Income, Commons, Democracy
From European campaigns to the construction of an alternative Europe
10-12 February
Teatro Valle Occupato, Rome
To view the forum's program, click the tab "Program" above the image!
Throughout Europe, we are witnessing massive transfers of resources from the public to the private sphere. The political responses to the crises are defined by austerity measures and by cuts to social spending, driving Europe further into recession.
From Greece to Spain, from London to Rome, European people are increasingly aware of the need for a different model of globalisation. From those resisting the privatisation of resources and services (for example in Italy with the water referendum, and currently in Romania) to the recent occupations of public spaces against neoliberalism (for example in the UK and Spain), this is the moment to construct and alternative Europe, one which is not a product of neoliberal politics, but the political expression of European citizens.
Within this context, over forty organisations, networks and social movements from eight European countries will meet in the 600-seat Valle Theatre in Rome to organise a common front to construct an alternative European model. This three-day forum will focus on the construction of common transnational campaigns on the thematics of the
commons and
guaranteed minimum income, also utilising the new method provided by the European citizens’ initiative. The event will be a true opportunity to build European networks and campaigns that will take concrete forms in follow-up meetings in Spain, the UK, Romania, Bulgaria and France in the following months to continue the work begun in Rome. The emphasis on concrete campaigns will be the starting point to engage in a reflection on the revision of the EU Treaties, to propose an alternative vision of Europe.
A European Citizens' Initiative for a European Charter of the Commons was initiated by the Municipality of Naples, and take forwards recentyl by the International University College Turin. Proposals for an Initiative on minimum income have been taken forwards, amongst others, by the Basic Income Network, following the proposals advanced by the European Parliament in October 2010.
Organisers:
European Alternatives, International University College Turin, Centro Studi per l'Alternativa Comune, ARCI, Municipality of Naples, Il Manifesto, Basic Income Network, Tilt, Altramente, Teatro Valle Occupato, Rete della Conoscenza,Osservatorio Europa, Cilap-eapn, Movimento Federalista Europeo
Logistical information for international guests (hotel for speakers and directions to the venue)
FORUM PROGRAM
Simultaneous interpretation from and to English will be available
Friday 10th – Opening assembly: An Alternative Europe is Possible
17:00 International interventions to launch a new Europe in response to austerity, based on common goods, income and participation.
Costas Douzinas (Brikbeck College), Maurizio Landini (Fiom), Ida Dominjanni (Il Manifesto), Ugo Mattei (IUC), Ovidiu Tichindeleanu (CriticAttac, Romania), Marcus Graetsch and Martin Schmalzbauer (Fels-Berlin, Occupy-Frankfurt), Lorenzo Marsili (European Alternatives), Jerome Roos (Roar), Claudia Bernardi (UniCommon), Corrado Oddi (FpCgil), Antonio Tricarico (Sbilanciamoci), Maria Pia Pizzolante (Tilt), Claudio Riccio (Rete della conoscenza), Franco Russo (Osservaotrio Europa), Paolo Acunzo (MFE)
21:00 Artistic program organised by Teatro Valle Occupato
Saturday 11 – Towards a European Charter of the Commons
10.00: Opening
10:00 - 13.30: Commons, Direct Democracy & Fundamental Rights in Europe
Reclaiming the commons requires not only the reshaping of the democratic process as it stands today by offering an alternative to the model that has prevailed under state and market models, but also the protection of access to such resources as fundamental rights.
