GREEN PUBLIC WORKS — AN HISTORIC INVESTMENT PROGRAMME TO DRIVE THE TRANSITION TO SUSTAINABILITY

1 Establish the Green Public Works (GPW), a public investment agency that will channel Europe’s resources into green transition projects around the continent.

2 For all EU institutions, switch to a Genuine Progress Indicator system of accounting rather than Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

3 Introduce a new Regulation to clarify that the European Central Bank must prioritise employment, social progress and environmental protection.

4 Abandon the dominant model of public-private financing and invest in the transition directly.

5 Adopt a multi-stakeholder governance model for the European Investment Bank (EIB), ensuring that decisions are made with input from scientists, activists, country representatives and other key groups.

6 Fund the green transition by mobilising a coalition of Europe’s public banks — led by the European Investment Bank — to issue green bonds to raise at least five percent of Europe’s GDP in funding that can be channelled into the GPW.

7 Establish multilateral working groups on the green transition at the European System of Central Banks.

8 Intervene in the design of global prudential standards to introduce punitive capital requirements for investments in fossil fuel-heavy and environmentally destructive projects and businesses in the Basel framework.

9 Spend GPW funding on guaranteeing decent public jobs to all European residents who seek one. These jobs will be based on a three-day weekend or four-day working week with lower overall working hours. They will provide workers and communities of democratic control over their workplaces. And they will be local — ensuring that all European residents can earn fair wages in their local communities.

10 Use the GPW to fund an income guarantee for workers in fossil-fuel industries.

11 Fund a Care Income to compensate activities like care for people, the urban environment, and the natural world.

12 Devolve investment decisions made under the GPW to national, regional, and municipal government levels.

13 Allocate distinct lines of funding within the GPW for experimentation in increasing public participation in investment decision making — with a view to entrenching greater participation in local governance.

14 Simplify funding application and reporting processes, and include a free-to-use support service, ensuring greater participation and access of grassroots civil society organisations in investment decision making.

15 Provide incentives for authorities to set up local GPW agencies, to help steer investment decisions and provide technical support.

16 Tie all GPW funding to strict public-procurement criteria that shift public spending towards green materials, fossil-free energy, and community wealth building. Issue funding to authorities that subscribe to a shared set of fundamental principles, including democracy, transparency, and sustainability.

17 Fund a Green Solidarity Network to unite twinning and cooperation arrangements between municipalities, regions, farmers, and communities — enhancing horizontal information-sharing and political decision-making across the continent.

18 Develop a GPW Tracking Tool to allow for public scrutiny and monitoring of GPW-funded projects.

19 Introduce a new EU Public Integrity Authority with the power to investigate and refer violators of European common standards and national regulations to national enforcement agencies.

20 Invest in the European Anti-Fraud Office to reinforce capacity to investigate abuse of public money across the EU.

21 Fund a major buy-back programme for vacant housing stock, repurposing it for public use wherever practicable.

22 Refurbish and retrofit existing housing stock for sustainability through large scale participatory and integrated, neighbourhood-level initiatives to ensure every home is well insulated and in good repair.

23 Accommodate needs created by the changing climate in all new housing, which will be safe and non-toxic, and designed with the participation of the communities that will ultimately use it.

24 Ensure that construction processes are accountable to workers and communities. New buildings will be suitable given the location and nature of existing structures, avoid creating damp or other hazards through unsuitable retrofits, and minimise emissions of greenhouse gases and other environmental breakdown.

25 Establish a Mobility Cohesion Fund to invest in the integration and improvement of Europe’s public transport systems, ensuring cohesion in mobility within and between Europe’s rural communities, towns, cities, regions and countries.

26 As part of the Mobility Cohesion Fund, make all municipal public transport around the continent free at the point of use or available at a low cost that incentivises its use.

27 To ensure maximum mobility for all Europeans — including persons with disabilities — fund a fleet of public taxis and car-pooling services.

