Intervenções no blogue 'The Lisboners' (VI)

Sugiro a leitura deste artigo e dos comentários (que incluem intervenções minhas).

Abaixo fica o primeiro comentário, que é um comentário directamente ao artigo:

«How is it rational to treat Greece as if they were simply caught up in a bad situation that had nothing to do with them when that simply isn’t true? The Greek economy relied excessively and unsustainably on debt, as did the Greek State, egged on by misapplied and overly optimistic ratings (though few complained about those as they do about less stirling ratings). It did so to fund an uncompetitive economy and an overblown State.

Greece should be restructuring its economic structure, though it’s not been easy to actually implement structural reforms, to put it mildly. Of course they’re not popular. But governing isn’t simply about doing what’s popular. It’s about doing what one thinks is best, and then, in a democracy, be judged for it at the polls.

Finally, even if Greece were actually implementing reforms more steadily, you can’t expect results from structural changes in the short-term. There is an adjustment period. It’s painful, but it’s there, and it needs to be managed.

We can’t keep looking at the short-term. That’s what got us into this mess in the first place. We can’t solve structural problems, as they are in Greece and in Portugal, by throwing money at them, as that’ll only cause inflation and make those problems worse.

And, as a federalist, I would hope we’d take the time to discuss the European Union properly, but it seems it’ll be hard for that to happen.»

Intervenções no blogue 'The Lisboners' (V)

[Em resposta a este artigo.]

I have a few issues I’d like to raise about this post.

The first one is that I can’t help but find it slightly patronising to say that the Indian people simply can’t hold their Government to account, when India is, I believe, a functioning democracy, with functioning democratic institutions.

The second one is that free trade is not about benefitting one side or the other. It’s about lower prices and higher wages in real terms for all sides.

The Common Agricultural Policy, though, is, in fact, about benefitting one side over the other, and it is extremely detrimental to developing economies hoping to export their agricultural products to the European market. That’s what we should be reforming, and in earnest, not at the snail’s pace we currently are.

Also, we should think about protecting people as individuals, and their ability to make choices, not small businesses ‘per se’. People should be able to choose what goods they buy, and they should do so based on their individual preferences, not because there is no alternative. Small businesses can adapt to the new environment – they can, for example, form trade alliances to generate the necessary economies of scale to compete.

Indian business will adapt to the new environment. It will become stronger and more competitive because of competition, and that kind of strength is much more sustainable than that provided by Government protection.

I wonder if the production of generic medicines will be restricted, or whether the provisions at issues are about counterfeit medicine being restricted. These are not the same thing. Of course, I agree whole-heartedly, generic production should not be stymied in India (or anywhere, for that matter).

I also wonder about your concerns about «legislation on health and the environment» being hampered. Could you be more specific? Why are these concerns being raised?

I find it is our responsibility to sign and ratify free trade agreements that lower tariffs across the globe, because free trade creates wealth, and it also creates interdependence – which leads to a predisposition towards peaceful solutions for quarrels that may emerge.

I also find it is our responsibility to reform our global governance institutions to make them more transparent and increase their democratic legitimacy. Free trade is predicated on the existence of an adequate institutional framework, after all.

I know this is slightly off-topic, but I would like to ask anyway: how would people feel about an International Commercial Court, with a responsibility of dealing with international transactions taking into account their complex nature and specificities?

Intervenções no blogue 'The Lisboners' (IV)

We need a real European Treasury. We need European taxes. And we need Eurobonds (though I’m not advocating the European Union should go into debt!).

We need to go beyond a single currency. Ultimately, we need the European Union to be funded directly by European citizens. We need it to be as independent as possible from the influence of all Member States as Member States, and be directly accountable to European citizens.

That is what we need to tell all European politicians, including President Sarkozy and Chancellor Merkel. The European ideal is not dead, and cannot die, and it is our best bet to face the challenges of today, and of the future.

[Em resposta a este artigo.]

Intervenções no blogue 'The Lisboners' (III)

1) Portugal should want a federal Europe. A federal Europe accountable to European citizens. It should therefore support all moves in that direction, such as the promotion of a European public sphere, European political parties, European civil society organisations, European taxes.

The European Union needs to be about freedom, equality of opportunity, sustainability, and cosmopolitanism.

