Dr. Seán Healy:

Social Justice Ireland welcomes the opportunity to address the committee on the issue of the future of Europe. This is an issue we have sought to highlight in policy arenas in Ireland and across the EU for many years. Each year, we publish at least three studies focused on the EU. We produce annually a review of developments across the EU 28, with a special focus on poverty, unemployment, services and taxation. The 2017 review was entitled "Europe: The Excluded Suffer while Europe Stagnates". The second annual study is of a particular aspect of public policy in Ireland as part of an EU28 report on this issue. It changes each year. The studies are led by Caritas Europa. The 2017 topic studied was poverty and social exclusion among young people. It has been published and is available. The third publication we produce is an annual review of how Ireland is performing vis-à-visthe Europe 2020 strategy. It is a shadow report. We have produced one every year since the strategy was introduced. The 2017 editions of each of these studies have been published and copies were circulated to members of this committee in recent days. In each of the three studies, we set out proposals on the future of Europe.

What I have to say is in the context of these studies and I will pick out some key issues. For Social Justice Ireland, there is a key problem to be addressed at EU level if we are to be serious about the future. The EU has been moving into an ever-deepening crisis for quite a few years. The reason for this can best be described as its "democratic deficit". The main reason for this deficit is the breakdown in communication between the policy makers - civil servants and elected politicians - and the people called to follow their decisions without having been asked their opinion or offering their consent.

For 30 years after the Second World War, Europe saw the development of strong nation states that were very focused on improving the situation of all their citizens. Poverty, unemployment, homelessness and social exclusion were to be addressed and eliminated. These years are sometimes referred to as the Thirty Glorious Years. In the 1970s the uninterrupted economic growth of previous decades disappeared. Unemployment grew and there was inflation. The consensus that had prevailed was vociferously challenged by those arguing that the future lay in prioritising the "invisible hand of the market", as they called it. People such as Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and their enthusiastic acolytes in economics and the media argued that deregulation and privatisation would ensure a better future for all. Zygmunt Bauman, the very famous sociologist, has characterised this period as the "opulent thirty" following the "glorious thirty", or what he describes as "the years of a consumerist orgy and continuous, seemingly unstoppable growth of GNP indices all over the place". A decade ago, however, this was exposed for the bubble it was. The bubble burst and a great many people who had seen themselves as being upwardly mobile found instead that they were part of the new precariat.

Europe today is at a major moment of change in human history. The nation state lacks the means and resources to control the excesses of markets. The power that states had in the past has dissipated as global forces have emerged that are beyond the control of nation states. These agencies are unregulated and unsupervised vis-à-visfinance, investment capital, labour markets, etc. They have power without political control. States have political control without the power to ensure their decisions are followed.

This is the context in which we are now discussing the future of Europe. The EU is trying to design ways to deal effectively with the current break in the relationship between power and politics. This is the context for the White Paper on the Future of Europe, to which Mr. Ginnell referred.

Central to all of this, and in many ways a consequence of what has been happening, is the erosion of confidence in the EU. Confidence in the Union is being eroded steadily because of its failures in a number of areas. Among these are the failure to address the ongoing vulnerability of many EU citizens and the failure of the European Commission to protect small countries against the larger, stronger members with which they are competing. Increasingly, the EU has become an economic project driven by an elite that has failed to address the facts. For example, as Mr. Ginnell pointed out, 118 million people are experiencing poverty or social exclusion. That is almost one in four of the whole population. Some 86 million people, or over 17% of the population of the Union, are experiencing income poverty. There are growing numbers in employment. We welcome this but, importantly, over 21 million people are still unemployed, of whom 11 million are unemployed for over a year. The number of working poor is rising, amounting to 9.6% of the total labour force. They have a job but their income is so low that they are still stuck in poverty. Youth unemployment is very high, affecting 4.6 million, which is almost one in five young people in the Union. Just one of the problems experienced by young people across the Union is that they were, metaphorically, thrown under a bus by EU policy makers after the crash of 2008. I could spend the next ten minutes talking about similar developments in health, education, taxation, etc.

