- ATD Fourth World

"Stakes, factors and players in forecasting precariousness and extreme poverty in Europe"

Following the presentation by Hugues de Jouvenel outlining some of the basic instruments for forecasting the future, I would now like to apply these instruments in a European context and attempt to paint a full picture of what we are going to be working on over these two days. 

You will have seen in your dossiers two files about the forecasting approach.

The first, four-page file is dated August 2000. It outlines the essence of the forecasting process and then gives five potential scenarios for the future of Europe by the year 2010 as drawn up by the European Commission's Forward Studies Unit and which we have discussed with them. We had asked this unit to come up with normative scenarios based on the aim of eradicating poverty in Europe by 2010, and explore the different ways in which this could be achieved given the current situation. Such a process would have been a valuable way of highlighting the actual challenges facing us in ensuring that the undertaking by the Lisbon European Council to work towards eradicating poverty in Europe by 2010 does not simply remain a pious hope. Unfortunately, the Forward Studies Unit, which had agreed to organise these study days with us, was disbanded a few months later. To our knowledge, no department of the European Commission assigned to consider the future has since again taken up the question we raised. We decided to organise these two study days on forecasting, in partnership with the Futuribles Group to which we would like to express our thanks, because we feel it is important to move the debate forward. 

The second, five-page file, drawn up especially for you, paints a broad picture of the main gloomy trends plaguing Europe, as the bodies engaged in forecasting the future can describe them, covering areas as diverse as demography, globalisation, technology, the environment, changing values, and so forth. It also sets out  a number of key issues in combating precariousness and extreme poverty. 

It is these key issues that I would like to take up now, but in a slightly different order to that found in your files. 

The institutional future of the European Union is often described against the backdrop of two primary concerns, namely deepening, with the reform of its current institutional framework, and also that of its eastward enlargement. I would like to take up these two concerns by applying them not to the institutions of Europe but to its citizens, and to their quest for a new way of experiencing democracy together. The desire to eradicate extreme poverty means trying to reintegrate those who have been excluded under the very definition of the rules of democracy, and their application. So the very fact that poverty persists, which in itself is a violation of human rights, is pushing us to change our behaviour and adapt our institutions dramatically.

In my presentation therefore, I shall touch on some of the key issues; the first part will concentrate on those concerning the deepening of democracy in the European Union, while the second will focus on the enlargement of the Union and its role in the world. 

I would like to suggest a basic framework incorporating a series of questions for us all to think about. It will be the task of the different workshops meeting this afternoon and tomorrow morning to consider these questions and the issues they raise (or to suggest others), and to come up with some answers. 

1.   SOME OF THE KEY ISSUES IN RELATION TO DEEPENING DEMOCRACY IN THE European union:

I shall first say a few words on the question of implementing fundamental rights, and then move on to look at the actual structure European Union. 

a)   Implementing fundamental rights: 

Given the short time available, I shall mention as examples just three of the fundamental rights set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As we have already seen, these rights express the profound aspirations of all human beings, and in particular of the poorest. 

The right to live as a family

All opinion polls show that for the vast majority of European citizens the family unit remains the key focal point in their life despite having undergone significant changes in terms of its structure and practices, for example as a result of the greater autonomy won by women and the increase in the number of single-parent families. It is the capability of the family unit, and the solidarity it embodies that constitute a fundamental defence against precariousness and extreme poverty.
However, European history also highlights the extent to which the family unit has been left open to abuse in a disadvantaged environment. There is barely a country in Europe where, at one time or another, the fight against poverty has not resulted in practice in the poor being driven out. It is perhaps in this area that structural acts of violence by our societies against the weakest populations has been most apparent. It was against this backdrop that during the 20th century Nordic countries forcibly sterilised tens of thousands of young girls from poor families, that Great Britain, over a period of three and a half centuries, deported around 150,000 children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds, and that Switzerland effectively committed cultural genocide against Roma. Few people are aware of these policies designed to break apart the family unit in poor environments, and indeed such practices are still going on. However, nowadays they have assumed a new form, for example with children being adopted without their parents' consent, (a rising trend in Great Britain) and children being removed from their families on account of extreme poverty, a practice which continues in both France and Belgium.
How can we break this trend and consider an extremely poor family unit as a factor determining poverty while the poor themselves tell us what a vital support it is to them in combating destitution? How and under what conditions can we support the family unit and strengthen it, rather than undermining its foundations? This will be the issue under discussion in Workshop 1.

