October 17 is the UN international day against poverty. This year the theme was “From Poverty to decent work: bridging the gap”. 2010 is also the EU year against poverty. We need to remember that this comes after events like Live 8 and the UN Millennium commitments. On one level its strange to have such events because let face it who is it who actually wants poverty? The underlying message from such events has been and remains that “caring individuals” could end poverty directly without any need for political or economic reform. However, the reality is far more different.
The recent mid term review of the UN Millennium goals this year have highlighted the vast gap between the rhetoric and the reality of reducing poverty at global level. Just one statistic highlights the gap: still in 2010 there are 360,000 per year women dying in childbirth. This is an issue that is not difficult to resolve. It’s not about creating new jobs; it’s simply about targeting aid effectively and appropriately.
The same gap between rhetoric and reality is evident at the EU level. This year is in fact the EU year against poverty. The EU held its annual round table on poverty and this highlighted why its mission impossible. The EU round table is billed as kind of “mobilisation of stakeholders”. This year this mobilisation of actors was in two “acts”.
Act One took place as part of what is called the “Round table against Poverty”. I don’t know why its called a “round table” as there is not a round table in sight. This act is infact a traditional stage setting of a succession of people sounding off to an audience that has heard it all before but reacts as if its all new, and greets tired platitudes as if they were new insights that opened up a new world. So we were treated to an MEP calling for people in poverty to have the right to live in “dignity”.Infact she used the word no less than 15 times as if the more she said it the more depth it would carry. Given the fact that this her third mandate in the European Parliament I wondered what she had actually done about addressing this issue in the past 15 years.
”Dignity” infact became the leitmotif as other speakers followed her urging the need for poor people to have the right to “dignity” .Given that this first act was graced by the king and queen of Belgium , who clearly have a surfeit of dignity, I found myself wondering why they could not respond and offer some of their surplus dignity for the benefit of the poor.
Act One , also has the traditional address from someone who is billed as “someone who has experience of poverty”. The person is given a kind of “cult or star” status as they have something that the others can only talk about in second hand way. They have lived in “poverty” and have come to tell the tale. The institutional actors who form the audience for this “confessional” take on the form of anthropologists who politely listen to the word from the “street”. Yes they know the factors that account for poverty in our affluent society but their knowledge is “second hand”.
The irony is that they know the causes of poverty better than the “spokesperson for the poor”, but, in this case, his words are a sort of balm that allows for the shadow of poverty to enter the room and create a collective mediation that reaffirms that their view of reality is in fact grounded in the reality of experience.
The voice of the poor this year was a guy whose story is familiar. Years of back breaking work in an industrial sector that no longer exists, followed by long term unemployment and the corrosive effect of loss of meaning which in his case meant marital breakdown, alcohol problems, short term homelessness etc. This experience has in his case opened up a new possibility and that is to be an “ambassador “for people experiencing poverty. He now attends meetings like the round table, in order to “tell it like it is”.
The sad fact is that, whilst he gets star billing in this act, his words are soon lost in the plethory of Eurospeak that follows him. His problem is lack of meaningful work, but the other actors shift the focus to discussing how to establish a “Platform against poverty”. This platform is one of the so-called flagship initiatives that the EU2020 strategy has come up with.No one knows what this means and it soon becomes clear that the Head of Unit upon whose shoulders this flagship hangs also has no clue what it means. “I prefer to not speak about a platform” she says. “I think its better to think of this as a kind of framework”.
She is followed by other stakeholders representing “civil society”. This constitutes the quango style NGO’s , who masquerade in the Brussels ether as constituting a “ connection” with the field. Infact they are EC funded and EC dependent organisations whose role is to dance a highly choreographed tango with the EC which consists of saying “thank you” and “ can we have more” or “could you please pay more attention to this factor”. This is an institutional charade masquerading as open debate. Criticism when it is voiced is cast in such a vacuous way that no-one can take offence. It’s a kind of Alice in Wonderland moment when no-one really knows the meaning of anything and everyone agrees with the meaning of everything.
