Klaus Sambor, coordinator of the Attac group for an unconditional basic-income (UBI) guarantee, talks about the campaign to qualify a European Citizens’ Initiative that would implement such a program in the European Union, recorded from Austria on May 6, 2012.
Title: Klaus Sambor discusses the Unconditional Basic Income ECI
Source: User etopianews at Youtube
Language: English
Type: Interview
European Citizens’ Initiative for the introduction of the Unconditional Basic Income in all member states of the European Union
The preparation process of the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) for an Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) again made some progress. During a meeting that took place in Brussels on 26-27 April 2012, an agreement was reached on a concrete wording proposal, and a Citizens’ Committee of representatives from 14 member states (although the minimum requirement is only 7 member states) was founded. This Citizens’ Committee is now planning the national as well as the country-overlapping (i.e. EU-wide) preparations for a UBI campaign, and for the registration of the ECI with the European Commission. All these preparations will be discussed in detail and coordinated during the next meeting of the Citizens’ Committee on 7-8 July 2012 in France, to be able to start with the official collection of signatures right after the registration through the European Union.
For further information: e-mail to Klaus Sambor, klaus.sambor -at- aon.at
This talk by Guy Standing is organized within the framework of the monthly Forum of the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI). ETUI is the independent research and training centre of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC).
Briefing:
At the April gathering of ETUI’s Monthly Forum Guy Standing will present his new book The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class which provides a valuable analysis of the composition of the present globalised labour market in which precariousness has become a structural element. He argues that neo-liberal policies and institutional changes have produced a huge and increasing proportion of people with sufficiently common experiences to be called an emerging class. The Precariat is comprised by the growing number of people across the world living and working precariously, usually in a series of short-term jobs, without recourse to stable occupational identities or careers, stable social protection or protective regulations relevant to them. Standing argues that this class of people could produce new instabilities in society. Why is this new class growing, what political dangers does it represent and how might these be addressed are the main questions which Guy Standing will discuss.
Speaker:
Guy Standing, honorary co-president of BIEN, and Professor of Economic Security at the University of Bath
Commentators:
Judith Kirton-Darling, Confederal Secretary ETUC (TBC)
Laurent Vogel, Director of the Working Conditions, Health and Safety Department ETUI
Moderator:
Philippe Pochet, General Director ETUI
Friday, 27 April 2012, 13h15-14h45, ITUH, Bd du Roi Albert II, 5, 1210 Brussels, room B.
A light lunch will be served from 13h00 onwards in front of the room. To register for this event: Nar Bilgic
ETUI’s website: https://www.etui.org/
European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) invite the Commission, within the framework of its powers, to submit any appropriate proposal on matters where citizens consider that a legal act of the European Union is required for the purpose of implementing the European Treaties. It is necessary that the ECI has received the support of at least one million eligible signatories coming from at least 7 of all Member States.
The ECI only offers a very limited possibility of direct participation of citizens in order to influence the European Union politics, but the ECI gives the chance, to force the EU-Commission to deal with the topic mentioned in the ECI. This is very important considering the basic legal and social situation of the EU. Decisions of the EU-Parliament, where Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) was mentioned as one possibility to prevent poverty which should be checked, have not been taken into account by the European Commission until now, the interests of citizens have been ignored.
Therefore the participants of the Vienna UBI-Symposium in Oct. 2011 (press release and fact sheets) have decided to start an ECI concerning UBI in the year 2012. With this ECI the EU-Commission is requested by the signatories to use up all its means and possibilities to speed up the introduction of a universal, individual, unconditional basic income to ensure people an existence in dignity and with participation in society.
With this ECI we hope that the discussion process concerning a UBI will be enhanced Europe-wide and that the networking between organizations and initiatives for Basic Income will be enforced.
More information to the ECI concerning UBI will be given at the 14th BIEN Congress (Munich, Germany, 14-16 September, 2012).
Ronald Blaschke, Berlin/Dresden, Netzwerk Grundeinkommen (Germany)
www.grundeinkommen.de
Klaus Sambor, Vienna, Attac basic income group (Austria)
https://community.attac.at/grundeinkommen.html
At the world action day, an international initiative group announced plans to prepare and launch a European Citizens’ Initiative on the implementation of an unconditional basic income in Europe. Hosted by the Internationaler Runder Tisch Grundeinkommen (international German-speaking round table on basic income), the symposium was held in Vienna on 14/15th October 2011. In the end, 60 scientists, activists and representatives from NGOs adopted a declaration in favor of this initiative. For more information on the initiative, please contact:
Klaus Sambor <klaus.sambor@aon.at> and
Ronald Blaschke <blaschke@grundeinkommen.de>
The 24th BIEN CONGRESS in Maricá & Niterói – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – 27-29 August 2025
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BIEN2024 was August 29–31 (Pictures and more coming soon)