LET’S DEBATE THE FUTURE OF EUROPE

Last weekend I was promoting the S&D for the upcoming election and there I realised that many especially young people were not interested in voting at all. We have to make clear that democracy is about everyone and that every single vote is important. Especially, when it comes to Europe many people think that they have no influence. We have to put the finger onto their open wounds and tell them why they are voting. The EU builds bridges and provides peace. My generation did not grow up with war due to this Union. I think we should not just throw it away as I believe that the EU has much potential.

People feel left behind by EU, by politicians and by system. We have to change it. We have to represent people and fight for them. There is big diference between East and West, especially our Visegrad countries are having problems right now and EU Can not give up on them! We have to build bridges and communicate better together. Even after that long time the differences are still here, people are thinking different, people vote different and we have to understand that. We need strong social europe which will hepl us to fight thise differences, to put people together and support each other. We need one Europe with one social pillar which will work for every one. We have to close gaps between people, wages, benefits and together fight inequalitites.

WATER CREATES CIVILIZATIONS, PEOPLE CREATES BRIDGES TO UNITE THEM. UNDER UNION OF EUROPE IS OUR LIVES, OUR FUTURE, OUR DEMOCRACY, OUR VOICE EU IS YOU, EU IS YOURS LETS BUILD BRIDGES KEEPING WATER & ENVIRONMENT UNDER PHILOSOFY : CLEAR WATER, PURE PRODUCTS, TRANSPARENT RELATIONS, CLEAR THOUGHTS EUROPE IS YOU, EUROPE IS YOURS, SUSTAINABLE FUTURE UNITE OUR WORLD. EUROPE IS THE BRIDGE. EU IS YOU.

A Europa está rodeada de crises e passou a ser ela própria a crise – produtora de crises – com contradições insanáveis e clivagens na geografia dos povos, que conduz à desconfiança e rejeição do projecto de unidade europeia. E com as elites europeias burocratas sem pensamento político e sem visão de conjunto sobre o futuro, com os “interesses comuns” deslaçados ou inexistentes, não é possível evitar a sua fragmentação. É um desafio à sua relevância e à segurança. Como refere o Presidente da República, a “UE tem de agir para antecipar crises”. Os líderes autistas das instituições europeias não sabem lidar com as incertezas do mundo de hoje e deviam saber encarar as Forças Armadas (FA) como importante instrumento da segurança nacional e de uma política externa com dimensão, numa fase em que a Aliança Atlântica está em causa. Só assim é possível responder às complexas ameaças, que ultrapassam as fronteiras geográficas. A renovação da arquitectura de defesa da UE constitui uma prioridade, sem condicionar a soberania da intervenção autónoma dos Estados-membros, e tendo presente que a Defesa Nacional não é um milagre! Uma das soluções para que a UE possa contribuir para a produção de segurança global é passar a ser um actor credível na ordem internacional, principalmente pelo apoio à construção de alianças regionais e globais mais consistentes – dando prioridade à parceria estratégica com África. Por outro lado, tem de promover o investimento em instituições internacionais de forma a transformar-se numa UE com maior nível de integração, melhor coesão política dos Estados-membros e uma verdadeira política de segurança e defesa, que não passa pela criação de um Exército europeu, mas sim complementar da Aliança Atlântica. A democracia reclama um modelo de sociedade assente na vocação cívica e escolhas de cidadania mais lúcidas. É essa que justifica, para os cidadãos, os direitos e os deveres de participação democrática. A cidadania tem que incutir estas responsabilidades, ou seja, o sentimento de comunidade que fundamenta direitos e deveres recíprocos e não o inverso. A construção europeia só pode ter futuro se as decisões europeias forem aceites como legítimas pelos povos. Aquelas decisões requerem melhores políticas públicas, esforço de negociação e compromissos, porque partem duma grande diversidade de interesses. E, por isso, têm de ser percepcionados como vantajosos pelos Estados-membros envolvidos. São necessários verdadeiros europeístas e estadistas convictos. Enfrentamos hoje um momento crítico. Temos de decidir o caminho a escolher. As divisões políticas internas persistem intactas, a recuperação económica parece demasiado frágil e os extremismos populistas antieuropeus crescem por toda a parte. Para inverter a dinâmica de fragmentação regional, os responsáveis políticos portugueses e europeus precisam de reinventar a aliança entre a democracia liberal, a inovação económica e a integração regional. O Ocidente está em decadência mas o declínio da UE não é inevitável. Penso que a alteração e progresso da Europa passará pela regulação do poder financeiro, para que a banca e algumas elites à escala nacional e europeia não inviabilizem o futuro dos estados comunitários. Não é de todo justo os países do sul serem sujeitos à criação de desafios constantes para países mais desenvolvidos financiarem soluções criando assim relações de interdependência que não potencializam verdadeiramente a politica de coesão com a ideia de unidade na diversidade sendo esta a verdadeira premissa que fundamentou o projecto europeu.

Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success In a time of change exploring innovative ways to promote collaboration and collaborative learning is the only solution. Global actions and collaboration can be the next step to empower young people and establish new values. Developing a collaborative culture, sharing, supporting and exploring together, is a solid way to promote positive change and democracy and build a better future for all people.

Labor conditions are topics as old as history, always evolving and always in need for improvements. When we are talking on labor rights, we just don’t think on a group of people who are asking better conditions. It is our duty as a society, as politicians, to lead to better policies. When we are thinking of workers, we need to go through their struggle and their efforts to make a living, we need to see that the corporates can give more of their share, for a fair and better living of those who have less opportunities. When we think of workers, we should all and foremost see if those salaries are enough for them to make a better living or it is just a means to survive. We need to go through the struggle that workers have to go to their workplace, the conditions that the workers have at the work place. We have to reach their struggles and see if we are sending back home individuals who are not afraid of losing their jobs and are not affected psychologically by different factors. We as progressives, when we work and think every day about our future policies hold always in our minds, that fairer labor conditions, our solidarity with workers and our focus on social rights means better societies as well, happier and safer families, happier individuals and as a result more social security and secure societies. These are the things we are fighting for! We cannot go to better conditions of society, if we don’t put an effort on the above mentioned…

In the 21st century the ongoing information technology revolution changes the nature of working. Even the specialized workers need increasingly computer skills and the ability to adapt to new technological environments. in the meantime there is a growing gap between the richest and the increasing number of poor people. One of the most important task for a government nowadays is to make education accessible for all, and to provide social support for the people who have no means for pursuing studies. In Hungary, the current processes show unfortunately in the opposite direction. The government lowered the age of compulsory education from 18 years to 16 ys, thus a growing number of young people drop out from the educational system without any qualification and also without the capability to study further at any later time in life. The public work program of the Hungarian government created a catch 22 situation. The payment for it is too small for providing the living, but big enough for the parents in the poor countryside regions that they let their children do it. But it is a dead-end way, statistics show that very small percentage of public workers can move over to the real job market due to the lack of efficient training programs and in most of the cases useless tasks during the public work. it even contributes to the revival of a kind of feudalistic structure where local leaders can abuse the system of public work, and even maintain their political support with threatening of taking away even this “opportunity”. We have to change it. Education, be it public or higher level has to become the focus of a future government. Autonomy should be given back to the public schools, and universities. Without educational freedom and autonomy of academic research there is no long term development. In order to be able to compete globally, the European Union could set up basic standards of education that the member states should apply. I know that currently education is handled mostly by the member states, but if we can set minimum quality standards for agricultural products, why not to do it in a different field, as well? If we want a Europe with more cohesion, we have to harmonize our attitudes towards education, and to intensify exchange programs. Europe has a great source of best practices, we should adapt them to allow our continent to become a competent, and also sustainable global actor, and to reach more equality among its citizens.

For #EuropeTogether, we need to urgently embrace the fourth industrial revolution (#4IR). The best / quickest way to do this is through accelerating social tech entrepreneurs (#socent) through collaboration (#SDG17). This should be done by supporting “incubation” / “acceleration” programs at community centres #coworkingspaces / #CreativeHubs) where many of these changemakers can be found. In addition, asylum seekers should be invited to participate / present their ideas / businesses on a monthly basis at these hubs, where locals can support / cocreate solutions (#SDG8 & #SDG16). Focus should be given on accelerating access to services for people, namely healthcare (#mhealth) (#SDG3) & education (#edtech) (#SDG4). The above should be celebrated on an annual basis, ideally on #EuropeDay, 9 May, where we.celebrate our European #values, celebrating our diversity and unity. #EULesvos #ChangemakersSummit

