Transcript Can Europe Overcome the Crisis without Undermining Social Cohesion? Main messages: We have to change the way we are responding to the crisis We.

Can Europe Overcome the Crisis without
Undermining Social Cohesion?
Main messages:
We have to change the way we are responding to the crisis
We have to give more attention to the healthiness of our
democracies, the foundations of it, and the contribution of
social factors in this regard
Some Trends
• Greater poverty and entrenchment of
marginalisation
• Greater inequality – bigger gap between the
privileged and the disprivileged - definite
winners and losers
• A crisis around employment (numbers and type
of jobs) and the growth of a large sector of the
population who have only one foot in the system
and cannot get a second foot on firm ground
• Disaffection with politics and democratic
participation
Threat 1 - The Chosen Policy Response
to the Crisis
• Primarily a neo-liberal policy response, with
talk of more regulation of the financial
institutions
• It’s the same model of pursuit of endless
growth
• Blaming of the welfare state and a cutting
back on entitlements and public services
• We still haven’t recognised the limits to
growth and to the growth approach
• EAPN and others suggest we should be pro
development rather than pro growth – a social
investment approach
• This is more sympathetic to the model put in
place in Europe historically, inspired by
principles such as social justice and solidarity
and committed to strengthening democracy
Threat 2 – Too Little Attention to
Democracy During the Crisis
• Inequality and poverty transgress democracy
• Reduced participation on the part of some
• And an increased degree of influence and
participation on the part of others
• This in turn leads to a ‘thinning’ of democracy
whereby the spheres of democratic influence narrow
‘Stress-testing’ our Democracy:
Main Dangers
• That power is becoming displaced and too
centralized
• Politics often fails to deliver – many political actors
do not practise democratic accountability
• Sectors of society lack the proficiency and resources
to be democratically active and independent
• Work of the Council of Europe hugely important in all
these and other regards
Threat 3 - Downgrading of What is
Happening in People’s Lives
• The main talk is of public debt, deficits and stress
tests
• Little or no talk of the circumstances or well-being of
the average citizen/resident, of common institutions
and a common history
• This discourse redirects policy makers’ attention to
jobs, mortgages, essential services…
In Terms of Going Forward
• We have to view democracy in a broad way, to see it
as part of a lattice or trellis, with social, economic
and political factors closely interwoven
• We have to recognise that democracy is inbuilt in the
design of European societies. In this:
• the welfare state idea is crucial (for social and
economic rights) as is also a vibrant civil society
• Democracy won’t or can’t function without social
investments