28 Invest in an integrated, efficient high-speed rail system using sustainably produced energy, combined with a kerosene tax on intra-EU flights, to eventually replace air travel within the continent.

29 Support the public buy-out of utilities companies across EU member states.

30 Fund projects and organisations engaged in cooperative approaches to socio-digital innovation, such as community-owned internet service providers.

31 Create a democratically-controlled European Data Commons to unlock the power of aggregated data for the common good, while safeguarding privacy, individual sovereignty, security and anonymity.

32 Introduce a European Health and Care Standard, a minimum standard for public healthcare across the continent. Make GPW funding available to parts of Europe that fall below it.

33 Fund a Europe-wide Training Guarantee, supporting opportunities for jobs training across the continent.

34 Invest in shared public services across the continent — from public parks to childcare centres.

35 Support the emergence of workplace democracy across the continent, focusing investment on worker cooperatives and community-led projects based on municipal or local ownership.

36 Invest in establishing the Green Horizon 2050 research and development programme.

37 Ensure that any technologies or techniques developed under the Green Horizon 2050 programme are open source and devised in collaboration with other countries to support the emergence of sustainable economies across the globe.

38 Make GPW transition funding available to firms that meet a high standard of both sustainability and worker empowerment.

39 Establish the Europe Award, a prize for firms that meet the principles of the Green New Deal for Europe and make great strides towards sustainability and workplace democracy.

40 Channel investments towards reinvigorating Europe’s rural communities, supporting environmentally-sustainable food production across the continent.

ENVIRONMENTAL UNION — AN EMERGENCY PACKAGE OF LEGISLATION, REWIRING EUROPE FOR SUSTAINABILITY AND SOLIDARITY

41 Declare a climate and environmental emergency in the EU and commit to continuously updating targets to align with the scientific consensus.

42 Introduce legislation mandating that Europe’s economies operate within the planetary boundaries.

43 Base legislation on detailed data collection on the health of natural systems and new targets for biodiversity across the EU — which must be gathered with a view to informing the legislative process.

44 Replace the EU emissions trading scheme with a fee-and-dividend system, after piloting the new model on a small scale and with the participation of Europe’s residents.

45 Introduce legislation to shut down tax havens, which deprive the European public of vital funds that must be mobilised in support of the transition.

46 Introduce additional fiscal measures, such as an environmental damages tax and a financial transaction tax, to generate funds to support communities on the frontline of the climate and environmental crises.

47 Introduce a new ‘Euro 7’ vehicle emissions standard to prohibit the production of fossil fuel vehicles. This will prohibit dividends for shareholders, or pay for directors of corporations who fail to comply after a transitional period.

48 Pass a new Public Enterprise Directive to codify the right of EU member states and regional states to create golden shares in manufacturing companies to decarbonise production.

49 Amend the Railways Directive to electrify all rail in Europe.

50 Legislate to collect data and phase out all aeroplane flights with comparable times to rail alternatives.

51 Renegotiate the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships to require decarbonisation of fleets to limits of available technology.

52 Negotiate a new International Convention for the Elimination of War Industry to free countries around the world to invest in the fight against climate damage.

53 Encourage taking energy utilities back into public ownership using the Open Method of Coordination and require public voting rights in public utilities.

54 Amend the Electricity Directive, Renewable Energy Directive, and Gas Directive to require 100 percent clean and sustainable energy generation.

55 Introduce robust fossil fuel subsidy reporting standards under the NECP.

56 Link GPW funding to fossil fuel subsidy withdrawal during a transitional period — ensuring that no taxpayer shoulders the burdens of the transition, particularly in fossil-fuel dependent countries.

57 Entrench durability and sustainability at the heart of European manufacturing. As part of that, enhance consumer rights to products of lasting and durable quality, while enshrining in law a right to repair and recyclability.

58 Introduce a new Supermarkets and Stores Directive to require traffic light labelling for carbon and nutrition, no unnecessary plastic, decarbonising transport, a living wage for agricultural workers, and effective enforcement.

