EDITORIALThis ECOSY summercamp will have to be unique. It will be the summercamp launching a new dy-namic for the young European left, for the ge-neration of a democratic, social and ecological Europe. From 18 to 30 years old, we have never known the economic boom, full employment, regular salary raises, that is to say economic and social progress.

Yet productivity has never increased so much, and there has never been so much wealth on the planet. Our generation is overqualified but it en-counters precarious jobs and endless internships when it is not unemployed. 22,7% of young people in Europe – and in France, 52% in Greece and Spain, 38% in Slovenia, 36% in Italy and Por-tugal, 9% in Austria – that is to say more than twice as much as the normal level. And we know these figures are underestimated. The current migrations of young people looking for a better life inside Europe reveal their social desperancy as they have to go and live in countries to which they don’t belong and ignore the language.

We dream of another mobility for the European youth. We dream of another Europe. A Europe which does not consider young people as a pro-blem but as a solution, and as citizens of their own. We dream of a Europe which puts ecology at the centre of its concerns, of an economic policy with a high level of employment and a low level of carbon. A democratic Europe in its institutions, with the European Parliament being truly federal and given the same competences as the Mem-ber States. Because we refuse for the European project to be confiscated by conservative heads of states, denying the right of people to decide

A NEW EUROPE FOR NEW BATTLESFind out the entire text adopted by the French Young Socialists and the Sozialis-tische Jugend Österreichs in June 2012. Page 2

SOCIALISTS SO FEMINISTSAs socialists we cannot accept one part of the population being discriminated against in all fields of social life. Page 9

AFTER ACTA, A NEW AGE FOR DIGITAL RIGHTSFor once, the European Parliament has heard for European citizens wishes, espe-cially our generation. Page 8

ETHNIC PROFILING, HOW TO END WITH IT?Racial discriminations during identity check are a common and repetitive discrimination in France, and have kept increasing. Page 10

RIO, 20 YEARS AFTER, MAKE STATES MOVESince Kyoto in 1997, no restrictive agree-ment has been adopted by States while the Earth devastation is in the full swing. Page 10

FACING FAR RIGHT, BE THE ALTERNATIVEWe cannot and should not believe this is an accident or a temporary trend. Page 11

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WE DREAMOF A NEW EUROPE

JULY 2012

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for their own destiny. And, above all, as the ACTA treaty showed, our rights and freedoms must be preserved from the logics of economic supremacy.

We hope this journal is the first one of a series. As Austrian and French Young Socialists, the ideas we have advocated together for over 10 years – making the European left a true alternative to liberalism and the promotion of a new development model is more than ever relevant. We dare saying being against a treaty is not being against Europe, in the contrary it is fighting for it. In the text we adopted in common, « A New Europe for New Battles », we refuse to admit the absence of conflicts should be a foil for neo-li-berals to implement their agenda aiming to dismantle the State and do fiscal and environmental dumping. We will fight for a democratic Europe, which is a precondition for ecological and social progress at the European level for all, because we are federalists and internationalists.

These last weeks have been productive for the Young So-cialists of Europe. In Vienna we made common progress in order to push our ideas in direction of our mother parties. In Berlin at the end of June we were numerous (Germans, Austrians, Italians, Belgians, French, Irish, Spa-nish) to protest against austerity programmes regardless of unemployment rates in each country. Indeed we know our future is linked. We will keep this work going and ad-vancing within the summercamp by gathering as many young socialists as possible around this willingness to change radically society in order to change Europe.

We share a common destiny, the none of a generation of Europeans who have very little but aspire to so much for tomorrow.

Following the electoral victory of socialists in France and Denmark, the nomination of a socialist Prime minister in Belgium, a new future is appearing for Europe, a new deal that sounds like a warning call to the Europe of aus-terity. The time of decisions has now come, a timewhich will lead us to choose between chaos and hope, between a frenzied neoliberalism that bears further sys-temic crises, and a new social, political, democratic and green Europe that looks toward future.

The Left is rising again in Europe, because it realized that you only lose the battles you don’t fight. The Left has realized that it is time to break free with a certain brand of European Union that compromises with conserva-tives, in which social democrats were left to negotiating the terms of regression with the right-wing.