2) Outside Europe, we should not forget that Portugal has a seat at the UN Security Council, and we should use it properly. That means we cannot use it to cozy up to dictators. It means we need to keep voting ‘Aye’ when it comes to helping peoples that want democratic change and are being brutalised by dictatorships for wanting that change.

We need to promote human rights, free trade, sustainability and (long term goal) reform of the global governance model.

3) and 4) Our economic development model needs to go beyond GDP growth (though that is certainly a key goal right now). We need an economic development model focusing on quality of life and sustainability – or even happiness. (I’m thinking about this kind of thing:http://www.beyond-gdp.eu/)

That means, in my opinion, the model should focus on freedom and equality of opportunity. Though we can try to find ways of measuring ‘quality of life’ or ‘happiness’ objectively, and we certainly should, we also need to accept that those two concepts are also highly subjective. We need a system that gives people the freedom to choose what they consider to be best for themselves and their loved ones, and equal opportunities to pursue those goals.

That means vigorous competition and consumer rights policies, for a start. It also means a working judicial system, housing market (including the market of houses for rent), labour market, and a simplified tax code (that includes closing loopholes and addressing excessive tax expenditure). And it means the State needs to know how to run the public purse!

Portuguese people can be highly productive. Portuguese business can be highly competitive. We have many examples of that. (Look at what’s happening with cork right now!)

We need to stop protecting uncompetitive, unproductive businesses with public money (e.g. through public contracts for extremely expensive infrastructure projects, but also through mass subsidisation – in other words, we need to end corporate welfare). We need a State that is concerned with the public interest, not private interests, and we also need regulatory agencies that are truly independent and have the necessary tools to do their job.

We need more autonomous public schools where children and young adults obtain wide-ranging knowledge on a variety of subjects, including Citizenship. People need to be aware of their rights and duties as citizens, of how the political system is meant to work, and they need to learn how to take part in public debates, and they also need to learn languages, mathematics, hard sciences, History, geography, philosophy, etc.

I could go on, but this is a rather large comment already. Suffice it to say that I believe we need the State to do what it does best, the private sector to do what it does best, and we need to keep private interests away from the public interest, and we need to keep the State away from things that jeopardise its ability to do its job well.

[Em resposta a este artigo.]

Intervenções no blogue 'The Lisboners' (I)

People who predict that something will end are inevitably right: nothing lasts forever. I do believe, though, that the choices we make influence our future, which means that it is up to us to make the right choices, so that the EU takes this opportunity to improve, to become stronger.

Of course, it’s easier to predict that something will crumble than it is to actually build something. The task of those that believe in the European ideal is therefore harder than the task of those that prefer to simply attack the EU and wish for its downfall – we actually have to do something constructive!

Nevertheless, I think sustainable prosperity and peace are two goals worth fighting for. Our task may be harder, but the stakes are too high to abandon this fight.

[Em resposta a este artigo.] 

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Various Portuguese Governments have promised to undertake several structural reforms to promote a more dynamic economy over the last decade. We’ve some positive developments, but a lot was simply left undone.

Our justice system remains slow and expensive, our tax code remains byzantine, our big spending commitments in key infrastructural projects remained (until very recently) extremely unrealistic, and Portugal’s been stockpiling debt in various public bodies, in an attempt to remove it from the national budget. Our labour market doesn’t work properly, and neither does our housing market.

Short-term consolidation measures are not the key issue of the Memoranda: the long-term structural reforms are what really counts. I think our Government owes it to its citizens to take this opportunity to, once and for all, implement a new model for economic development. It won’t be easy, and even those parties that signed on to the Memoranda are trying to find ways to duck their responsibilities, but it’s one of those opportunities that we need to grab on to.

But of course, you are right when you say that we need to look at the bigger picture, and that is the European Union. We need more political (and in certain areas, like services, economic) integration, we need European taxes, we need to bring the EU closer to European citizens, we need European political parties, we need a European public sphere. We need to be European citizens first, and Member State citizens second.

The European Union started out as an economic union of States. We need it to evolve into a federation. And we cannot allow the dream of a united Europe to be shattered: we cannot allow myopic politicians to roll back key advances in European integration for short-term electoral gain.

And it’s not just elected representatives that need to act on this. European citizens must unite to preserve the European ideal. Civil society has to act on this as well.

[Em resposta a este artigo.]