59 Introduce new legislation governing both domestic and international supply chains, ensuring that they achieve a reduction in material throughput in Europe and are grounded in principles of justice.

60 Require companies to account for climate risks, and reserve capital fossil fuel assets, on the assumption of paying full compensation for damage caused.

61 Fast-track progress of the Technical Working Group on sustainable finance, and incorporate the taxonomy of social and green investments into a new, punitive prudential framework.

62 Building on the new taxonomy, make emergency amendments to Europe’s prudential rules to penalise investments in non-renewables. In addition to introducing a new ‘brown penalising factor’ for banks and insurers, extend the same principle to securities financing transactions, introducing ‘brown penalising’ margins and haircuts.

63 To safeguard depositors, legislate for the separation of commercial and investment banking, as well as robust and mandatory new disclosure requirements on non-renewable investments.

64 Democratise finance through an Economic Democracy Directive that empowers people to exercise control through elected representatives over all voting rights attached to investments on their money.

65 Expand the mandate of Europe’s financial regulators to monitor progress against climate, environmental and social indicators — and to support the smooth implementation of the new requirements.

66 Entrench sustainability within all firms, amending the Company Law Directive to codify a duty on directors to invest in renewable and sustainable energy, transport, buildings and other practices, with multiplying damages for delay, enforceable by investors, employees, creditors and representative environmental groups.

67 Empower businesses and others to make transparent agreements to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions, waste, and pollution exempt from competition rules.

68 Make agricultural subsidies conditional upon increasing ‘ecological focus areas’ with forests, meadows and rewilding, from five percent to 20-50 percent of farmed land.

69 Make agricultural payments conditional upon sustainable land practices, including eliminating all unnecessary tilling, fertilisation, pesticides, and machinery, to prioritise retention and reduction of carbon.

70 During a transitional period, withdraw subsidies for big farming corporations and businesses entirely upon the completion of restoration in the natural environment — redirecting the funds towards sustainable food production.

71 Adopt the Common Food Policy, a framework that realigns the various sectoral policies affecting food systems, puts an end to conflicting policy objectives and their hidden costs and puts trade in the service of sustainable development.

72 Terminate all Investor State Dispute Settlement agreements, and introduce the right of communities and democratic representative groups to bring claims to enforce trade rules.

73 Renegotiate the World Trade Organisation rules to include human rights, including the right to the benefits of science, a clean environment and labour standards.

74 Recalibrate EU trade rules to support diversified, self-sustainable economies in Europe and around the world, according to the principle of decarbonisation.

75 Revise Europe’s international development policies to align with the priorities of the Common Food Policy.

76 Recognising that environmental destruction is a threat to human and non-human life, introduce an Environmental Abuse Directive to codify the civil wrong for contributing towards climate and environmental damage, with personal and punitive liability for those who profit from pollution.

77 Recognise that climate damage is criminal damage, and that ecocide is also a crime.

78 Reorient international criminal law to recognise climate damage that amounts to ecocide is a ‘crime against humanity’.

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE COMMISSION — RESEARCH, MONITORING, AND RECOMMENDATION

79 Establish an Environmental Justice Commission to monitor implementation of the programme along the dimensions of international, intersectional and intergenerational justice.

80 Ensure that the EJC is guided by principles of equal distribution, recognition, and participation of communities across Europe.

81 Structure the EJC across four tiers, from Chairpersons elected to represent EU member-states down to People’s Panels that inform the EJC’s work.

82 Empower the EJC to investigate issues pertaining to environmental justice and propose recommendations to legislative bodies both inside Europe and around the world to address them.

83 The EJC should investigate the international dimension of environmental justice, ranging from trade relations to the rules of the game for transnational corporations.

84 The EJC should address intersectional inequalities inflicted by the environmental crisis and its variable impact on communities in Europe.

85 The EJC should pay particular attention to the challenge of intergenerational justice — both looking addressing past injustices and promoting tools to ensure that future generations inherit a habitable world.