The right to education and culture

"Knowing how to read and write means liberating oneself from shame^[1]": this is what people faced with extreme poverty tell us. "I've met three different types of teacher: those who have decided that nothing can be done with people like us; those who thought that something could be done with our children, but not with us, their parents; and those who sought to fight alongside us for the future of our children. The third type are the only ones who gave my daughters any appetite for learning"^[2], noted one mother from a highly underprivileged background. How can we bring the issue of eradicating illiteracy back onto the European agenda? What can be done to make schools and different bodies offering public education more like 'learning organisations' for the most disadvantaged members of society? How can NICTs be made more accessible to the poor, not only in Eastern and Western Europe, but also in the South?

The right to work and social protection:

These were the words of a representative of Fourth World families to the National Labour Council in Belgium: "Poverty will not be stopped if we continue to consider the most disadvantaged people as stand-ins, if we only give them minor, precarious, underpaid jobs. We are demanding that all these sub-standard jobs become real jobs which give them the same rights as other workers. To do that we are asking for the support of the social partners who have the power to ring in these changes in the regulations".^[3]
Of course, the job market in Europe differs considerably from country to country, as do social security systems. However, general trends are apparent: a 'subordinate right' of integration has been developing for the last 20 years in the European Union, while jobs are becoming more and more precarious. Legislation on minimum income is often a violation of the freedom of the poorest, either in that it traps them in forced inactivity, or by forcing them to do jobs that are not at all of their own choosing. How can we adapt social law to further reconcile economic performance and human development^[4]? How can we modify corporate practices to make companies welcome and train the most disadvantaged workers? These will be the questions for discussion in Workshop 2.

b) Structure of the European Union

The economic construction of Europe has made staggering progress since its early days, as was brought home to us all by the entry into circulation of the euro.
Unfortunately, the establishment of a democratic Europe has not progressed equally rapidly, as we can see from the persistence of poverty in countries ranked as among some of the richest in the world. Why should this be so? Evidently because economic logic predominated, and access to fundamental rights for all was relegated to second place. 
Thus, at both European and world level it is economic agreements that are the precursors to real, tangible action, and are accompanied by severe sanctions if they are breached. The same holds true for both WTO agreements and the economic convergence criteria put in place in Europe under the Maastricht Treaty. There were four binding criteria for sustainable convergence, which were subject to sanctions if breached. Restrictions were imposed to avoid economic and financial slumps: they have proved most effective. 

No such measures have been taken with a view to combating poverty and ensuring universal access to fundamental rights. 

At the world summit on social development in Copenhagen in 1995, 180 heads of state, amongst them those from the European Union, made 10 pledges, the second of which read as follows: "We commit ourselves to the goal of eradicating poverty in the world, through decisive national actions and international co-operation, as a moral, political and economic imperative of humankind."
These non-binding commitments were not accompanied by either by annual reviews or sanctions, and as a result, the majority of them have been flouted. 

We welcome the fact that in the wake of the Lisbon and Nice European Councils, the European Union has made clear that the eradication of poverty is now one of its top priorities. This is something that, together with other bodies, we have fought long and hard to achieve. However we are also afraid of history repeating itself, and that lack of political will and the non-binding nature of this pledge will mean that national plans to achieve social inclusion will produce nothing more than administrative action and experts' reports, and that our efforts will come to nothing.

The key question therefore is the following: is it conceivable that the European Union might write into its future Constitution (if indeed one should come about) the acknowledgement of the equal dignity of every individual and the goal of eradicating poverty? Following the economic convergence criteria set out in the Maastricht Treaty, could the Union draw up a set of convergence criteria on human development which also details the obligation on all Member States to make progress in implementing fundamental rights for all^[5]? Could the European Commission be assigned to evaluate this progress by drawing up a report every two to three years for discussion in the European Parliament? This viewpoint will be discussed mainly in Workshop 1, which will deal with the question of the new legal instruments required to eradicate extreme poverty in Europe.

In evaluating the progress of human development, is it conceivable that the European Union and the Member States might support the creation of 'participatory indicators' detailed in research projects involving representatives of people suffering extreme poverty, academics and social partners? How can we hope to assess accurately the progress being made in combating precariousness and extreme poverty if we do not take into account the point of view of those experiencing it every day? This question will be discussed in Workshop 5. 

2.   SOME KEY ISSUES REGARDING EU ENLARGEMENT AND THE Union's GLOBAL ROLE: 

a)   Eastward enlargement:

This enlargement, as current Eastern European leaders often point out, is simply Eastern European countries returning to the European fold as it were, having been forcibly separated from it in the aftermath of the Second World War. The people of these countries never accepted this partition of Europe. They tried to escape Soviet domination and never gave up hoping for democracy. The purpose of enlargement is to consolidate peace, prosperity and democracy throughout Europe. Eastern Europeans are inviting us to shake up our habits drastically, to change the way in which we are 'European', to become accustomed to thinking of the geographical centre of Europe not as Brussels, but as Warsaw. 

