Marie Toussaint, head of the environmentalist list in the European elections, presented, on Tuesday April 30, the program of her list, “which aims to save the climate and deal with the social emergency” and proposes to “change the model”, during a press conference in Paris.
Entitled “For a European ecological welfare state”, this program aims to “move from an economy that destroys to an economy that repairs”, she explained. “We need to change our economic model. The obsession with growth leads to the destruction of the planet and all living things,” said Marie Toussaint. “We are proposing a Europe that takes care of people, the planet and that makes health the measure of all public policies,” she added.
This “other Europe” is based on “three pillars”, she detailed: “health”, which must be the “compass of all public policies”; a “federal leap”, with the establishment of a “European constituent assembly” and the end of the veto power of member states; and “a new ecological social contract”, recognizing new rights and establishing new social protections, so as not to leave Europeans alone facing the consequences of climate change.
« Social veto policy »
The program supported by Marie Toussaint also proposes “an environmental treaty” to make environmental protection “the norm of standards”. The MEP also wants to “get out of austerity”, with “a public investment plan of at least 260 billion additional euros” per year, promises an “ecological sovereignty fund” to regain control of oil and gas companies European and wants to “lower VAT on green products manufactured in Europe”.
In social matters, Marie Toussaint calls for “a right of social veto” so that no more measures passed in the EU can degrade the living conditions of the most precarious, “social and progressive pricing” for energy and water and a “jobs pact” protecting workers in sectors engaged in ecological bifurcation.
On the health side, the environmental program proposes a “European public medicines service”, to produce generic medicines in Europe, and a European CMU. Finally, Europe Ecologie-Les Verts puts forward “a fiscal union” so that Europe acquires its own funds to engage in investments in the ecological transition, by allowing the EU to “raise taxes” and the creation of a European army.
