E3G

E3G Pamphlet in production

By Chris Littlecott

Over the past couple of months we’ve been hard at work drafting, redrafting, editing and proof reading. Following the series of ‘thinking events’ we held over the Spring and Summer, we’ve been cystallising the thinking undertaken to date in our ‘Europe in the World’ programme.

Now we’re pleased to announce that our new pamphlet ‘Europe in the World: Political choices for security and prosperity’ is currently in production. We’ll be undertaking a series of launch events during December and the New Year - further details of these will follow soon. We’ll also be launching a new website section dedicated to the pamphlet.

Here below follows the text of the pamphlet summary - a pdf version is also attached for download.

Europe in the World

Political choices for security and prosperity

Europe is failing to make the political choices necessary to ensure the security and prosperity of its citizens in an interdependent world. It must cultivate a rejuvenated sense of purpose if it is to rise to the challenges of the coming years. The ‘Europe in the World’ pamphlet outlines how this might be done.

A New Vision for Europe in the World

Global interdependence is the new context within which Europe must act. The biggest global problems that will dominate the 21st Century, from terrorism to climate change, from mass migrations to organised crime, cannot be solved by nations acting alone. They can only be tackled successfully by deploying exactly the soft power that Europe has built over the last half century.

All of these problems are urgent. The ticking clock of Climate Change warns us of the dangers of inaction. In order to live by its values, Europe must invest externally as well as internally to secure the success of all.

Europe has the economic resources, social cohesion and political alignment to do this, but needs a modern prospectus for its citizens built around a clear vision of its place in the world. This must instil confidence in European citizens who remain unaware of Europe’s unique assets. This will require a very different set of political choices than those currently on offer.

Europe’s Choices

The political choices we must now make will define Europe’s future; its purpose; and its identity. The ‘Europe in the World’ pamphlet sets out five critical choices:

Redefining Success: Europe must be confident, not anxious. Anxiety paralyses, confidence energises. We must redefine the meaning of economic success, underpinning it with meaningful measures of sustainable prosperity such as well-being, income stability, environmental quality and social mobility.

Building Intergenerational Cooperation: Europe must build a new intergenerational contract between young and old. We must agree a fair sharing of future risks between the generations or we will fail to invest in a sustainable future.

Achieving Energy Security and Climate Security: Europe must develop a secure, low carbon economy without waiting for others. Progress towards achieving these twin goals should become the critical measure by which Europe’s future success is judged.

Investing in a successful China: Europe must engage positively with China on the basis of mutual interests. Europe best defends its core economic and security interests by investing in China’s development as a stable economy and society.

A European budget for the future: Europe must invest in managing the future instead of the past. The most powerful tool in Europe’s policy armoury is the budget. Spending should drive innovation, resource-efficient infrastructure and external stability.

Making Those Choices

Renewing Europe’s democracy is an integral part of meeting the challenges of the 21st Century. Europe will only be able to make the scale of choices it needs to ensure its future security and prosperity if it can find better ways of engaging with, and generating mandates from, its citizens. Europe must invest seriously in new mechanisms for trans-national democracy. These must engage citizens directly in shaping the future of Europe.

Citizens themselves must be able to shape the political context of future EU budgets. The spending review due to be undertaken in 2008-09 should incorporate a European-wide participative budgeting process. Deliberative activities should identify citizen views on the future balance of EU spending between areas such as agriculture, cohesion, external policy, environment and innovation. Then, on the day of the elections to the European Parliament in June 2009, all voters should be able to contribute their perspective on the budget review proposals by ranking their preferences for EU spending.

Engaging European citizens directly in the budget review would be the most concrete and meaningful extension of citizen participation in European democracy. It would provide a real demonstration that European institutions are accountable to the views of citizens.

It is time for Europe to take control of its own destiny. This will require a very different set of political choices than those currently on offer. We must open up new democratic avenues for Europe’s citizens to lead the way.

Further information

Responses to the ‘Europe in the World’ pamphlet, translated versions, downloadable resources and news of related activities will be available from www.europeintheworld.eu from 11th December 2006.

Further details about E3G’s series of ‘thinking events’ and other activities related to the development of this pamphlet are available in the ‘Europe in the World’ website section.