*[Enwl-eng] Digital demo for basic income
ENWL
Hi,
“We have no money to pay, we have to eat.” shouts a person at a cashier in a supermarket in Italy. People in Italy are running out of food and money. A video of a couple begging for a €50 advance outside a bank, after their shop closed due to the quarantine, is making the rounds. [1]
What is happening in Italy after three weeks of lockdown can happen to the rest of us over the next few days too. When 22% of Europeans are already at risk of poverty, this number risks spiralling further. [2] And a national response will not be enough. We need the EU to act as one.
Our demand is simple: monthly payments from the EU to ensure people have enough for rent, groceries and bills -- a European basic income during this emergency.
Over 130,000 people have signed our petition asking for this, but we need to make sure decision makers hear our demands. [3] Like us, politicians are stuck at home. With your help, we have a plan to reach them in different ways and make this campaign a big success:
- A Twitter demo: Politicians and journalists are on Twitter even more than usual. So we will take our demonstrations there too, flooding their feed with our demands! With a little money we can place ads on Twitter to amplify our protest.
- Newspaper ads: Decision makers like Macron, Lagarde and Merkel [4] only read a few newspapers, Politico and the Financial Times among them. Ads in these papers are expensive, but are a sure way to catch their attention.
- Your video to decision-makers: We’ll ask you to send us a video expressing your concerns surrounding this emergency, explaining why we need a universal basic income. We’ll commission a video-maker to edit and compile them and send the video directly to decision-makers.
European leaders meet on a weekly basis so we need to be fast in finding new ways to protest. If we receive enough donations, we can be up and running with this action next week.
Low-income families have been and will continue to be hit the worst by the effects of coronavirus. Either families run out of money or parents have to continue working, risking infection. A lot of children don’t get their regular meals at school anymore and most food kitchens are closed. [5]
A basic income is a simple and fast solution. In essence, it involves no more than giving people modest, regular and unconditional cash payments -- much like a pension.
Until now, it was hard to imagine something like this being taken up by the EU, like so much before the coronavirus hit. Yet even World Bank senior officials are promoting this idea. [6] Our signatures only count if we’re creative with our protest. That’s why we’ve come up with the ideas above.
Solidarity is what we people in Europe need and what only we can give each other. Your donation, of whatever amount you can spare, is another way of showing solidarity!
The immense outpouring of solidarity and explosion of community organising in direct response to this crisis is heart-warming. All across Europe, people help each other. But this is also the time that the EU needs to boldly step up and take care of its people. A basic income cannot fix everything, but it is what we need right now.
With hope,
David, Jörg (Germany), Marta (Poland), and the entire WeMove Europe team
P.S. Many governments in the EU either have no means or no political will to direct financial support to people losing their income. Unemployment, poverty and homelessness in many European countries may soon reach devastating levels, following in the footsteps of Italy or Spain. The EU must step in before it happens! Will you chip in?
References:
[1]
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/29/italy-sets-aside-400m-for-food-vouchers-as-social-unrest-mounts
[2]
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/refreshTableAction.do?tab=table&plugin=1&pcode=t2020_50&language=en
[3]
https://you.wemove.eu/campaigns/emergency-basic-income
[4]
Emmanuel Macron, President of France, Christine Lagarde, Head of the European
Central Bank, Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany
[5]
https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/kinderschutz-in-der-coronakrise-fuer-manche-kinder-ist.694.de.html?dram:article_id=473595
[6]
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2020/03/13/5-lessons-for-using-universal-basic-income-during-a-pandemic/
WeMove.EU is a citizens’ movement, campaigning for a better Europe; for a European Union committed to social and economic justice, environmental sustainability and citizen-led democracy. We are people from all walks of life, who call Europe our home whether we were born in Europe or elsewhere.
WeMove Europe SCE mbH | Planufer 91 Berlin | www.wemove.eu | Privacy policy
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