*[Enwl-eng] Vladimir, you helped us achieve this!
ENWLine
Hi Vladimir,
What we do together at WeMove is working! Great things are happening right now, thanks to you. Take a look:
Win for orangutans… we just won an important battle to stop Europe treating diesel fuel containing palm oil as a "green" fuel. Half of the palm oil imported to Europe ends up in car tanks. [1]
To build up the pressure, we organised a massive petition with our partners. We sent tweets and emails directly to political leaders, demanding that the European Commission admit that palm oil causes forest destruction.
Earlier this month they finally did it and proposed that palm oil no longer be used as a "green" additive to diesel in Europe. If approved, this will be a win for all of us... and orangutans.
Protecting our food… Nature never stops evolving. So, when the giant agriculture corporation Syngenta wanted to stamp its ownership on a tomato species, we stopped them. Together, we freed the tomato so it will stay part of the common good.
Yes, just two weeks ago, the European Patent Office gave in to our pressure and revoked the patent on the Syngenta tomato. We worked on this campaign for three long years! In 2016, with our partners, we launched the biggest legal complaint against a patent ever. More than 65,000 people from all over Europe took part.
Patents on food mean fewer bees and birds in our countryside and rising food prices. Now, the Patent Office has confirmed that food must belong to people, not to corporations. Sometimes it is really worth being persistent.
Fighting for equality… True gender equality means giving men the chance to do their fair share of childcare. And we’ve made a huge step forward to securing this in Europe.
Last year, EU member states considered introducing a minimum paid parental leave standard for fathers. Some member states like Germany, France or Poland were strongly against this idea. But thanks to a campaign powered by the WeMove community, they gave in at last.
So now the proposal is for EU members states to give fathers at least two months paid leave to take care of their kids. There’s still a way to go - but if the European Parliament and Commission agree too, soon women right across Europe will be able to share childcare more equally with their partners. We will keep pushing until gender equality in Europe is an everyday reality.
In our work, we rely on the invaluable support of partner organisations which provide us with information and insider knowledge. Then they help us put pressure on the decision makers at just the right moment. [2]
And here’s where WeMove’s strength lies. >From every corner of Europe, we come together and act. We are the only organisation which organises people all across Europe, to truly make it a better place for all of us.
These wins can only be achieved thanks to you signing on and speaking out, spreading the word among friends and family, and mobilising people around you. WeMove makes a difference thanks to the passionate commitment of hundreds of thousands of Europeans.
If you want to help us keep the pressure on EU decision makers and multinational corporations for a better Europe, can you chip in a donation? Every little bit helps.
|
|
Thank you!
Olga (Bologna), Marta (Warsaw), Jörg (Lübeck) and the
entire WeMove team
References:
[1]
https://www.transportenvironment.org/publications/smoke-europe%E2%80%99s-cars-driving-deforestation-south-east-asia
[2]
For example, the coalition around Transport & Environment are central to the
palm oil campaign, the alliance of “No Patents on Plants” for the Syngenta
tomato campaign and the European Trade Union Confederation for the parental
leave campaign.
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
------------- * ENWL * ------------
Ecological North West Line * St. Petersburg, Russia
Independent Environmental Net Service
Russian: ENWL (North West), ENWL-inf (FSU), ENWL-misc (any topics)
English: ENWL-eng (world information)
Send information to en...@lew.spb.org, enwl...@lew.spb.org, en...@lew.spb.org, en...@lew.spb.org
Subscription, Moderator: vf...@lew.spb.org or en...@enw.net.ru
Archive: http://groups.google.com/group/enwl/
Additionally: http://www.enwl.net.ru/
(C) Please refer to exclusive articles of ENWL
-------------------------------------