If we reflect on these statistics - these realities - we will not be too surprised that so many people in Europe see the EU as a faceless machine, not in the control of its citizens, that keeps dismantling the protective fences that used to protect the vulnerable and that keeps disciplining the nation states when they try to protect their citizens. It should not be a surprise that many people see European rulers as a clique whose chief preoccupation is to preserve for themselves, and their like, the many privileges they enjoy.

Earlier this year, a UN expert group in New York, of which I must acknowledge I was a member, examined strategies for eradicating poverty to achieve sustainable development for all across the planet. It challenged the status quoquite profoundly. The group included in its conclusions the following paragraph, which sets out very succinctly the kinds of challenges that anybody dealing with the future of Europe should in fact be engaging with:

The social welfare systems in developed countries are no longer fit for purpose. There should be an adjustment of the paradigmincluding promotion, and openness to study new ideas around a new social contract that is more appropriate for the 21st century. This may entail moving towards a universal basic income system, supporting a living wage rather than a minimum wage, recognizing all work (not just paid employment) as meaningful, and ensuring that all government decisions are subjected to a poverty-proofing process. While the centrality of employment and decent jobs to eradicate poverty is well recognized, employment growth has not been sufficient to absorb the growing labour force, particularly in those countries and regions with large youth populations. Further, there has been a divergence between productivity and wages growth, as well as growing employment insecurity and casualization in all countries.

I agree with this analysis and the recommendations it contains. The EU consistently ignores many of these issues and the results are obvious. Reform of the EU requires that these issues be addressed.

None of the five options provided in the EU White Paper on the future of Europe fits these requirements. An alternative option is required that will protect the vulnerable and move towards a future that effectively addresses poverty, unemployment, inequality and exclusion. The EU needs to become, and be seen to become, a caring Union. That will not be achieved by multiplying directives and regulations that are seen as simply interfering with the autonomy of national governments and parliaments. I suggest that what it needs is a number of initiatives that would clearly show the Union's caring dimension. One such initiative would be to set up a scheme of transnational and interpersonal redistribution. Such a transfer union is needed for four reasons. We need it as a macroeconomic stabiliser, a demographic stabiliser, as a firm common floor to protect people who are in danger of becoming vulnerable and to make it crystal clear to the vulnerable that the EU cares for them too and not just for the wealthy and powerful.

This, of course, is radical, but this proposal is no more radical than Bismarck's proposals when, under the pressure of violent protests, he created the world’s first national social security scheme well over a century ago. A similar radical proposal is required today at European level. An alternative option for the future of the EU should also ensure that the European Commission protects small countries against their larger, stronger members. This was the way it used to be back in the day. It is not the case any longer and it needs to be put back the way it was previously.

Confidence in the EU will continue to be eroded unless the guiding vision of the future of Europe goes well beyond President Juncker’s five options. A new framework is required that recognises that the social dimension is of equal importance to the economic in the development of the EU. In fact, it needs to recognise that economic sustainability, social sustainability and environmental sustainability are all intertwined and should be at the heart of any future vision of the EU. The 17 sustainable development goals, SDGs, agreed by the UN, drafted in a committee co-chaired by Ireland and signed off by Ireland and almost 200 other countries, provide a good guide to identifying the priorities and processes such an alternative should take.

On page 29 of the White Paper on the future of Europe, the five options set out in the White Paper are assessed in terms of what the Commission obviously sees as the six key policy challenges facing the EU. There is no reference to the social implications of these scenarios anywhere in this assessment. This identifies the priorities and concerns of the Commission. It is staggering that it completely ignores what are core issues for the Union’s citizens.

An alternative option already mentioned by Mr. Paul Ginnell, entitled scenario six, has been developed and proposed by a consortium of civil society organisation, CSOs, across the EU, including Social Justice Ireland. We were one of the originators and signatories of the option. It sets out a vision and a process in which the European Union becomes a driver for sustainability in Europe and beyond. It provides a much clearer vision of a viable future for the EU, and it moves forward the process of bridging the gap between power and politics, which we believe is a core challenge that must be addressed by the EU and across the planet today.

The future of Ireland and the future of the EU is a choice, not a chance. The Government should reject all five options in the White Paper and opt instead for scenario six.