First interventions by:
Ugo Mattei (International University College Turin)
Costas Douzinas (Birkbeck College, GB / Greece)
Alberto Lucarelli (Assessore, Municipality of Naples)
How to define the commons in different European contexts and build a transnational campaign. Intervention and participative roundtable with:
Gilda Farrell (Council of Europe), Silke Helfreich (Commons Strategy, Germany), Paolo Beni (ARCI, Italia), Aitor Tinoco i Girona (Democracia Real Ya / Universidad Nomada, Spain), Tommaso Fattori (Forum acqua), Krzysztof Conpr (Fise, Poland), Renato Sabbatini (Rosa Luxembourg Foundation, Germany/Belgium). Ovidiu Tichindeleanu (CriticAttac, Romania). Ana Méndez (Observatorio Metropolitano, Spain), Giuseppe Caccia (City of Venice), Pier Virgilio Dastoli (Permanent forum of civil society), Nicholas Milanese (European Alternatives), Saki Bailey (International University College Turin), Giuseppe De Marzo (Asud), Harry Halpin (University of Edinburgh), Alberto Cottica (Council of Europe)
Open debate to follow
13.30: Lunch break
15.00-17.30: International Round Table & Working Groups
Different organisations will confront each other on the themes of the morning and work towards the elaboration of a common campaign and Citizen’s Initiative for a European Charter of the Commons.
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Translating the commons in different European contexts
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Creating a transnational network around the European Charter of the Commons
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Legal & technical requirements of the ECI campaign
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Roadmap & timeline: future steps towards the campaign
21.30: Concert by CantoDiscant and artistic interventions
Sunday 12: Towards a European Minimum Income
10.00: Opening
10:30: Minimum Income in Europe
On Sunday, a campaign on Minimum Income at a European level will be discussed, as a solution to precarious working and living conditions.
First interventions by:
Luca Santini, (Basic Income Network)
Francesco Raparelli (Centro Studi per l’Alternativa Comune)
International participative roundtable with experts responding to open questons on different aspects of minimum income, its relation to work, precarity, financial sustainability, knowledge, gender, and legality. With:
Massimiliano Smeriglio (Assessore, Province of Roma), Riccarto Petrella (Leuven University, Belgium; Università del bene comune, Italy), Adrian Dohartu (GAS, Romania), Mariya Ivancheva (Red House, Bulgaria), Annarosa Pesole (InGenere), Alessandro Valera (European Alternatives), Florence Morillon (Generation Precaire, France), Adrià Rodríguez de Alòs-Moner (Universidad Nomada, Spain), Klaus Sambor (Basic Income Network Austria), Adeile Oddo (Solidar), Edgar Manjarin Castellarnau and Jose Luis Rey Perez (Red Renta Basica, Spain), Roberto Musacchio (AltraMente), Giuseppe Bronzini (BIN), Ilias Livanos (University of Warwick), Marco Furfaro (Tilt), Nicoletta Teodosi (Cilap-Eapn)
Open debate to follow.
13:45 Lunch
14.30 - 16:00: International round table on income: how to translate demands for a minimum income in different European contexts and roadmap towards the construction of a European campaign. Including:
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Translating minimum income in different European contexts
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Creating a transnational network around the demands for minimum income
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Legal & technical requirements of the ECI campaign
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Roadmap & Timeline: Future steps towards the campaign
16.00 - 16.30: Conclusion: Launch of campaigns and shared roadmap for the next months.
Participate in the elaboration of the European Charter of the commons!
Find here the Charter: add your comments, ideas, or proposals!
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Commons: A framework and kaleidoscope of social practices for another possible world
30. Januar 2012 — Silke Helfrich
GT Commons on the Thematic Social Forum 2012
(The following text has been produced by one of the 17 working groups of the Thematic Social Forum which took place between January 24 and January 29 in Porto Alegre/ Brazil. Commoners from Brazil, Germany, France, India, Argentina and Bolivia took place in redacting this as an „open document“, thus: it will be further developed. The version we publish here serves as in input for a more general and comprehensive document to be prepared for Rio+20 by the Thematic Social Forum. More on this process here. Translations into Spanish, French and Portuguese have been done already. The German version is waiting for volunteers )
Challenges of the current context: the dangerous conspiracy between state and market State and market, at least in its hegemonic shape, are closely linked and it is hard to differentiate their actions. Even those of us who believe that it is possible for a democratic state to guarantee the general well-being, we see ourselves confronted with states that have no shame in catering to the banking sector –the chief culprit for the recent economic crises– while cutting social expenditures. Both state and market share the same ideological commitment to progress and competition. Both are committed to a model of development and economic growth that destroys the planet and the richness of the commons. Both dismantle our culture and livelihoods in order to convert us into consumers of goods. This inevitably leads to such outrages as the Brazilian mining company VALE’s construction of the Belo Monte dam in the middle of the Amazon rainforest, which will have a devastating impact on the biodiversity and the indigenous people of the region.
