Renew liberalism, renew Europe, renew the world

Source: Goss Vitalij

In 1976, liberals (party federation — European Liberal Democrats and Reformists) made a vital vision for Europe during the conference in Stuttgart. When looking more than 40 years later it can be concluded that many ambitions from the “Stuttgart declaration” have been achieved. Today’s Europe is more free, wealthy and integrated than during the Cold War period.

For determined and firm liberals, there is much that one can feel proud about regarding Europe’s post-cold War development such as in the case of market integration, liberalisation of global trade and making it easier for individuals to move and migrate both within and to Europe.

Furthermore, liberalism has been not only important for making Europe a better place for individual self-development but also for other parts of the world. Globalisation, after the fall of the Berlin war, has mostly been based on liberal ideas of freer flows of goods, services, capital and humans around the globe.

However, the current political situation in Europe, America and many other parts of the world is very different from the Cold War period when the primary political conflict was between capitalism and communism, democracy and dictatorship, libertarianism vs authoritarianism. At the current moment, the primary opponents of human freedom, rights and dignity are actors with nationalist, authoritarian, populist agenda, ideas and attitudes. Such political behaviours and developments are not only often very anti-liberal but also against European constitutionalism, citizenship and democracy.

For the first time in the modern history of Europe, constitutional aspects as the rule of law and human rights are in larger scale being in danger, violated or ignored. Therefore, it is not enough for liberal actors to focus on defending liberal-democratic constitutionalism and universal values but also to promote new meaningful ideas, inspirations and institutional reforms for the future of Europe and our planet.

Liberals have to focus on making Europe more open, decentralised and free in intuitional sense, in order to solve and handle different problems and challenges that the Union is facing. During 24–26 October, member parties and individual members of Alliance of Liberal and Democrats for Europe (ALDE, belonging to the Renew Europe group in the European Parliament) will meet in Athens to make new decisions regarding the party, Europe and global politics. As an individual member of ALDE I am making the following proposals and aspirations regarding future development:

• ALDE party should transform itself into a “real party”, driven by members, co-creative processes and union-wide organisation and structure. A modern party must be driven by individuals with aims of struggling for a more open, free and democratic Europe. Individuals across Europe should be able to be more familiar with organised liberalism and how liberal politics can make an important difference in everyday life. It is important to act in accordance with the principle — be the change you wish to see in the world.
• Until the ALDE party has transformed into a member-driven party all member parties that are “liberal in name only” must be excluded from ALDE. This means parties which are functioning as projects for personal or collective interests instead of liberal ideological convictions. Corruption, nepotism, indecent behaviours do not belong inside a liberal party, nor anywhere else in the world.
• During recent years some ALDE parties have been conducting politics and political communication that can be described as right-wing collectivism. Actions that often have been directed towards European Muslims, disadvantaged citizens and refugees. As by forbidding burqa, preventing beggars to be able to ask for help and making it easier for governments to prevent individuals from seeking asylum. Such policies are not only reducing freedom and making Europe less tolerant but also counterproductive. Since already economically weak, socially marginalised and stigmatized individuals are being exposed to repression by public institutions.
• Liberals should aspire that the EU:s political and governing structure that is more of a confederal model should be transformed into a more decentralised, democratic and federal one. Federalism is important as when it comes to aspects as limited governance, separation of powers and constitutionalism. However, the solutions for federalization should not be based on the promotion of “more Europe” nor in ”less Europe” but of the development of more freedom and decentralisation with more focus on sovereignty for regions and cities.
• Liberals should not be in favour of the creation of new institutions as when it comes to Eurozone only because the national governments are having such ambitions. More integration is important for various reasons when it comes to institutional development, but the priority of ALDE should be to have a strategy regarding institutions and governance with focus on limiting the size and mandates of EU-level institutions. For liberals, the starting point should begin with questions such as — should this be regulated?, what is the role of EU-governance?, how many EU-level employees as commissioners are necessary?
• Living in a union means that individuals have different values and affections but are connected to the same institutions as legislation and citizenship. At this moment when the political discourse is influenced by “50 shades of identity politics” one could argue that there is also a need for “liberal identity politics” with a focus on individual freedom, rights and sovereignty. It is also important to remember that liberalism’s contribution to human progress and freedom is the individual when it comes to natural human rights to liberty, property and life while our collective identifications are temporary, liquid and changing. Therefore, liberals should not promote slogans as “European civilization, Europe first, I am European” but support a positive, meaningful and cosmopolitan views on human identification where Europe is place for openness, freedom and civic life. And also where Europe plays an important part when it comes the future of our global-human civilization with a focus on common institutions for freedom, security and mobility.
• There is space for the EU-level to have a more important role when it comes to welfare. However, this should not be based on aspects such as the social pillar nor in a similar way as policies at state levels. Welfare is an essential part of European history, but today many parts of the union face problems with high-tax welfare models that were established when Europe was more an industrial area. The current welfare models around the EU are in several cases not sustainable. Therefore, one solution is that the EU could have a policy for basic income that goes to every citizen and long-term resident who for example is 18+, unemployed, or lacking other incomes. Such a system can partly be funded by scraping several existing programs as the EU-globalization fund and CAP subsidies.
• The Common Agricultural Policy is resulting in bad political and economic behaviours, also by being in contradiction with EU:s development and humanitarian aid policy. An important liberal task for Europe is to fight against special and private interests which are presented as collective and common. Subsidising European agriculture on the basis of an outdated system also creates problems for the global economic development where for example farmers across Africa are not able to compete freely on the European market. Also, the current aid policies need to change in favour of giving direct policy. This means that more of the aid money should go directly to individuals as in conflict and catastrophe zones rather than going to governments, especially those who are corrupted.
• Humanitarian immigration should be handled individually and locally in the first place. This means that decision-making processes when it comes to refugees and asylum seekers should be performed by regions, cities, communities and individuals instead of national governments. By doing so, EU-level can serve an essential purpose for global cooperation and governance as regarding asylum processes as in emergency cases while the local levels can have direct cooperation with global level regarding number of individuals, integration policies, labour policies etc.
• To make EU:s history a part of global reality with a focus on global free movement for humans. Liberals should not “protect European freedoms” but promote freedom and individual sovereignty in a universal sense. Before 2030’s liberals have to fight to make it easier for humans around the world to be more and more free to move and migrate. In principle, anybody who is not in jail or under criminal investigation should have the right to move in accordance to respect for freedom, human rights and sovereignty. EU:s history of creation of common market and freedom of movement for individuals is often seen as a positive reference when promotion free migration and mobility for humans.
• Liberals should affirm more commitment to promoting decentralisation, which is a trend based on the establishment of new institutions and communities. This is done with cryptocurrencies, decentralised social media and internet networks, usage of block-chain technology, identities that can truly be owned by individuals without central authorities. Decentralisation trend means the removal of older institutions and making individual interactions easier.
• Focus on human security. There are many political actors who are trying to use terrorism, wars and organised crime to promote more closed borders and authoritarian power for public institutions. However, global problems and challenges are global and cannot be solved by nationalistic and state-centric views on security. Each public institution as a state has to be based on the protection of human security of each individual. Governments need always to act based on universal values and global interests and not based on “national interests”. For example, to make it efficient to reduce terrorism institutions as Interpol should function as a global police force with operational mandates rather than to be used by national governments as the case is today. Such institutions are necessary to operate as critical common institutions for a global citizen.
• New European and global constitutionalism regarding rights. At the moment we are still living in a union with where treaties and constitutions are human-centric due to historical reasons. As Europe is getting more post-industrialised, there is a necessity that current constitutionalism should be updated for a more transhumanist and info- and biotech driven future. This means that Europe, with an important history of human rights, could become the first place in the world that besides human rights also have implanted rights for robots, cyborgs, artificial intelligence and other non-human sentient entities. This is important even for economic development. Human rights have been vital for enabling decent human to human interactions. Similarly, it is vital to allow fair interactions between humans and sentient entities as well as between conscious entities themselves.

Last but not least, the most important aspect of liberal organising in Europe should always be based on having visionary, meaningful and inspirational storytelling that is focusing on long-term development and co-creating involvement of all active members. The struggle for a more open, free and cosmopolitan Europe has to begin with liberals being the change that we want to see in our world.