Enlargement is a major challenge, as we are only just beginning to appreciate. A recent study by the World Bank stated that the breakdown of social security systems in central and eastern European countries had led to "an unprecedented increase in poverty in the region.... There is a hard core of the population that is very poor and has every chance of being left by the wayside, even if there is significant economic growth.^[6]" The Council of Europe and even the UN are highlighting the situation of the 9 million Roma, often severely neglected, which is supposedly continuing to worsen. We have a mountain to climb in combating poverty. We will have much to listen to and learn from our friends from eastern countries who are here with us today, who have become involved with these people, and the majority of whom will be in Workshop 3. How can we strengthen the abilities of these people and of those who support them? Will our countries behave arrogantly towards them, as happens so often towards the poor, or will they be able to regard them as dialogue partners with whom they can strive to determine the paths to be followed in future? 

We will also have to bear in mind the effects that enlargement will have on the non-candidate countries. Let me give you a recent example. We had planned to welcome to these study days Mrs Nina Orlova, who was to talk to us about the fight against poverty in her own country, Moldova. A small country of 4.5 million inhabitants, Moldova lies sandwiched between Ukraine to the east and Romania to the west. Its inhabitants have the lowest average income of anywhere in Europe, and some five times lower than that in neighbouring Romania. It was extremely important to us to have Moldova attend these study days. However, Mrs Orlova was refused a visa by the embassy of a major country within the Union and so was unable to come here to the European Economic and Social Committee. And the reason? Because the borders of Romania, a candidate country, must be kept secure so that the external borders of the Union are also secure. It has become much harder for Moldavians to obtain visas. 

b)   Immigration and co-operation policy:

What role will the European Union play in the world? Will it maintain a protectionist attitude in the short term aimed at defending its own interests, or will it stay true to the values of solidarity that it proclaims?
What sort of immigration and co-operation policies will the Union and its Member States have? We at ATD Fourth World are no experts on these issues but they demand our consideration. 

They demand our consideration when we get to know families - some of whom have large numbers of children -  that have fled war and poverty and may wait as long as eight years to become legal citizens. During this time they live illegally, outside the law, and some of their children become engulfed by poverty from which there is no escape. The pressure from immigration on the European Union shows no signs of letting up, due to the significant gap in the level of development between its north and its south. Unless the Union and its Member States relax their policies on migration, tens of thousands of people will be forced to live illegally for an indefinite period, and the weakest amongst them will face the threat of impoverishment. 

The question of immigration brings us to that of development co-operation. Following the terrorist attacks on 11 September, a permanent volunteer from the ATD Fourth World team in Burkina Faso wrote to us saying: "Every day and in the long term Africa is left to face other disasters. Deaths here seem to be regarded as less important than elsewhere. However, looking beyond all the emotion and the provision of emergency aid, the deaths here, of which there are many and the causes of which are no less unjust, are prompting us to do something that is far more difficult to achieve in the long run, namely to live together in a different way". 

These questions dealing with immigration and development co-operation will be tackled in Workshop 4. 

Conclusion: Two hopes.

The first is that during these study days we shall all not merely listen, but act and each share our own knowledge, based on our individual experiences, thereby enriching our knowledge as a group. 

The second concerns the objectives of the workshops. Their primary aim is to develop our mutual understanding of what the situation is and what can be done. There is nothing to stop participants also  formulating recommendations; but these recommendations should not merely be aimed at others - something which is always easy to do -  but also require us to consider the responsibility we must each assume, within the bodies that we represent or together. 

[1] "We are all involved in human rights" Minutes of the 6th European session of the Fourth World People's Universities at the European Economic and Social Committee, Brussels 1999.

[2] Fourth World Journal "Passions to learn", no. 174, June 2000, p. 27.

[3] Fourth World Journal "The right to work and a secure existence", no. 172, December 1999, pp. 22-23.

[4] On this topic see "Breaking out of forced inactivity", Files and documents from the Fourth World Journal, September 1998, p. 81.

[5] This idea is inspired by the "Two European measures to combat poverty and exclusion" put forward on 17 October 2001 by the Poverty and Policy Committee, based in Puiseux le Hauberger in France, although we have adopted a different version.

[6]“Making transition work for everyone. Poverty and inequality in Europe and Central Asia” World Bank, 2000, p. V