A New Vision for Europe: Systems Change and Sustainability Conference
What is the future of Europe?
Is the European Green Deal green enough?
Can corporations be trusted to help protect people and the environment?
The European Union’s experiment in market economics and political bureaucracy is causing an increasing number of economic, social and environmental challenges.
So, what are the solutions? How can we create a better economic and environmental deal for Europe? How can we facilitate markets so that both people and the environment can thrive?
At this conference, some of today’s most visionary thinkers and activists will share their thoughts on how we can—from the local to the global—solve some of these challenges and create a more sustainable and equitable society.
Includes access to March 1st Working groups: How can we support one another to make a difference?
Organized by Future Planet Europe, CICS.NOVA – Centro Interdisciplinar de Ciências Sociais, PRIP – Prout Research Institute of Portugal
Venue
Co-organizers
Supporters and Sponsors
Speakers
Erik S. Reinert
Economist, Author “How Rich Countries Got Rich and How Poor Countries Stay Poor”
Helena Nordberg-Hodge
Writer, organizer of the Economics of Happiness conferences
James Quilligan
Managing Director, Economic Democracy Advocates
Roar Bjonnes
Author, Growing a New Economy
Paulo de Morais
Co-founder, Portuguese chapter of the NGO Transparency International
Raquel Varela
Labour Historian and Researcher
Álvaro Fonseca
Co-coordinator, Degrowth Network Portugal
Renato do Carmo
Director, Inequality Observatory
Gil Penha-Lopes
Researcher, FCUL
Co-founder, ECOLISE
Gabriel Leite Mota
Economist, PhD on the Economics of Happiness
and more….
The very foundation on which the EU is built — a free market designed to help corporations rather than people and the environment — is on shaky ground. The EU’s market economy is in trouble because it runs counter to the shared prosperity, sustainability and unity of the European people.
Politically, the thinking in Brussels has become too autocratic and abstract to solve the real needs of people in the far corners of the north and the south. Therefore, a union based on new political ideals and economic policies must emerge. The other alternative for Europe, including economic chaos and collapse, environmental destruction, fierce nationalism and perhaps war, is too painful to contemplate. It’s time for system change.
It’s time for systems change. We need to empower each region of Europe to develop its industrial, technological and agricultural potential. We need to sustainably utilise and maintain local resources in order to compete in a well-regulated market. New economic measures are needed, not just political reforms. It is time for a New Economic Deal for Europe and all its varied nations and regions.
It is time for true systems change, not just another unsustainable reform-economy. We need an entirely new political vision, a new economic deal beyond corporate capitalism and the welfare state.
This conference is a call to economists, political thinkers, strategists, educators, and environmental activists to come together to discuss and plan outside the box, to formulate the framework for this new culture and for a more democratic, just and sustainable economy. It’s time for a New Economic and Environmental Deal, not only for Portugal and for Europe, but for the entire world.
