Room Anna Lindh: An Economy that Works for the People

[0:02]Yeah, it is. Yeah.

[4:55]And also, I do see that today's Washington is very Please. Good morning everybody. Can I ask you to take your seats, please? Because we would love to start.

[1:01]So, good morning everybody. It's good to see you all, and once you all are seated,

[1:13]we will be ready because this next panel that is taking place really puts the spotlight on social and economic policy, and the struggle citizens and especially also workers face in these time of huge economic pressure and polarization. And here we will touch all kinds of this dimensions and we have great speakers I can promise to you from politics, from academic academia and trade unions and in my view that's one of the best combinations you can get for a panel. So, thanks all for being here and I will introduce you in a moment. But let allow me to set the scene here for our debate and the discussions coming up. Hello Olivier. We are facing a new global world order marked really and everyone can feel it by huge rising geopolitical tensions and growing economic instability. The recent war that we experienced in Iran is also further fueling the cost of living crisis and also from an economic perspective has led many, many people struggling to pay their energy bills and to face the cost of living. And at the same time, and we just had an analysis by the Guardian from the UK, we saw that the world's top 100 oil and gas companies have made more than, and now you have to listen carefully, more than 30 million dollars every hour in windfall profits in the first months since the war. Every hour. And this is really scandalous. And meanwhile at the same time, people face the cost of living crisis for essential things, prices for housing, for groceries are exploding, and also driven by a speculation and also the greed of some to use this crisis for their wealths. And we can see at the same time, we discussed it already yesterday in many panels, digital and green transitions are shaping our world and we as progressive forces, we must shape them in the interest of people, in the interest of workers, and this means also these shift offer opportunities, but also pose real risks on workers and on their rights. So persistent inequality as described, wealth disparity continues to widen and this also means that the poorest 50% and the richest 0.001% of people hold the same share of the total wealth in the European Union. We continue as progressives to call for a fairer distribution of wealth but also of a fairer distribution of the text of taxes. And we see the far right is rising, a lot of workers choose the far right and vote for them, and they also really strengthen their ties across continents. We we see that they pretend to speak for workers, but when we look at their policies, we are seeing their dismantling workers' rights, they work for the benefits of the wealthy, they cut public services and they attack trade unions and civil society. So and when we look at Europe and in the world, be it with a chainsaw or without, what we can see that they push really for a deregulation agenda together, conservatives and far right, and also have a very limited perception of competitiveness, which often is just a pretext for deregulation. So, we have some examples of hope like in Spain here, but at the same time, for us it's very important as progressives, because we know like here in Spain that economic prosperity goes hand in hand with sustainability, social justice, strong trade union and workers rights. And I'm very sure our speakers will take up on this. So, we have now 45 minutes, lots, lots to discuss, so we should begin a quick word how we run it here. We will have two rounds of questions per speaker, and I will kindly ask all of you to stay within the three minutes per question. We will also try to conclude with a final round of reflection here with very short answers. And I will start with Olivier four. Very good to have you here as first secretary of the French Socialist Party. Thanks for joining us here. Olivier, you just had recent local elections in France, and what we could see is that one of the topics of concern of citizens is the affordability and quality of public services. So, congratulations and also seeing that progressives one in many cities and in many important cities, how can we ensure that public services and and uh that they are accessible for all on one hand, but at the same time also of high quality?

[7:31]Thank you. I will speak in French, it will be better for you and for me.

[7:41]So first of all, thank you for this invitation. Thank you for this forum, and thank you also for these congratulations. It's true that in France, a country where everyone expects it to swing to the extreme right, well, during the municipal elections a few weeks ago, the left, the socialist left won hands down.

[8:05]We have never had so many mayors since 2008. Six of the 10 largest cities in France are now governed by socialists or their allies. And so, indeed, there is reason to rejoice, but at the same time, we must remain cautious, as we see the continuous rise of the extreme right, and this rise is not unrelated to the issue of proximity.

[8:31]Proximity means that in our cities, when children don't have a nursery, everyone understands that public services don't work. When there are too many children in classrooms and they don't learn well, everyone understands that the school doesn't work. When the doctor is not available, when there are not enough doctors, everyone also understands that the issue of public services or access to healthcare is not guaranteed. When public transport works poorly and does not allow workers to move around properly, there too, there is a kind of frustration that is expressed. I recall a study that was done a few years ago by a polling institute in France, which very simply explained that the link with the metropolis was one of the criteria that made people vote more or less for the far right. I am a member of parliament for a constituency which is in fact in the greater Parisian crown. I am 45 km from Paris. And most workers commute in the morning and evening to work in Paris. Well, this study showed that the further you get from public transport, I'm not talking about the city of Paris itself, but the further you get from transport services, the more you vote for the National Rally.

[10:11]Even sometimes 10 or 15 km, but that's enough for people to consider that they have been abandoned and that there is no, in fact, access to services that, for example, the big metropolis allows. And so, there is an obvious link between the services we provide, between the public services we protect and the rise of the far right. And so, if we are here to say that we do not believe in an inevitable rise of the far right, then we must necessarily tackle the degradation of public services. The degradation of public services is first of all about financial means, obviously, but it's not just that. It's also about making them work well, not getting into a routine, not letting people think that everything works naturally well. It's also about considering that the arrival of digital technology is both a huge opportunity, but also a means of, well, a risk of relegation for all those who are actually further away from the tool and who need to be accompanied and who also need to continue to have a human interlocutor because a society that lives well is also a society where people feel that they have interlocutors in front of them and not just machines, robots and tomorrow artificial intelligence. Thank you very much. And really,