Meaningless concepts like the platform against poverty somehow are elevated into new tools that will solve or reduce the problem of poverty. No one voices the reality, that we are creating poverty by supporting a strategy for growth that is based on boosting consumption. No one dares point out that in the European Year against poverty we are breaking all post second world war records of creating poverty. No one questions if the model of growth is fundamentally flawed.
The script for Act One does not permit this discourse. This is long running event, now in its 9th year and still filling theatres of make believe every year so why change the plot or the actors for that matter.
This year, however, to celebrate that it’s the European Year against poverty, the organisers created an Act Two. I don’t know who is responsible for vetting the PR but act two was billed as the “circus against poverty”. A fitting title in my view for Act One.
The circus against poverty took place in a real theatre setting and the first part consisted of a “celebration of the year”. The participants in act two were slightly different than act one. Sure there were the “continuity actors” from act one, that is the EC official and the representatives from the Quango NGO’s, but they were added to by actors from the field. In this case these were people who were not based in Brussels . However, as became clear, these were people whose travel and accommodation were being paid by the EC, they were in fact a “rent a crowd” selected from organisations that had received some kind of funding for organising an event in their localities as part of the European year.
Nevertheless, they brought a freshness into act two that was missing in act one. However, their freshness was fast dissipated as they ran into the reality of the EU dialogue. One young participant from Newcastle asked the panel how they could support the participation of more young people in the fight against poverty. The response was as follows:”Its great to see young people here today..the National Action Plans for Social Inclusion and Protection are envisaged to link into regional and local Action plans and that is how more young people can get involved”.
I asked the young person who asked the question whether she was satisfied with the answer, and before she even spoke her young colleague from Newcastle said “it was a load of bollocks”.
This sentiment must have been pretty widespread because at the start of the first part of Act Two there must have been about 250 people present. After the initial plenary session, the organisers had set up a series of “forums on poverty” but the participants deserted the event and I counted less than 30 actual participants remaining. Clearly, the energy had dissipated, the circus had left town so to speak.
Sure we need to highlight the problems of poverty in our society, sure we need more discourse about possible solutions, but the EU discourse is a redundant one. It is one that is based on simply assuming that growth will “lift all boats”. The underlying fantasy being that western consumerism, far from being intrinsically implcated in systemic global inequalities , could itself solve them. All we have to do is buy the right product. That is the message that we have been hearing for over 30 years and it has simply failed.
There was no discussion about the social damage that this is imposed by our governments led by the EU fixation on the Growth and Stability pact.Spain, Greece, Ireland, UK, Germany, Italy, Austria, Holland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Hungary, France, Portugal,Romania, Bulgaria are all member states where unemployment is at record levels, where inequalities have increased, where governments are reducing social transfer payments. For example , the Spanish government has reduced the subsidies for older people by 5.2% and within this has cut housing subsidies by nearly 20%. The German government (where supposedly the economy is now once again strong), subsidies to people with disabilities are being cut. “Austerity” is in fact a cloak for creating greater inequalities. On these realities there was no mention, indeed the EU strategy is based on the belief that the medicine will be good for reducing poverty.
The discourse is also redundant in that it is rooted in a concept of poverty that is limited. Its rooted in material poverty which is not the only issue. It’s the deeper poverty facing our society that is simply airbrushed out of the debate. That is the poverty of ill health(physical and mental), the poverty of failing educational attainment levels, the poverty accompanying the decline of trust and social capital, the alienation from our political structures .
An EU approach that is simply focussed on “a decent wage” plus active inclusion and measures targeted at specific groups is simply too limited and also divisive socially and politically. The roots of poverty in the wider sense are about growing inequalities and that is what we have to focus on, not just material deprivation. That is what makes the EU strategy Mission Impossible, but then its allows for an ongoing play every year which seems to keep everyone happy.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Trying to put the C in Europe
The last two days have seen two events here in Brussels that for me highlight the mountain that has to be climbed in order for Europe to become really connected to its citizens.
Today we had the gathering of the European Council with the usual display of political arrogance as our leaders are whisked around Brussels with adreneline charged outriders who get a chance to live their TV dream, whilst the rest of us end up snarled in their wake. Its nothing less than feudalism masquereding as democracy. Our political elite is itself so far removed from its citizens that its no wonder that there is an abyss between the Brussels institutions and the people who are affected by the decisions and laws made here.
