Ordinary General Assembly of June 19, 2022

Our G.A. included lively discussions on how the idea of UBI is evolving in the debates and how to advance it further.
Among the activities reported by Ralph Kundig, our president, were:

• The European citizens' initiative for the UBI is nearing the end of its harvest. Unfortunately, only three countries were expected to reach their required quota of signatures: Slovenia 119%, Italy 111%, Spain 103%.

• In Switzerland, the new federal popular initiative is currently collecting signatures, and it basically takes up the points of the previous initiative. Gabriel Barta is the BIEN.CH representative in the campaign committee. The initiative committee launches a general call for mobilization - see below.

• The Motion 2587 for a pilot experiment of the UBI in Geneva submitted to the Geneva Grand Council by a group of deputies (G-SP) was treated by the Commission of Economy. The latter heard numerous speakers from the public administration, employers, academics, social partners and associations, including BIEN.CH in the person of Ralph Kundig and Gabriel Barta, respectively our President and Vice-President.
  The Commission was really passionate about the debate, but unfortunately the partisan divisions came to the fore when it voted to reject the proposal by 9 votes (FDP-SVP-MCG-Die Mitte) against 5 (SP-G) and one abstention (EAG). The Commission's report will still have to be dealt with in the plenary session of the Grand Council.

Support the 2nd federal initiative for the UBI!

The collection of signatures for the second popular initiative for an unconditional basic income has been underway for several months. But still too few people know about it and the collection is progressing with difficulty. We would be happy if you could help us to collect the signatures as much as you can. Hence the following requests:

1. Sign a signature sheet now and drop it in the nearest mailbox.

2. Tell your friends about the initiative. Send the signature sheet with a few words of introduction. Motivate your friends and family to sign, because there are already many supporters. You just need to mobilize them.

3. If you want to do even more, take to the streets to collect signatures.

We hope that a second vote will take place soon, so that we can discuss the UBI again in the whole country and how we want to live in the future.