Our generation needs to take its full place in this politi-cal alternative to come. We, young Socialists, intend to defend this strong line within ECOSY, within our parties and the PES in order to mobilize all those that will join us to build this new Europe.

30 years of neoliberalism: a challenge to European democracy

In the last 30 years, we have known multiple crises, pro-duced by a social model that is out of breath. Ever since, Europe has known lackluster growth, only intersper-sed by brief flashes due to speculative bubbles, as well as fiscal rigor that increases the national debts, a rise of inequalities and towering unemployment rate among youths – especially those most vulnerable – and among the left behind territories of our countries.

The rise of the far right, of xenophobia, of racism, and other forms of discrimination in Europe, are by-products of the dire social situation. In Hungary, the ruling party is leading its country down a dangerous path toward authoritarianism, limiting fundamental rights without any possible e!cient reaction of the EU. Nationalism is also rising in the Netherlands, in France, in Belgium, in Greece and elsewhere in Europe as the electoral results

A NEW EUROPE FOR NEW BATTLES

This text has been adopted by the French Young Socialists and the Sozialistische Jugend Öster-reichs in June 2012.

> Next of the editorial

Thierry Marchal-Beck

President of the French

Young Socialists

WolfgangMoitzi

Président of the Sozialistische Jugend

Österreich

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of far right parties shows.

Meanwhile Treaties are negotiated by the Commission and by Heads of State without people’s representatives in the European Parliament being systematically consulted. Financial markets and rating agencies seem to bring more influence to bear on the European Central Bank’s decisions than this institu-tion. Technocracy is winning and democracy is losing. At a time when peoples are facing the question of the e"ectivity of their democracy, Europe is at a crossroads.

This democratic crisis is no accident. It is the result of 30 years of neoliberalism in the world, behind which the European Union, encouraged by European conser-vatives since the 1980s, has been a driving force. The Washington consensus, the German social market eco-nomy and Thatcherism have helped carving in stone the policies of neoliberalism, which has become an inesca-pable economic dogmas. Far from having slowed down this choice of policy, the social democrats that held a majority of European governments in the 1990s have helped comfort it.

The American consumer credit crisis through the explo-sion of Subprimes in the USA, but also the explosion of European real estate bubbles (Spain, Ireland) pushed the States to subsidize with Sovereign debt the bank rescues in order to minimize its impact on their national eco-nomy, weakening even more the heavily in debt states, by financing themselves on the financial markets. This downward spiral can only be broken by transforming the system.

The numerous ongoing crises are symbolizing the over-running of the political power by the economic one: the economic crisis appeared, because of our incapability to stamp out the headlong rush towards an unrestricted and uncontrolled financial capitalism; the social crisis appeared because of our incapability to develop or even to preserve, our public services and social programs; the environmental crisis appeared because of the influence of industrial lobbies on the political powers of the most polluting countries. All these crises are linked to the poli-tical crisis. The liberal model is thriveing from the agony of public authorities, we have to be o"ensive especially on the question of the instruments that a State can use.

As they did in the past, today’s economic crises which were caused by conservative economic policies become an excuse to harden the very neoliberal dogma that caused them.

Far from engaging in necessary public investment poli-cies, which could help maintain an indispensable social safety net, Europe is getting deeper into a fiscal tighte-ning that is presented by the ruling conservatives as the only possible option. The Greek crisis came at the right time for those advocating a “shock strategy” that had already been used in the 1980s as a testing ground for new neoliberal policies.

The question of whether or not European States still enjoy economic sovereignty has to be asked, ever since the Maastricht Treaty laid the foundations of “economic constitutionalism” and tied government’s hands, ever since the Single European Act instituted the single mar-ket, ever since the Constitutional Treaty of 2005, ever since the Euro Plus Pact in 2011.

