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Project for a
Charter of Principles for Another Europe
Introduction
Another
Europe is possible: this is the horizon created by the anti-neoliberal
social movements, creating a new stage in constructing a Europe of
peoples.
The
French and Dutch “No” to the “Treaty Adopting a European Constitution”
revealed the failure of European neoliberal construction,
anti-democratic and patriarchal, resulting in trade-offs between States
without the peoples' intervention. The elites claimed to be exercising
a power invested in them, but which had not been conferred on them. The
democratic deficit that has characterized the current construction of
Europe has to be filled.
European mobilizations during the first years ofthe 21stcentury against the war, neoliberalism, sexism and racism, against the
destruction of democratic and social rights and the privatization of
public services and demanding the guarantee of universal rights, have
opened the way to elaborating a project of a “Charter of Principles for
Another Europe”, which we wish to submit for public discussion.
The Principles of Another Europe are all equally important and have as their basis:
? equal dignity between persons and the inviolability of each person to be respected by all institutions;
? peace, freedom, justice and security as individual and collective assets;
? equality between all, first and foremost, the parity between men and women, by guaranteeing difference and diversities;
? democracy ensuring equal representation and participation;
? European citizenship based on place of residence;
? Social
rights, the right to work and rights at work, the only solution in
order to eliminate poverty, different forms of exclusion, and
impoverishment;
? A socially equitable economy, based on solidarity, sustainable life, and democracy
? Peoples' freedom and citizen’ freedom.
Europe
is not the same as the European Union: the process of enlargement by
means of neoliberal policies is provoking in the east, but also in the
west, unemployment, poverty, exclusion and is nourishing different
forms of chauvinism.
The
construction of the European Communities and of the European Union has
has been characterized by the weight assigned to governments, to an
unelected authority, the central role of the market-place, the right to
open competition and to transnational corporations, around which
economic and social relations, as well as the institutions themselves,
have been structured. From now on we are faced with an ”economic
constitution” – the laws of the market-place are at the core of
Treaties, prevail over democratic political decisions – in clear
opposition to the founding principles of the constitutional Charters of
the 20th century.
On
the contrary, one must affirm the priority of fundamental social rights
and of political and cultural rights, which require another economy to
realise commonly-shared natural assets – land, water, air, energy – and
public services. There has to be a recommitment to a vast process of
social re-appropriation – new forms of social property - in order to
satisfy all the social needs and permit a democratic development that
can be ecologically sustained.
The
Europe that we want is founded on the primacy of the rights of all and
on the fundamental principle of direct participation by the citizens in
public and collective decision-making. Europe must be a union of
peoples freely associated together, grounded in constitutional
democracy and a public space stretching beyond national borders,
characterized by democracy at every level.
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