We were treated to the sight of Sarkozy giving a press conference in which he defended his decison to expel EU citizens on the grounds that they were a soure of "insecurity". They were living in "bidonvilles" which were not consistent with the right to live in dignity. Leaving aside how many people French colonialism condemend to live in bidonvilles to this day, the irony of his defence is that he was, so to speak "doing the right thing". Of course we know that "security" is the magic word that allows the state to intervene irrespective of human rights. So the solution was to get rid of them. They posed asecurity risk. Furthermore , he went on to say, that were living outside the law. "No-one" he reminded us is above thel aw", except of course politicians. He himself is mired in the revelations around how he got money from Betencourt and now Le Monde has accussed him of using his powers illegally to try and uncover the name of the source of the Betencourt story.Of course he is in good company. Chirac was able to secure a nice deal withe the mayor of Paris to simply overlook his embezzlement of public money when he was mayor of Paris. What's a million euros between friends. I don't have to labour the point of corruption in our political class.
How is it possible for a leader to be able to disciminate against a minority . Surely, the EC should be proscuting the French government. If living in poverty is a crime, then the criminals are infact our political leaders not the powerless and excluded families who were expelled.
Unfortunately, that will never happen as the EC is lead by a bunch of unelected Commissioners who themeselves are appointed by the same politicians.
The European Council is a democratic disgrace. Their meeting are held in secret. We are simply told the decisions. This is feudalism masquerading as democracy. Issues of transparency and accountability just simply do not apply.
Sadly the European Parliament is nearly as bad. During the period 2004-2009, the EP made 83% of its decisions in secret session with the European Council.
This huge democratic charade is possible because hardly any citizen is aware about it. In a recent Eurobarometer survey , only 19% of respondents agreed that the EU institutions were democratic. Its well established that only about 5% of the electorate even know who their MEP's are let alone what they do.
The apologists for this awful state of affairs will say that the need to connect Europe to its Citizens is now high on the agenda. In other words the bureaucrats and politicians have realised that their number is up unless they resussitate the European project. The turnout at the last EP elections(2009) were a wake up call in that they showed the lowest level of turnout since the start of elections in 1979.Whilst the headline average turnout figure was bad enough , what the average masked is that in nearly half of the member states turnout was infact less than 35%. Moreover, where the analysis has been done the participation of under 30 year olds was less than 25%.
Here I turn to the second event, which was a hearing regarding the European Citizens Initiative(ECI). The ECI is an instrument contained in the new Lisbon treat ratified last year.
The ECI is about citizens collecting 1 million signarures and then being able to present this to the EC in order to trigger action.This is all part of the Lisbon teaty that seeks to try and bridge the lacuna between its citizens and its governing institutions. The irony of course is that the treaty came into being by actually ignoring citizens. The No from France , the No from Holland , the No from Ireland, and what would have No's from Denmark, Czech Republic and the UK was just a case of too much citizen input. Hence a process of ratifiaction without any citizen involvement. So this treaty born out of the disregard of the views of citizens , has created the possibility of an intrument to put the C back into Europe.
The hearing of course had no citizens present, it was dominated by MEP's , their assistants and brussels intertest groups.
Alain Lamassoure,MEP spoke about the need through the ECI to create a "direct line for citizens to Brussels". The aim he also said was to "enable citizens to initiate legislation". Coming from an MEP who has grazed around in Brussels for 4 mandates without doing anything to address this issue , I thought it was encouraging to hear of what sounded like direct democracy and real power sharing. Unfortunatly you can't teach an old dog tricks, so after raisng my intertest he proceeded to kill it with a string of technocratic issues and conditions which will reduce the ECI to a relatively toothless instrument. Signicantly he only want those on the electoral register to be able to sign petitions. That in itself will exclude about 30% of EU citizens.