[12:44]I think the deregulation discussion is a bit like a magic trick. So you know magicians, they say, pay attention over here and don't even look what's going on over there. And I think the CEO class has saying, pay attention because competitiveness is being held back by workers' rights. Whereas in reality, competitiveness has been held back because they took extraordinary dividends. They didn't invest in the workforce, they didn't invest in technology, they didn't invest in the plant, and they didn't even give workers the fair share of the productivity gains. And instead of being held to account, they're saying, oh, no, not our problem, it's the small amount of workers' rights that that that that workers have, that's what's holding us back. So we need to call it out as the complete fake magic trick that it is. And we have a big challenge on our hands now because on top of uh, on top of the omnibuses, on top of all of that agenda, there's a whole new proposal called the 28th company regime. And what that proposal plans to do is to allow a company to establish in one member state or maybe in no member state, and then uh to leave the situation that workers will have to try and enforce their rights in a different country, in a different language, uh without knowing even where to send their letter to say that they haven't been paid their wages. And worse, the company will be able to have contracts that allow for um, the complete replacement of the employment contract, and wait for it, to be paid in share options that you might be able to get a couple of years from now. And all of that to exploit in particular young people's hopes about the future, to exploit them and to say, you're going to make it big, you're going to be the next billionaire. Um, we need to um, absolutely prevent that 28th company regime progressing in that way. The second thing that we need to make sure about is that there is an investment being made, whether it's by uh, price controls, whether it's by taxes. We rely on our political friends uh to do that. We'll, we'll try and win it at the level of the company. And how can we do that? We can only do that if workers can join a union and collectively bargain. We can only do that when workers have rights to information, consultation to anticipate and manage change. And we're going to work very closely with you to get that in the quality jobs act. And we're going to make sure to get it as well so that all public money, whether it goes for a service or whether it goes for investment, whether it goes for innovation, no matter what it goes for, that it's tied to social conditionalities. Social conditionalities tied to the creation of quality jobs because every worker should have a quality job. Thanks Esther and also referring to some challenges we have ahead but also some good proposals in the pipeline that might help us.

[16:09]My next guest is Jesse Klaver. Um, he is the party leader of something quite new, the Greenlink PVDA in the Netherlands. And we would like to know Jesse, with the merger of the Labour and the Green party in the Netherlands, you are setting an interesting example of joining forces in the progressive camp. That is much in line which what we are discussing here at the global progressive mobilization. So, in the context also of economic pressure, climate crisis, workers increasingly, we heard it, turning to the far right. What can we do, what intend you to do to mobilize for progressive policies? Thank you so much. Buenos dias. Uh I hope you enjoy this panel. I hope you also enjoyed Barcelona last night. Some of you did, okay. Very good. Um, thank you so much, Jesse. Um, GroenLinks, Green Left and the PVDA, uh, we merged. And now we have an even better name, I would say so. So from now on, we are the the Dutch progressives. Uh just simple pro. It means we are, we we, you know, this is we are a force for good, a force for change and I think that's so important for progressive policies. Um, not every voter in the European Union or in Europe would call themselves a social democrat. But all of them, I'm for sure, they want to live in a social democracy. Uh and I think it's, it's up to us not to defend what what we have built over the years, but how we can make it great again. I think this is a promise we need to deliver to our voters. Uh and of course, this panel started what can we do and this whole Congress is about how can we fight the extreme right? But I think we should talk less about the extreme right. Uh because what they try to do is to get us in a fight on the in cultural war, on the cultural issues. And I think that's the biggest mistake the progressives have progressives have made in the last years. I have made that mistake myself. Um I'm not new in politics. I'm doing this for quite a while. Uh and our fight is a social economic fight with the trade unions. We need to strengthen our bonds. And I completely agree with you. Um it's not, you know, sometimes it looks like we are not in favor of competitiveness. I'm very in favor of competitiveness. I think Europe should do better, way better than it's now. But um and that's why I agree with you, it's not because of the the the the labor force or the trade unions that we're not competitive anymore. It's about the greed. It's about greed. All the dividends going to the shareholders instead of going to investments. If you look to the Boeing company. Uh all of us came, a lot of us came with with uh uh airplanes, I suppose, a lot of them from us in Boeings. Boeing was one of the the the best companies in the United States. And then they have I think it was 25 years ago there was a new CEO. Uh and they changed the strategy. So instead of doing business in Seattle with very strict trade unions, they went to Alabama. Uh because the the the the laws on on um um uh and the laws for for um uh for the the employees, they're less strict. And what happens? It was the failure with the Boeing Max, the 737 Max. We need strong regulations. We need strong unions. We need as good CEOs and we need a good labor force that can make all those products that are good for our for our future. So I think uh and that's why we are Progressive Netherlands, that's why we call ourselves pro. We are in favor of new things. Uh and I think we should not, we try not to come into the defensive by no, we're not for competitiveness. Yes, we are in favor of competitiveness, but in a a fair way. I think that's that's important. We are a force for fairness in the world. Uh and I think the best is yet to come for us. Yeah, that's a very good point. The best is still to come. And I think this was also already a big applause for our distinguished speakers here. Let me say, I mean if we start here, you want more say, more pay, more participation, more equal share of profits. We have the tools as Esther said, for that, for example, public procurement. You want to said, if we want to achieve this, we need the capacity building and we also have to have stronger governments again and the capacity. You are applying again also to the young people and to use uh and and shape the platforms here.

[20:56]And the last word and I think this is the message from this Congress, we are ready, let's use the tools we have. Let's be together and find as a progressive camp because we want to change the course and we will do it. Thank you very much for your participation.