The failure of the “small steps” strategy

The problem is not the opening of the European internal barriers, the problem remains in the fact that this ope-ning did happen without any harmonization of the social and fiscal policies. This original sin of the Internal Market still has heavy consequences: it pits the States against one another, fighting in order to obtain the investors through fiscal and social dumping. This loss of balance weakened Europe and its States, nourishing the criticism against the powerlessness of the public actors. Tomor-row’s challenge is to find the way of this fiscal and social harmonization. This will happen through a transfer of sovereignty of these state prerogatives towards Europe and through a great reform of the European institutions, giving them more legitimacy.

A Europe of standards has superseded the Europe of

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rights and common values that was promised in 1950. The goals of improving the fate of European peoples, of harmonizing fundamental rights and individual free-doms, have given way to the mere observance of uni-form economic, fiscal, and budgetary rules, which form the only remaining link between Member States.

These rigid standards have been imposed on very diverse countries, with very di"erent economic constraints, spe-cific political systems and unequally developed social systems, without developing the necessary instruments for the constitution of a genuine European budget. They are co-responsible for all of the crises that Europe has known in the past three decades, and have not permitted any other harmonization than by the lowest bid in social, fiscal, and envi-ronmental standards.

On social issues, the Bolkestein di-rective (directive instituting a dis-loyal competition between European states) remains the poster child of harmonizing down. It is a textbook example of the drive to create compe-tition between social systems and a first step towards a real « social dumping » which will have direct e"ects on wages, worker’s rights, and the social safety net they enjoy in the country they work in. The dogmas of free trade and free competition have been used as an excuse to destroy public services by privatizing them.

The method remains the same in the field of fiscal poli-cies. Corporate tax rates tend to be harmonized down toward the very low Irish rate. Meanwhile the European citizens have to endure an upward harmonization of the VAT, at the expense of a progressive tax system.

The environment, finally, is not spared by the liberal policy of harmonising down. The productivism of the CAP favors big farmers and hinders the development of a more local and rural agriculture, functioning in short-circuit, which would also be better for the environment and the household budget. Concerning the energy ques-tions, the EU prefers to develop unconventional hydro-carbons (shale gas, oil sands, oil shallows) than to pro-mote renewable energies, letting the goal of reducing the greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by 2020 become a pure fiction. Unrestrained free trade within and outside European borders has only resulted in the relocation of industries abroad, and has caused that today, the most common goods are produced and shipped to Europe

from the other side of the globe.

Having abandoned the original goals of European integration, an EU led by conservatives and past social demo-crats has been satisfied with an eco-nomic integration through markets,

promising a step-by-step social integration that would follow the Maastricht Treaty. These promises have never been kept. The European Socialists have to break with the belief according to which we should expect a strong growth in order to obtain social conquests. The social progress is gained through trade union and political fights that have to be lead at a European level.

The return to power of economic constitutionalism, at the expense of peoples

The ESM (European Stability Mechanism) and the new European Fiscal Compact are the youngest breed of the ideology that systematically submits every refinancing opportunity of Member States to the goodwill of markets and rating agencies. The stability pact already showed its limits and pointed its incoherencies, notably by fixing the objective to set the public deficit limit at 3% of GDP – the Fiscal Compact reduces this to 0.5%. And from now on, the European Court of Justice will be able to sanction a Member State, a sign of a political defeat towards tech-nocracy, and the government of judges.

We cannot accept that the European Central Bank re-mains exclusively focused on its goals for inflation that can harm growth and increase public debts by preven-ting governments from using monetary policies, and by refusing to let States borrow directly from it at lower rates.

A Europe of standards has superseded

the Europe of rights and common values

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Today, we are facing a choice, of either letting the right impede a genuine European social right construction, or to give to the left the power to renegotiate the treaty, inducing a new European social pact.

1 – Harnessing the financial systeme to put democracy back at the heart of Europe

The break between technocrats and peoples bears a real risk for European democracy. Those responsible for the crisis, including Goldman Sachs, have seen their past employees take over positions of power in Europe, for instance Mario Draghi as director of the European Cen-tral Bank, Mario Monti as Italian Prime Minister or Petros Christodoulos as manager of the Greek sovereign debt. This deliberate blurring of the lines between experts and politicians signals that political power is bowing down to the power of international finance.