Vice CommissionerMaros Sefcovic(unelected official) proceeded to apply the "brussels methodology" by stating that the EC would have the right to register or not all ECI's. That is to say if a group of citizens want to get a petition together they have to first secure the Ok from the EC(who are unelected). Not only that , he made it clear that once a million signatrures were collected then ther was "no obligation on the EC to act". Infact we then heard from Green peace and the Disability Alliance , that they had "piloted" the ECI and had gone to considerable lengths to secure the required Million signatures and the net result of their effort was a letter from the EC thanking them for their effort but they were not going to take any action.
Last but not least just to add the coup de grace to any illusions of real democracy, the ECI cannot introduce any amendments to the Lisbon treaty.
ECI, I bet, will sadly emerge from the Brussels undemocratic machinary as a technocratic instrument that the average citizen will run amile from let alone see it as a way to democratise Europe.
I left the hearing wondering what currently happens with petitions that the Petitions Committee of the EP receives. The answer is nothing because the vast majority of the petitions are complaints. I suspect that is the real issue that frightens the Brussels elite. Imagine complaints signed by a million people. Now that's something worth considering .
Today we had the gathering of the European Council with the usual display of political arrogance as our leaders are whisked around Brussels with adreneline charged outriders who get a chance to live their TV dream, whilst the rest of us end up snarled in their wake. Its nothing less than feudalism masquereding as democracy. Our political elite is itself so far removed from its citizens that its no wonder that there is an abyss between the Brussels institutions and the people who are affected by the decisions and laws made here.
We were treated to the sight of Sarkozy giving a press conference in which he defended his decison to expel EU citizens on the grounds that they were a soure of "insecurity". They were living in "bidonvilles" which were not consistent with the right to live in dignity. Leaving aside how many people French colonialism condemend to live in bidonvilles to this day, the irony of his defence is that he was, so to speak "doing the right thing". Of course we know that "security" is the magic word that allows the state to intervene irrespective of human rights. So the solution was to get rid of them. They posed asecurity risk. Furthermore , he went on to say, that were living outside the law. "No-one" he reminded us is above thel aw", except of course politicians. He himself is mired in the revelations around how he got money from Betencourt and now Le Monde has accussed him of using his powers illegally to try and uncover the name of the source of the Betencourt story.Of course he is in good company. Chirac was able to secure a nice deal withe the mayor of Paris to simply overlook his embezzlement of public money when he was mayor of Paris. What's a million euros between friends. I don't have to labour the point of corruption in our political class.
How is it possible for a leader to be able to disciminate against a minority . Surely, the EC should be proscuting the French government. If living in poverty is a crime, then the criminals are infact our political leaders not the powerless and excluded families who were expelled.
Unfortunately, that will never happen as the EC is lead by a bunch of unelected Commissioners who themeselves are appointed by the same politicians.
The European Council is a democratic disgrace. Their meeting are held in secret. We are simply told the decisions. This is feudalism masquerading as democracy. Issues of transparency and accountability just simply do not apply.
Sadly the European Parliament is nearly as bad. During the period 2004-2009, the EP made 83% of its decisions in secret session with the European Council.
This huge democratic charade is possible because hardly any citizen is aware about it. In a recent Eurobarometer survey , only 19% of respondents agreed that the EU institutions were democratic. Its well established that only about 5% of the electorate even know who their MEP's are let alone what they do.
The apologists for this awful state of affairs will say that the need to connect Europe to its Citizens is now high on the agenda. In other words the bureaucrats and politicians have realised that their number is up unless they resussitate the European project. The turnout at the last EP elections(2009) were a wake up call in that they showed the lowest level of turnout since the start of elections in 1979.Whilst the headline average turnout figure was bad enough , what the average masked is that in nearly half of the member states turnout was infact less than 35%. Moreover, where the analysis has been done the participation of under 30 year olds was less than 25%.
Here I turn to the second event, which was a hearing regarding the European Citizens Initiative(ECI). The ECI is an instrument contained in the new Lisbon treat ratified last year.
