The Basic Income European network sets its ground in Brussels

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Photos : Ralph Kundig

Unconditional Basic Income Europe [2] (UBIE), conceived during the European citizen initiative of 2013, on April 10th formalized its very existence in a big conference [3] in Brussels held within the European Economic and Social Committee [4] (EESC), itself a consultative body of the European Union’s institutions.

Thanks to a diversified program and quality, notable speakers, the conference’s organizer has overcome the challenge of almost completely filling the room of 180 seats, provided by the EESC.

The following people have intervened notably at this occasion: Amana Ferro, member of the European network against poverty (EAPN [5]), Gerald Häfner, a green european party member, well known for his key role in the birth of the European citizen initiative (ECI), Ronald Blaschke from the German Basic Income support committee, Werner Rätz from ATTAC Germany, Philippe Van Parijs, philosopher and founder of Basic Income Earth Network Basic Income Earth Network [6], Guy Standing, author of « The-Precariat-New-Dangerous-Class » (see an interview [7]) and a key actor of the Indian experiments made on basic income [8] (Fr) added to an impressive panel of 9 counselors from 9 countries (France, Slovenia, Spain, Czech Republic, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, Estonia, Romania, Bulgaria), reflecting a good diversity of promoting the basic income earth network within Europe.

Some other pertinent interventions were also those of, Plamen Dimitrov, the president of the bulgarian syndicates federation, insisted to reaffirm his support to the European Alliance for Basic Income and detailed a list of potential actions at the European level, one of them being to hold pilot projects throughout Europe. A representative of the Spanish movement presented the objectifs set by the popular initiative [9] (Fr) launched in 2014, whereas Anne-Béatrice Duparc (BIEN Switzerland) illustrated the high success rate of Swiss Initiative through the multiplication of street events and actions. Lastly, Stanislas Jourdan (Basic Income French movement) presented briefly [10] the advance through the ECI on the basic income. There had to be an occasion to celebrate it!

Most of the conference’s videos will be progressively published online on Youtube: You may already view the remarked interventions of Philippe Van Parijs and Guy Standing at the link below:

Source and detailed story: http://revenudebase.info [11] (Fr)

Translation: David Blum