Economic constitutionalism is the other result of Euro-pean neoliberalism. By enshrining it in Europe’s consti-tutional rules, the ability to choose and implement eco-nomic policies according to the particular state of the economy is taken away from democratically elected governments. There are four aspects to this economic constitutionalism: the power to implement exchange rate policies has been taken away from States, and yet the EU does not exercise it; the Common External Tari" remains toothless; there are no European fiscal policies; and the European Union is still deprived of any meanin-gful budget and of the power to levy taxes. This dan-gerous infringement on the sovereignty of the people lets liberals free to take apart the Welfare State piece by piece; all the while wealth is increasingly used to pay o" shareholders instead of workers. This is the strategy of neoliberals: transferring powers to the EU first, and then preventing it from using them for anything other than their own policies.

On the contrary, it is the people that should be put back at the heart of European policies. As showed by the 2005 debates on the European Constitutional Treaty on the future of Europe, this crisis must allow us to rethink Eu-ropean construction, especially regarding people’s par-ticipation, the role of the European Parliament and the question of federalism. Similarly the renegociating the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance (TSCG) must enable us to impose more solidarity between states and thus between peoples. Whereas creating a common currency should have been a tool for economic and so-cial progress, states have lost control on their monetary policy since the creation of the Europe. It is essential for

the public power to take this lever back.

Instead of considering a low rate of inflation as a goal in and of itself, monetary policies should be used as a tool for attaining goals that should be determined through political debate. The European Central Bank must have its role completely redefined. It is today free from any kind of democratic or political control, and refuses to act in accordance with goals determined by the European Parliament. A reform needs to address its aimed inflation rates, in order to allow for their adaptation to the state of the economy, and its goals must be expanded to include full employment and a sustainable growth with low car-bon emissions.

ECB’s role should also be redefined so it can buy state obligations on markets or directly to the states at rates similar to those o"ered to private banks in order to break the speculative attacks from financial powers on euro-pean countries. We support private banks political take over when the public power recapitalised them. The creation of Eurobonds will increase the EU’s financial ca-pacity, which can be used for big investment programs. But while Eurobonds are a precious tool to counter mar-kets’ pressure on sovereign debts, they cannot be the one and only solution to pull Europe out of the crisis. We will only put an end to imbalances and unleashed com-petition between the states with an economic solidarty and coordinated politics at the european level. It should be driven by the industry and pursue the construction of a new development model with finance serving social Europe.

At the same time, the financial sector needs to be reined in, so that politics can resume its rightful role. European countries will have to impose a tax on financial transac-

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tions in order to limit out-of-control speculation and find a new source of revenue for the EU. Part of it could be dedicated to development aid which is necessary to build a fairer world.

Deposit banks and investment banks must be separated, in order to protect the savings of private citizens from speculation. This will also favour loans to the « real » economy, which many banks have drastically cut back because of the higher profits that pure speculation pro-duces. Europe will also have to make sure practices and tools enabling speculation on sovereign debts, such as CDS, are forbidden.

Corporate tax has never been as low as it is today in Europe, and with the creation of a new, European cor-porate tax, we will begin the journey toward a positive fiscal, social and environmental harmonisation. This tax will allow for a common budget that would not depend on Member State contributions, and be big enough to implement autono-mous policies in accordance with the will of the peoples of Europe.

Finally, a people’s Europe will only be possible through democracy. Major political deci-sions, notably those in the fiscal or social fields should require a qualified majority of a stronger European Par-liament. It should appoint the Commission according to the majority which emerged in the European elections, which should be held on the same day in all member states under a transnational list system. Therefore the Commission will be politically accountable towards the European Parliament. The Commission and the Euro-pean Council should be put on an equal footing in the ordinary legislative procedure. The European Parliament should share the legislative initiative right with the Com-mission wich is actually monopolizing it. Finally, citizens’ initiative should be strengthen by making the Commis-sion’s opinion a consultative decision. This is how we will build the Europe of humanist values that we want.