The ECI is about citizens collecting 1 million signarures and then being able to present this to the EC in order to trigger action.This is all part of the Lisbon teaty that seeks to try and bridge the lacuna between its citizens and its governing institutions. The irony of course is that the treaty came into being by actually ignoring citizens. The No from France , the No from Holland , the No from Ireland, and what would have No's from Denmark, Czech Republic and the UK was just a case of too much citizen input. Hence a process of ratifiaction without any citizen involvement. So this treaty born out of the disregard of the views of citizens , has created the possibility of an intrument to put the C back into Europe.
The hearing of course had no citizens present, it was dominated by MEP's , their assistants and brussels intertest groups.
Alain Lamassoure,MEP spoke about the need through the ECI to create a "direct line for citizens to Brussels". The aim he also said was to "enable citizens to initiate legislation". Coming from an MEP who has grazed around in Brussels for 4 mandates without doing anything to address this issue , I thought it was encouraging to hear of what sounded like direct democracy and real power sharing. Unfortunatly you can't teach an old dog tricks, so after raisng my intertest he proceeded to kill it with a string of technocratic issues and conditions which will reduce the ECI to a relatively toothless instrument. Signicantly he only want those on the electoral register to be able to sign petitions. That in itself will exclude about 30% of EU citizens.
Vice CommissionerMaros Sefcovic(unelected official) proceeded to apply the "brussels methodology" by stating that the EC would have the right to register or not all ECI's. That is to say if a group of citizens want to get a petition together they have to first secure the Ok from the EC(who are unelected). Not only that , he made it clear that once a million signatrures were collected then ther was "no obligation on the EC to act". Infact we then heard from Green peace and the Disability Alliance , that they had "piloted" the ECI and had gone to considerable lengths to secure the required Million signatures and the net result of their effort was a letter from the EC thanking them for their effort but they were not going to take any action.
Last but not least just to add the coup de grace to any illusions of real democracy, the ECI cannot introduce any amendments to the Lisbon treaty.
ECI, I bet, will sadly emerge from the Brussels undemocratic machinary as a technocratic instrument that the average citizen will run amile from let alone see it as a way to democratise Europe.
I left the hearing wondering what currently happens with petitions that the Petitions Committee of the EP receives. The answer is nothing because the vast majority of the petitions are complaints. I suspect that is the real issue that frightens the Brussels elite. Imagine complaints signed by a million people. Now that's something worth considering .
Monday, May 24, 2010
Regions for Economic Change-Building Sustainable Growth
Last thursday, like about 500 other people, I attended the annual Regions for Economic Change "bash" that DG Regio organises to beat the drum about the sucesses of its programmes. 500 participants sounds by any standards a good turnout, but as we all know, statistics are very misleading. A quick scan through the list of participants and you suddenly realise its only the "usual suspects". There are participants from projects that are part of the programme, plus of course EC official and the representational offices of Regions from which the projects originate. It is a kind of self congratulatory show.
In the morning I decided to forgo listening to the Urbact workshop and instead experince whats going on the Interreg IVC . Regions for Economic Change is not about economic change its simply about trying to get good ideas "transferred" into Operational Programmes for EU Structural funds. To facilitate this transfer, there are projects labelled "Fast Track", which ineffect are projects "approved and supported by the EC" and thus having this extra kudos. The idea is great, "good idea" in region/city a becomes good idea in region/city B, C, D etc. Why invent the wheel when you can simply copy and paste.
After a series of breakneck speed presentations which all seemed to radiate "success", the first serious problems began to surface. One presenter opened the "can of worms" when he innocently stated that the programme was "flawed" as it did not provide any resources for implementation of new action plans developed through the projects funded. In, other words, it simply talk and talk and then words on paper. The "can of worms" once opened began to also reveal some other problems. Guido Acchlioni from DG Information Society noted that there was little connection between the products produced(the action plans, which we there to celebrate) and the Operational Programmes through which they could be funded. There was a big problem in reconciling the fact that OP's were determined elsewhere and not through such projects. In addition finding scope in 2010 in Operational programmes that had been largely "committed" by 2008, was a bit of ahit and miss affair. From here, it just got worse, or more clear, another intervention highlighted that one of the big weaknesses was that the specific focus of projects was not agreed at the outset.
