the opposite: privatizing profits and socializing losses.

However, the legislation already available allows for an investment plan, capable of sustaining employment and support the ecological restructuring of the economy.

The decisive role of credit in the current crisis has already been clearly revealed. It is essential that the credit is redirected to the productive sectors of the economy and the creation of employment. A new perspective about credit has to be adopted at every level including the European Central Bank (ECB).

The new approach to the role of credit in society can only be made possible with a public and social supervision of the banking and financial system. Working people and their organizations, as well as local elected people, should also be able to control the utilization of granted loans and subsidies.

The EL is against current monetary policies of the ECB in detriment of employment, development, public investments and services. We are also against the lack both of transparence and political & democratic accountability of the ECB. Its role must be changed, in line with the purposes of development and environmental protection.

The Growing and Stability Pact, which has dictated the key aspects of the financial and economic guidelines, brought us where we are now and must be replaced by a "Solidarity Pact".

We need a financial transactions tax and abolish tax heavens. It is crucial to introduce a tax for speculative capital. The Tobin Tax can be a tool to finance innovative industrial initiatives in the framework of UN´s agencies. This tax can also be used to consistently help to reduce carbon emissions and create jobs. A European Fund generated within this approach would be submitted to the European Parliament guidelines and programmes. A "New Green Deal" could be push forward by the EP.

The European financial system must be harmonized under the principle of progressiveness.

Another key point is the socialization (by means of nationalization) of common goods and strategic economical sectors. This is needed also to rebuild a general welfare system at an European scale. Naturally, this also means to reverse the privatization processes.

Public Services are public goods and not comercial merchandise intended for profit: education, child and adolescent care, public health, water and energy supply, sewage disposal, public transportation, postal services, culture and mass support. Therefore these goods must not be subject to competition for the lowest costs and maximum profits. The EL is for better public services converted or reverted into public property as well as for more investments publicly controlled and subject to public responsibility and accountability.

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