2 – Creating jobs and building a greener, social Europe

The questions of the content of economic policies as regards employment and a fairer distribution of wealth must be addressed by European democracies. The Left must put forward real alternatives, in order to challenge our current consumption habits. It is unacceptable to be forced to buy washing machines produced on the other side of the planet when so many industrial jobs have been

lost in Europe. In order to fight unemployment, Europe must transform our economies, fight for the reindustria-lization of the continent, and promote shorter distances between the consumer and the producer.

This will also help meeting the goal of reducing Europe’s greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020, a commit-ment that has been made by the EU but that it will not be able to keep without a stronger financial commitment and some restrictions to free trade. We have to reserve the right to increase the goal to a 30% reduction at Eu-ropean level. An ambitious rail transport development policy for passengers and goods should be started. (La dernière phrase n’a rien à faire dans ce paragraphe… on voit que c’est un amendement. Je suis d’accord sur le fond mais elle ruine le sens du paragraphe !!! On peut pas le mettre ailleur ?)

We will rea!rm our commitment to the « polluter pays » principle, by taxing companies ac-cording to their ecological footprint. A carbon tax must also be created for imported goods. This participation of firms should also be linked to an industrial research policy which will

encourage discovery and use of technologies that are more adapted to environmental stakes.

Instead of free trade, we want a fairer trade, in which countries or entities such as the EU know their own strengths and are able to protect them from unfair competition from countries without any kind of signi-ficant social and environmental rules. Europe will have to converse with all of economic powers on the planet in order to implement common environmental norms while participating to the development of Southern countries. The United States and the States of MERCO-SUR have long taken the necessary protectionist mea-sures to safeguard their jobs and industries. Meanwhile, Europe has opened up its single market to the rest of the world within 30 years, refusing any kind of regulation, and following the neoliberal dogma of the Washington Consensus in power at the IMF and WTO. Thus, we reaf-firm the necessity to activate the Common Tari" at the EU’s borders, which would take into account social and environmental criteria in producing countries, in order to protect our industries, by going back on the constant decrease of import duties that has taken place in the last decades without consulting the European Parliament. In Europe, the fight for employment requires to start rein-dustrializing.

Instead of free trade, we want a fairer trade,

in which countries know their own strengths

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In order to create jobs, Europe will need to massively invest in energy transition, and in the diversification of energy sources through the development of local ene-ry production units. The EU has to attain energy inde-pendence, by putting the reduction of energy consump-tion front and centre. Alternative energies such as solar power, wind power, hydraulic power, biomass energy, and geothermal energy need to be developed. . We will also need to pool and interconnect our energy resources at the European level in order to reduce our dependency on nuclear power and fossil fuels, and in order to put our economies on the path to future. We want to go fur-ther with a common energy policy in order to rationa-lise production and to end the national vision of energy production that prevails today. A common voice should speak in negociations with exporters. Finally, investing in energy e!ciency for new and old buildings will create thousands of jobs. It is a social imperative as well as an environmental one.

Europe should be concerned with favouring better jobs, and giving consumers more choice, including on agricultural products. This will require a deep reform of CAP, of the management of fishe-ries resources, and towards a more local, farmer’s agriculture to encou-rage territorial quality sectors, local distribution networks and collective structures. This is crucial to the jobs of European farmers and their survi-val, crucial to the purchasing power of consumers, and crucial to the envi-ronmental safety of European citizens. Supporting the development of social, solidary and environmental eco-nomic sectors will also contribute to this change.

Finally, the comeback of the undemocratic Anti-Coun-terfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) brings up the ques-tion of the “patentability” of living organisms and of common goods. More than ever, Europe needs to be at the forefront of the struggle for universal access to clean water, for biodiversity, and to prevent the appropriation of these resources by a minority for their own profit.

3 – Toward a new social Treaty for a better distribution of wealth

For the past 30 years, inequalities have grown exponen-tially, economic insecurity has increased and unemploy-ment reaches records heights, chiefly among the young generation. This crisis of wealth distribution makes our solutions all the more necessary. It is the result of right-

wing policies: since the 1980s, the part of added value used for wages has decreased compared to that used for capital. Profits, including those from productivity increase, have been confiscated by a small privileged class of shareholders and executives, to the detriment of investment or redistribution. Even worse, this imbalance created by conservatives has been used as a justification for anti-social policies. Pension systems, for example, have been dramatically cut back in order to safeguard countries’ AAA ratings.