In short a gap began to open up between hype and reality. Unfortunately, there was no response or indeed recognition from the intervention by the INTERREG secretariat and it just seemed "business as usual".
Those who have read my blogs about Urbact , will knwo the seriuos concerns I have about that programme. INTERREG IVC seems to share the problems.
Let me make myself clear, Fast track is a good idea in as much it has brought about a gtreater interservices working within the EC. Its also good to involve managing authorities and clearly it supports some mutual learning and sharing of experince. BUT what comes out is questionable. John Walsh from DG Regio correctly said that knowledge is not the same as information, and it seems action plans are not the same as action. Territorial Co-opration programmes are in need of a radical overhaul. There has to be a greater "bottom-up" identification of "problems/issues" that local/regional stakeholders want to address. the current "top-downward" model has given far too much power to civil servants who frankly have very little connection with the reality on the ground.There has to be a stronger commitment to "capacity building" in the programmes, right now its just an incidental spin-off. Within OP's there has to be a built-in component say 15% which is "ear-marked" to support "bottom-up" actions developed through EU or national/regional programmes.
From a workshop on Fast Track, I went to what was billed as a "political debate". The theme was EU2020. The political clout present was considerable, no less than 3 EU Commissioners on the agenda Johannes Hahn(Regional Policy), Marie Geoghegan-Quinn(Research and Innovation)and Janez Potocnik(Environment). In addition there was a member from the Committee of the Regions and the Secreatry General for Innovation , for the Spanish presidency.
There were of course high ranking civil servants from DG Regio and the EIB as well as two academics.
What struck me was that while being billed as a "political debate" there were perhaps no politicians present. EC Commissioners are clearly political appointments but do not have a political mandate from the electorate. Likewise , the CoR member was from Wales, which like the UK "appoints" its members to CoR, so again no clear electoral mandate.To be honest I do not know how these "Presidency " positions are dealt out but perhaps Juan Tomas Hernani, from Spain was the only politician there. My hunch was strengthed by the fact in response to one question from the moderator he specifically referred to 2012, which is of course ingraved into the hearts and minds of Spanish politicians as this will be when they have to face the electorate and explain what went so wrong in a country that only three years ago was being held up a "beacon" of the success of Cohesion policy and European intergation.
Sadly, it was also not a political debate. It was an old style walk on -walk -off series of prepared speeches read out by the three EC commissioners followed by academic input which if properly debated would have cast huge doubts on the validity of the prepared statements.
In this old style format we(the audience) are simply prisoners of what for all intent and purpose is low grade live TV.Infact we have no remote so cannot change the channel, nor can we intervene as no roving mikes have been forseen. We are simply there to watch and make the photo opportunity.
The form of political "style" also was reflected in the content of the debateThat is to say that all the key "buzz words and messages"were uttered. We face multiple challanges, key challenges relating to climate change, the energy crisis, financial crisis, demographics, global competition, etc. However, whilst the analysis is good, the policy and political response is seriously flawed. Johannes Hahn spoke of "Europe" needing "a new economic narrative". Absolutely right, but the new narrative has to start with the recognising that what we face is infact a deep crisis also in our political institutions. Its no longer about fixing the "democratic deficit", politics is broken.There is deep institutional decay and this is reflected in institutional inertia This factor, combinde with the others makes what we have , I believe, at a watershed in the evolution of what can be referred to as the post 2nd World war model for economic growth. The model was based on the idea that growth would “lift all boats”. That is to say that growth would reduce inequality and create greater social cohesion. For this reason our respective leaders in 2000 were able to commit the EU into becoming the most knowledge based economy with quality work AND reduce significantly poverty.
Infact, the evidence points to the inverse. We have created more low quality , low skill, insecure, low pay jobs AND increased social exclusion.Lisbon has proved in every sense to be just “bullshit”. The wreckage of Lisbon is evident and the financial crisis has simply exposed the poverty of the underlying model. It is for this reason that Agenda 2020 simply skips any kind of review of Lisbon. Instead of Coca-Cola, we are now presented with “coca-cola light”. The Greek sovereign debt crisis has already blown away any of the substantial indicators underlying Agenda 2020.