Mutualise the risk of unemployment at the European level is a complicated task but it is possible. Indeed, Europe could promote an high protection of that risk by developing, first, harmonisation on unemployment insurances conditions. It would concern : the length of the indemnisation, but also the control methods and much more important the way the person unemployed is taking care of. Because of course, unemployed people are persons, human beings. And European socialists should see them like as fragile people, not as thief, like some right wing parties across Europe do. When the harmonisation is over, or that differences between Member States are so huge that it is impossible to harmonise, the EU should unify. By setting a percentage of monthly indemnisation in regard of the previous salary. It should be set on the higher scale, so that no country has to lower its protection. It should also be part of a new fund, that would fit into cohesion and solidarity objectives of the EU and that would coexists with the actual funds. This amount of money would go to the support of the unemployed person (new formation, personal counselor, better information on workers and unemployed people rights) and to active way to fight unemployment, such as the french initiative “territoire zéro chômage”. Finally, this amount of money would be coming from the workers cotisations, the member states and new taxations, for instance by establishing a bonus malus for companies if they choose to hire workers on fixed-term contract or permanent contract. The EU must protect its citizens from social risks, and I could write other proposals, such as health care for everyone, working conditions, especially with work accidents, or democracy inside the companies. By protecting them, the EU would contribute to build a better European citizenship, and would finally enhance its role as a welfare union.

We need a universal minimum wage a across all the EU countries. That’s what I think as a member of a social democratic party! What about you? Can you do it?

What do you think about universal minimum wage in all EU countries? In my opinion, as a member of a social democratic party, it is a need!

The Digital Agenda is one of the foremost issues facing the European Union. As more professions, sales, services, etc. go online, the associated policies must be updated and expanded accordingly. While the GDPR was a step in the right direction, serious issues of privacy, copyright, and the digital single market remain. Foremost, the issue of privacy must be further tackled, such as the rampant data breaches as well as lackadaisical treatment by companies of the GDPR regulation. Penalties must be increased for those companies that claim to abide by the law but in reality sell their users’ data and activities to the highest bidder.

Every day we see some headline or article predicting massive loss of jobs due to digitalization, plants closing, AI replacing humans and how the new digital and technological revolution will be so disruptive that will cause massive chaos. This might all be true, but on the other side, i think digitalization may be a big opportunity that can improve our lives if we prepare for it. In fact, it already improves our lives, Look at how much knowledge can be easily acessible to everyone because of digitalization and the proliferation of apps? Look at how interconnected we are and how we can share experiences, ideas or thoughts something that greatly improves public policy. And in the near future, can you imagine how much better will be when thousands of boring and repetitive jobs will be performed by machines while humans work on more creative activities? I think technology will harness our potential as human beings! That doesn’t mean we should not regulate technological progress. On the contrary; we should be vigilant about it and use it for our needs. If not, technology will end up benefiting the very few who control it and that will certainly lead to political disruption. I suggest a few policies that we could promote as social democrats: Mandatory teaching of the basic of programming and AI in all schools and universities: It sounds radical but we are on the verge of a big revolution; we need a big reform in the curriculum of schools. We can only prepate the next generation for future jobs if we have a more modern and futuristic education now. In some elite schools this is already happening; doing this in all schools assures some degree of equality of opportunities Labor rights in freelance platforms: It’s an undeniable reality that freelancer jobs represent in part the future of labour. Some in my generation are forced to do these kind of jobs, others prefer a more relaxed lifestyle with flexible work. Either way, there should be some rules and there are ways to enhance the lives and opportunities of freelancers: allowing every freelancer to keep it’s positive reviews when working in another platform(If i work at uber and have positive reviews should be able to keep them if going to work in a competitor like cabify etc); allow workers to have a right to sick pay when they work for a certain platform for a certain period of time. There are countless of other policies, that i could highlight, some were already tried but i’m broadly optimistic about the future if we set in motion a serious of important policies now to prepare for tomorrow.

Growing up in Portugal was an easy task because people can really warm your heart with small gestures everyday. Still I must admit that it wasn’t sush a nice experience to realize how austere some fellows lived. A neighbour, the nice market lady who always offered a smile, the old lonely couple who didn’t saw their kids for a while… normal people, working people, retired people, … I started realizing that life wasn’t so nice to some fellows that couldn’t afford to spend money improving their homes to better thermal conditions or to simply pay the overpriced electricity needed to keep the homes warm during winter in Portugal. I know what you must thinking… We’ve got such a good, warm weather. It’s true, but we also have a very challenging winters, due to the poor constructions or simply the failed system to make the transition to better standards of living. This cannot happen. Europe has the highests standards of living and yet we still have people dying and suffering from cold and diseases derived from the temperature and humidity felt indoors. I call for action at an European level.