Against all this, we assert that it is crucial and urgent for Europe to negotiate a progressive Social Treaty. This commitment that the Socialists have promised for de-cades will now have to be kept in 2013, with the victory of the Left in the elections in Italy and Germany. Practi-cally, such a Pact should define common rights and tar-gets for the evolution of social legislations in Member States. A European minimum wage, calculated using the parity of purchasing power method, should be instituted first, as well as a minimum retirement pension of at least 60% of the median income of each country. Wage equa-lity between women and men should also be guaranteed

in every country. Work legislations (work hours, paid vacations, parental leave, social safety nets) must be har-monised up. We must also put an end to “social dumping” through the unfair competition between European wor-kers – in the field of labour laws, those of the host country should always ap-ply. The arguments of « flexibility » or

« labour cost » are too often used by neoliberals to har-monise down the rights of European workers.

Not everything should be subject to the market. Health, culture and education, but also the justice, the secu-rity and the defense, should for instance remain public a"airs. Other public services such as energy, telecom-munications, and networks of transportation for goods, persons or energy have proven that they are most ef-fectively treated as natural monopolies. Thus, there is only one possible solution: The public powers should become majority shareholders in those companies and their democratic administrations at a European level (wich ou rien) is the most pertinent. This will be possible through the institution of continental network of public services and the revocation of the separation between network operators and service providers. Only thus can the quality of service be guaranteed for citizens, and some measure of territorial equality – which is also cru-cial for economic development – be ensured.

Against all this, we assert that it is crucial

and urgent for Europe to negotiate

a progressive Social Treaty.

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Finally, at a time when major economic decisions should be made on a continental level, and when Europe should take its rightful place on social issues, it is vital to allow for a greater role of trade unions. The EU must encou-rage collective bargaining between trade unions and industries, in order to better distribute profits from the productivity increase, to boost wages, or to restart a pro-gram of working hour reduction in order to e"ectively fight unemployment.

Conclusion

Our generation bears the responsibility to implement the change called for by the electoral victories of the Left in France and Denmark, and to work on future victories in Italy, Germany and the rest of Europe. A progressive Europe should give priority to the issues of employment, access to common goods, ecological development and public services, and work on the emancipation of indi-viduals as well as individual and collective wellbeing. It is our duty to fight a real political battle on these issues. With all the young people that want to join us, we will bring proof that a Left-wing Europe can exist, and that it can change society.

The rejection, by a vast majority of MEPs, of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) on 4th July is an encouraging sign for European democracy and a vic-tory of European civil society movements. When ACTA entered the public sphere and became a catchphrase for a pan-European outcry, politicians realised, they had pushed their powers to their limits. Negotiated behind closed doors, intransparent for both the society and even the European Parliament, ACTA was one of the most ob-vious symbols that interests of a few – especially of the industry and big companies – are dominating politics.

But ACTA achieved to give civil society its voice back. It brought especially young people together, made them realise that it is important to fight for our interests and change the world, according to our needs. Furthermore it was an opportunity to make politicians aware that there is a new agenda, which has been shielded for a long time and made it possible for new movements and internet activists to emerge and have a say in the discus-sions even if they were not consulted at first.

The treaty went further than threatening net neutra-lity, criminalising private file-sharing on the internet and spreading European citizens’ private data. It also gave further power to influential firms, rich to patent eve-rything: seeds, medicines, which endangered access to health and food, especially in poorer countries. Hence, the main question a socialist movement has to ask: Who is going to have access to these things in the future? - And even more important: Who is going to regulate it? ACTA and the connected protests were therefore an op-

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Feminism has brought us a lot of successes, but all those achievements should in no way allow us to lay back. There is yet much to do! As socialists we cannot accept one part of the population being discriminated against in all fields of social life. Today women are still paid much lower then men (27% less in France). This gender gap illustrates discriminations women face at work but also more broadly all gender based inequalities which cha-racterise our societies.

Firms which do not respect the principle and the law regarding gender equality at work should be sanctio-

tion to bring back basic discussions about distributional justice and solidarity.