This threat to what is common to us are achieved through diverse mechanisms:
Legal: through agreements on free trade and investment protections and intellectual property, and international bodies like the WTO and the WIPO;
Economic: through private appropriation of territories (landgrabbing);
Technological: through genetically modified organisms (GMOs), restrictive systems of access to culture (DRM),geoengineering, etc.
All these phenomena are part of a grand, still untold story of our time: the process of enclosure of the commons, which goes beyond the privatization because it involves expulsion, disenfranchisement and social fragmentation. Enclosures are expanding and intensifying, and, “when the last tree is cut, when the last river has been poisoned” they will go on with the enclosure of the fundamentals of life at a scale of nanotechnology.
Meanwhile, the same states and markets have prepared the trap of the “green capitalism,” which they will try to enforce through the Rio+20 conference. This will signal the next round of enclosure, commodification and financialization of nature.At the same time, states and corporations are conducting a war against the right to share by means of agreements like ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement), proposed laws like SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (ProtectIP Act), direct attacks against citizen organizations like Wikileaks, regulations that impede the reuse and exchange of seeds, and more patents on traditional knowledge. This is the the moment we are living in
to read the whole article go here
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Watch the video from: CommonsDeutschland
a short introduction into the idea of the commons, as well as a critical review of the so called "tragedy of the commons"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=otmrkhEFSZM&feature=player_embedded
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Abstract from the book: “Water Wars”
written by Vandana Shiva and published by South End Press (2002)
Chapter 4 - The World Bank, WTO and Corporate control over Water.
Giant water projects, in most cases, benefit the powerful and dispossess the weak. Even when such projects are publicly funded, their beneficiaries are mainly construction companies, industries, and commercial farmers. While privatization is generally couched in rhetoric about the disappearing role of the state, what we actually see is increased state intervention in water policy, subverting community control over water resources. Policies imposed by the World Bank, and trade liberalization rules crafted by the World Trade Organization (WTO), are creating a sweeping culture of corporate-states all over the world.
[…] Public-private partnerships in the water business are meant to replace water services as public service: First is the focus on commercial orientation through institutional reforms and restructuring. For example, a first step may be restructuring the water and sewage department on a profit center basis.
[…] Privatization arguments have been based largely on the poor performance of public sector utilities. Government employees are seen as excess staff, responsible for low productivity of public water agencies. The fact that poor public-sector performance is most often due to the utilities’ lack of accountability is hardly taken into account. As it turns, there is no indication that the private companies are any more accountable. In fact the opposite tend to be the case. While privatization does not have a track record of success, it does have a track record of risks and failures. Private companies often violate operation standards and engage in price gouging without [paying] much [attention] to the consequences.
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Newsweek columnist Robert J. Samuelson
commenting on the many economic and social problems that American society now confronts, recently wrote:
"We face a choice between a society where people accept modest sacrifices for a common good or a more contentious society where group selfishly protect their own benefits."
On the same article: Daniel Callahan, an expert on bioethics, argues that solving the current crisis in our health care system rapidly rising costs and dwindling access requires replacing the current "ethic of individual rights" with an "ethic of the common good"
to read the whole article go to: www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/decision/commongood.html
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An abstract (in Italian) from www.europeancommongoods.org
È possibile ricostruire un tessuto socio-economico basato sui valori dei Beni Comuni. Da dove cominciamo?