The challenge we face is that the crisis is so deeply multi-faceted-climate change(which is fundamentally a social justice issue- rich people create more carbon foot print than the poor), the fossil fuel energy crisis, politics is broken , our financial system has “robbed us” in order to prop up what is at root “immoral” .
We need a new politics and we need a new value base if are really serious and committed to tackling sustainability and social inclusion, anything short of that is simply “pissing in the wind”
There is an energy and hunger to bring about this change and the key challenge is how to engage this latent social capital. This is the political debate that needs to be had.
We are facing a series of interlinked systemic problems – consuming beyond our planetary limits; untenable inequality; growing economic instability and a breakdown in the relationship between ‘more’ and ‘better’. The only way to overcome these systemic problems is through a new politics.
I recently re-read parts of Karl Polanyi's book "The Great Transformation" published in 1941 . In it he analyses how market processes in the industrial revolution had created severe ruptures in the fabric of social life, and argued strongly that we needed to reverse this and find a balance between the market and the non-market; the private and the public; the individual and the community.
I believe we have reached such a point again and we need to generates a new politics that starts with making politics once again 'service" and not the corrupting career it has become and one that takes its starting point as the redundancy and toxicity of the current model of economic growth.
How to engage and re-engage with those swicthed or simply not reached by the current "white noise " of institutional political discourse, is the challenge and opportunity we have .
In the morning I decided to forgo listening to the Urbact workshop and instead experince whats going on the Interreg IVC . Regions for Economic Change is not about economic change its simply about trying to get good ideas "transferred" into Operational Programmes for EU Structural funds. To facilitate this transfer, there are projects labelled "Fast Track", which ineffect are projects "approved and supported by the EC" and thus having this extra kudos. The idea is great, "good idea" in region/city a becomes good idea in region/city B, C, D etc. Why invent the wheel when you can simply copy and paste.
After a series of breakneck speed presentations which all seemed to radiate "success", the first serious problems began to surface. One presenter opened the "can of worms" when he innocently stated that the programme was "flawed" as it did not provide any resources for implementation of new action plans developed through the projects funded. In, other words, it simply talk and talk and then words on paper. The "can of worms" once opened began to also reveal some other problems. Guido Acchlioni from DG Information Society noted that there was little connection between the products produced(the action plans, which we there to celebrate) and the Operational Programmes through which they could be funded. There was a big problem in reconciling the fact that OP's were determined elsewhere and not through such projects. In addition finding scope in 2010 in Operational programmes that had been largely "committed" by 2008, was a bit of ahit and miss affair. From here, it just got worse, or more clear, another intervention highlighted that one of the big weaknesses was that the specific focus of projects was not agreed at the outset.
In short a gap began to open up between hype and reality. Unfortunately, there was no response or indeed recognition from the intervention by the INTERREG secretariat and it just seemed "business as usual".
Those who have read my blogs about Urbact , will knwo the seriuos concerns I have about that programme. INTERREG IVC seems to share the problems.
Let me make myself clear, Fast track is a good idea in as much it has brought about a gtreater interservices working within the EC. Its also good to involve managing authorities and clearly it supports some mutual learning and sharing of experince. BUT what comes out is questionable. John Walsh from DG Regio correctly said that knowledge is not the same as information, and it seems action plans are not the same as action. Territorial Co-opration programmes are in need of a radical overhaul. There has to be a greater "bottom-up" identification of "problems/issues" that local/regional stakeholders want to address. the current "top-downward" model has given far too much power to civil servants who frankly have very little connection with the reality on the ground.There has to be a stronger commitment to "capacity building" in the programmes, right now its just an incidental spin-off. Within OP's there has to be a built-in component say 15% which is "ear-marked" to support "bottom-up" actions developed through EU or national/regional programmes.
From a workshop on Fast Track, I went to what was billed as a "political debate". The theme was EU2020. The political clout present was considerable, no less than 3 EU Commissioners on the agenda Johannes Hahn(Regional Policy), Marie Geoghegan-Quinn(Research and Innovation)and Janez Potocnik(Environment). In addition there was a member from the Committee of the Regions and the Secreatry General for Innovation , for the Spanish presidency.