As socialist we also have to promote equal access to the internet, for instance by implementing an enforceable right to it. This should be completed by the constitutio-nal obligations to respect digital rights such as anony-mity. Internet governance including questions of copy-right laws, data protection and privacy etc. are becoming more important and need to be put in the centre of our activities. We need to address the issue of net neutrality and make sure it is e"ective. Our role as Young Socia-lists is to think the internet of tomorrow and the way it entirely redefines access to information. We believe for example that a progressive EU should legalise non com-mercial file-sharing on the internet. In addition to that a revised copyright law is necessary.

But all in all: ACTA is just a piece in a puzzle. Over the last years, civil rights have been massively and continually restricted. Beside this particular treaty there are several other papers, which have the same goal: controlling and

regulating the masses and supporting the few. – Our uproar is consequently needed more than ever.

The political sphere can no longer oppress the rebellion of the civil society – and as young socialists we need to stand on that side and fight for a more democratic and legitimate Europe. The rejection of ACTA proves this atti-tude is the right one to have: for once the European Par-liament heard the willingness of European citizens and more specifically one generation to weigh in the public debate. - It is our responsibility to make it happen again.

SOCIALISTS, SOFEMINISTS

ned and the EU can play a major role on this issue by inviting Member States to do so. For women to be able to have and keep a job, European states must implement and protect public day care facilities for young children. It is also essential to work on career paths and ways to change gender based stereotypes in this area, which also foster pay inequality. Raising the salary of jobs majorita-rian occupied by women will also help promoting wage equality.

Gender based violence is also a major issue which per-sists. Thus for both genders to be and feel equal in the public space, fighting against sexism in the public sphere must be a priority. Young girls and women cannot hope to build a healthy and solid identity if they are constantly faced with images conveying the idea only their physical appearance matters because of the “sex sells” strategy.

Gender inequalities are particularly visible in politics. It is especially true in France, where only 26,9% of MPs are women, which is even an improvement compared to the former legislature’s situation. In Austria this figure barely reaches 30%. Equal access to powerful positions in all spheres of our society is a goal we as socialists have to aim to and reach. All of us in our organizations must be aware of this gender gap and work to tackle it.

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Racial discriminations during identity check are a com-mon and repetitive discrimination in France, and have kept increasing over the past years because of the ab-surdity of a sole result-orientated policy. Nowadays, a young person is 11 times more likely than anyone else to be asked to show its ID because of how the way he looks. A young person supposedly of North African origin is 8 times more likely to be subjected to identity check than any other young person, and it is 6 times more for young black men. Consequences are significant for a genera-tion which sees some of its members being pointed a tand humiliated, having their freedom to come and go on the national territory violated. A result-driven policy only translates into policemen’s image being negative especially among young people, preventing them com-plete their primary mission which is the security and the protection of the population.

For more than a year, the French Young Socialists have advocated, alongside with action groups and associa-tions, the implementation of an identity check certificate in order to have a proof of every identity check made and to measure their e!ciency.

The principle is simple; during each identity check, the police agent has to give to the “checked-person” a cer-tificate with the latter’s personal, the service number of the policeman, the time, date and place of the operation and finally the reason of the identity check. Above all this certificate should mention the result of the identity check and all the possible appeals.

Experienced in Spain, this certificate enabled to reduce by three the number of identity checks and in the same time made them three times as e!cient. Above all it enabled to improve the relationship between young people and police agents by guaranteeing an e!cient and transparent public service for security and protec-tion which respects principles and laws of the State.

As F. Hollande and the left wing government in France launched a new debate on the relationship between citizens and police agents in France, we have the res-ponsibility to push this idea forward and aggregate the civil society in order to create the public debate needed to set up this measure in favour of equality, justice and police e!ciency, which if also implemented in France could become an example for other European countries.

Since Kyoto in 1997, no restrictive agreement has been adopted by States while the Earth devastation is in the full swing. The compulsory aspect of the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions should be maintained as our generation will be the one to pay the highest tribute of climate change. We cannot accept to question some principles: the precautionary principle, polluter pays, or the principle of common but di"erentiated responsi-bility, which take into consideration the historical role played by rich countries in the launching and the expan-sion of the climate crisis.