Da quattro passi chiari e comprensibili
LE QUATTRO TAPPE VERSO UNA SOCIETÀ DEI BENI COMUNI
1. Dichiarazione della salvaguardia dei Beni Comuni a livello macro e micro della società
2. Un Bene Comune non può essere scambiato al di fuori della comunità
3. I fondi pubblici sono destinati prioritariamente per la salvaguardia dei Beni Comuni
4. Forme di gestione cooperativa nella comunità hanno la priorità di finanziamento e di gestione dei Beni Comuni
I Beni Comuni sono il quadro di riferimento per la trasformazione sociale che proponiamo. Sono la concreta espressione dello sforzo di una comunità nell’investire nel proprio futuro, nello stato sociale e in una crescita equilibrata. Poiché sono il cardine dello spirito e dello sforzo della comunità, non possono essere venduti a qualunque condizione, ma possono essere valorizzati in modo da accrescere il valore per la comunità.
Per questo motivo sono una priorità di bilancio e sono affidati di preferenza a cooperative, imprese ad azionariato popolare o altre nuove forme simili.
to read more from this source go to: www.europeancommongoods.org/
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From: www.controlacrisi.org
‘Forum: Comuni per i Beni Comuni’
Two articles tell us what has happened last weekend in Naple (Napoli).
Short abstracts (in Italian) below:
1. Beni comuni e partecipazione
Autore: Massimo Rossi
Tantissime persone hanno partecipato sabato a Napoli al Forum dei Comuni per i Beni Comuni. Amministratori locali, attivisti di movimenti sociali, protagonisti di lotte a difesa dei beni comuni e dei diritti lavoratori, giovani, militanti di forze politiche della sinistra, cittadine e cittadini. Tutte/i attivamente alla ricerca, dal basso, di una prospettiva politica in grado di prefigurare un’”al...ternativa”, nei contenuti e nelle pratiche, per uscire a sinistra dalla crisi del liberismo, della democrazia rappresentativa, della politica spettacolo.
Peccato che forse a causa di qualche ambiguità nella costruzione del programma, anche la stampa di sinistra, ne abbia enfatizzato prevalentemente le esternazioni più o meno significative di qualche personaggio.
Questa è la mia relazione al tavolo tematico su beni comuni e partecipazione al Forum di Napoli.
Quasi venti anni or sono, a Grottammare, l’avvio di un processo di partecipazione diretta dei cittadini alle scelte riguardanti l’uso delle risorse economiche e naturali e la gestione dei servizi pubblici, ci appariva l’unica strada per sottrarre quel territorio e quella comunità da un destino di saccheggio, mercificazione e privatizzazione. Per questo nel ’94 , con la vittoria elettorale di un movimento denominato “solidarietà e partecipazione”, che ancora oggi governa la città, prese il via quella che viene riconosciuta come una delle prime, più longeve e riuscite esperienze di democrazia partecipativa.
continua a: www.controlacrisi.org/notizia/Politica/2012/1/30/19313-beni-comuni-e-partecipazione/?fb_ref=.TyXizSa0w1M.like&fb_source=timeline
2. A.A.A. politica cercasi
Autore: Adriana Pollice | Fonte: il manifesto
Sala gremita per il dibattito, posti in piedi ai tavoli tematici. E' stato un successo il forum dei "Beni comuni" che si è svolto ieri a Napoli.
«A sinistra ci siamo abituati a dire pochi ma buoni, però poi si vincono le amministrative, poi anche i referendum e allora, come al forum di Napoli 'Comuni per i beni comuni', dobbiamo abituarci a dire buoni e tantissimi». Norma Rangeri apre i lavori dell'appuntamento partenopeo che ieri ha riunito amministrazioni, associazioni, movimenti, cittadini e tutte le realtà del territorio intorno alle possibili declinazioni del benecomunismo. Tocca alla direttrice de il manifesto «perché il nostro giornale dà voce e forma al cambiamento a cominciare dal referendum sull