There were of course high ranking civil servants from DG Regio and the EIB as well as two academics.
What struck me was that while being billed as a "political debate" there were perhaps no politicians present. EC Commissioners are clearly political appointments but do not have a political mandate from the electorate. Likewise , the CoR member was from Wales, which like the UK "appoints" its members to CoR, so again no clear electoral mandate.To be honest I do not know how these "Presidency " positions are dealt out but perhaps Juan Tomas Hernani, from Spain was the only politician there. My hunch was strengthed by the fact in response to one question from the moderator he specifically referred to 2012, which is of course ingraved into the hearts and minds of Spanish politicians as this will be when they have to face the electorate and explain what went so wrong in a country that only three years ago was being held up a "beacon" of the success of Cohesion policy and European intergation.
Sadly, it was also not a political debate. It was an old style walk on -walk -off series of prepared speeches read out by the three EC commissioners followed by academic input which if properly debated would have cast huge doubts on the validity of the prepared statements.
In this old style format we(the audience) are simply prisoners of what for all intent and purpose is low grade live TV.Infact we have no remote so cannot change the channel, nor can we intervene as no roving mikes have been forseen. We are simply there to watch and make the photo opportunity.
The form of political "style" also was reflected in the content of the debateThat is to say that all the key "buzz words and messages"were uttered. We face multiple challanges, key challenges relating to climate change, the energy crisis, financial crisis, demographics, global competition, etc. However, whilst the analysis is good, the policy and political response is seriously flawed. Johannes Hahn spoke of "Europe" needing "a new economic narrative". Absolutely right, but the new narrative has to start with the recognising that what we face is infact a deep crisis also in our political institutions. Its no longer about fixing the "democratic deficit", politics is broken.There is deep institutional decay and this is reflected in institutional inertia This factor, combinde with the others makes what we have , I believe, at a watershed in the evolution of what can be referred to as the post 2nd World war model for economic growth. The model was based on the idea that growth would “lift all boats”. That is to say that growth would reduce inequality and create greater social cohesion. For this reason our respective leaders in 2000 were able to commit the EU into becoming the most knowledge based economy with quality work AND reduce significantly poverty.
Infact, the evidence points to the inverse. We have created more low quality , low skill, insecure, low pay jobs AND increased social exclusion.Lisbon has proved in every sense to be just “bullshit”. The wreckage of Lisbon is evident and the financial crisis has simply exposed the poverty of the underlying model. It is for this reason that Agenda 2020 simply skips any kind of review of Lisbon. Instead of Coca-Cola, we are now presented with “coca-cola light”. The Greek sovereign debt crisis has already blown away any of the substantial indicators underlying Agenda 2020.
The challenge we face is that the crisis is so deeply multi-faceted-climate change(which is fundamentally a social justice issue- rich people create more carbon foot print than the poor), the fossil fuel energy crisis, politics is broken , our financial system has “robbed us” in order to prop up what is at root “immoral” .
We need a new politics and we need a new value base if are really serious and committed to tackling sustainability and social inclusion, anything short of that is simply “pissing in the wind”
There is an energy and hunger to bring about this change and the key challenge is how to engage this latent social capital. This is the political debate that needs to be had.
We are facing a series of interlinked systemic problems – consuming beyond our planetary limits; untenable inequality; growing economic instability and a breakdown in the relationship between ‘more’ and ‘better’. The only way to overcome these systemic problems is through a new politics.
I recently re-read parts of Karl Polanyi's book "The Great Transformation" published in 1941 . In it he analyses how market processes in the industrial revolution had created severe ruptures in the fabric of social life, and argued strongly that we needed to reverse this and find a balance between the market and the non-market; the private and the public; the individual and the community.
I believe we have reached such a point again and we need to generates a new politics that starts with making politics once again 'service" and not the corrupting career it has become and one that takes its starting point as the redundancy and toxicity of the current model of economic growth.
How to engage and re-engage with those swicthed or simply not reached by the current "white noise " of institutional political discourse, is the challenge and opportunity we have .
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