The recent debate about the environment is hidden by the public indebtedness problems without ecological measures being successfully considered as part of the solutions to the crisis.

The capitalist pattern, constantly arousing new needs, is the origin of the environmental chaos, exploiting in the

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same time Humans and Nature, creating an environmen-tal and social crisis which a"ects head-on the poorest as much in developed countries as in developing countries. Precarious people are the most a"ected by the over-consumption of cheap products, the cost of the trans-portations, energy or asthma, allergies and other conse-quences of environmental instability. The biosphere is the new privileged playground of transnational firms, protected by the “green economy” which is the new dis-guise of the Earth merchandizing.

Instead of free-trade we want fair trade. The complete reconsideration of the neoliberal pattern, apostle of the free and non-distorted competition is the precondition for any new development model based on a low level of greenhouse gas emissions, and with a high level of employment, ceasing the pollution outsourcing that ca-pitalism imposes today to developing countries.

The absence of economic and political choices is at the heart of a major democratic crisis. We will have to re-introduce citizens’ primacy by guaranteeing access to common goods, like a right to sane nutrition and wa-ter. The energetic transition, based on the ecological conversion of our production apparatus by investing in renewable energies, is a significant source of non “out-sourcable” and an e!cient territorial meshing. The envi-ronmental protection needs again the establishment of common tari" borders to move production sites closer to consumption places. These changes will also work through the mutation from the farming model to a sus-tainable and peasant agriculture.

The last Rio summit did not in any way respond to those crises. Our generation has to deal with this problem, because the cost of inaction will be much high than the one of the transition that we need to engage towards a new development model.

FACING FAR RIGHT, BE THE ALTERNATIVE

Last elections in Europe, both in member states and at the EU-level, have seen the preoccupying rise of far right and neo-fascist parties. In some states they have par-ticipated in governments with « moderate » right wing parties and have gained seats everywhere in Europe over the past 20 years. In Hungary the current government is taking worrying measures against freedoms and trig-gering tensions between di"erent ethnic communities. In Greece the violent neo-fascist party “Golden sunrise” significantly rose in the elections and there was an up-surge of racist violence occurrences.

We cannot and should not believe this is an accident or a temporary trend due to the di!cult economic climate. Of course, the sudden feeling markets control eve-rything and politicians are unable to have a grasp on the situation translate into a vote to the extreme right. But socialists and social democrats should not hide behind this partial explanation. The truth is, far right parties have kept going up while economic redistribution has stop-ped or gone down. Middle class and working class Euro-pean citizens have started to feel everywhere in Europe that politicians in government attach more importance to tax reduction for the richest than to raising the poo-rest’s income and redistribution, for a so-called com-

petitiveness objective as they were only implementing a neoliberal agenda.

At the European level, the observation is even worse since the European Union has not managed to convey another image than that of a vast market implementing competition among workers at the European level, ins-tead of protecting them collectively and promoting the European welfare model. Furthermore, the tendency of European institutions to lack democratic accountability and to think technocrats should decide instead of elec-ted representatives also strengthened this feeling of sus-picion against politicians.

Left wing parties have now realised they cannot com-promise themselves and their values in a so called « third way » which blurred the borders between the Left and the Right. In the contrary, we as socialists must o"er a true alternative which aims to improve the living condi-tions of the majority of citizens. It is our role to develop

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this new alternative with our European partners and to promote it collectively during European elections. Only this way we will be able to win elections at the EU-le-vel and to make Europe a protection instead of a threat for financially disadvantaged people, by showing politics can weigh more than markets if the peoples decide it.

Similarly, the Left cannot allow itself to legitimise the right and the extreme right in its speeches and stances.

It is especially true concerning immigration, which our countries need and we cannot keep repressing. We have to denounce the deliberate confusion extreme right par-ties fuel and the right’s attempt to take advantage from it by adopting the same discourse. It is a cultural battle we have to fight in order to win against the extreme right and its ideas spreading in our society, especially through the media.

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