Summary

The European Election Platform of the Finnish Left Alliance

Adopted by the Party Council on November 24, 2013

Towards a Welfare Union - The European Election Platform of the Left in 2014

The destinies of our nations are bound together and the European countries depend on each other both politically and economically. This is why we also need decision-making and governance that crosses national borders. The Left demands profound changes to the European Union and the Economic and Monetary Union EMU. We call for a more democratic, equal and humane Europe and world.

In order to guarantee the well-being of both people and nature, we need a European Union that functions better in a world dominated by the global economy. We also need to change our attitudes so as to understand that it is in the Finnish workers' best interest that workers in Estonia and Portugal have proper job security and that the Chinese have decent terms and conditions of employment.

A More Democratic Union

• We should let the European Union decide on only such issues where it is sensible to make the decisions at the European level.
• The rule of enterprises and lobbyists should be limited and made more transparent in Brussels.
• The powers of the European Parliament should be increased by giving it the right to introduce legislation.
• The European Commission should be made subject to a tighter parliamentary control.
• Decision-making in the European Union should be supported by new democratic organs of preparation, such as citizens' forums that think and talk, which could be delegated the right to introduce legislation or given another significant position.
• A Europe-wide referendum should be organised on how the European Union should be developed.
• The monetary politics of the European Central Bank should be placed in direct democratic control.
• The administrative costs of the European Union should be reduced, for example by giving up one of the two cities where the European Parliament holds its plenary sessions.
• The preparation and the processing of European Union issues should be made more public and transparent in the Finnish Parliament.

The Crisis in the Eurozone Must Be Solved

• The primary duty of the European Central Bank should be the promotion of growth and employment, and, depending on the economic situation, both of these should also be financed by the European Central Bank.
• Banks that are too big to fail should be dismantled into smaller entities and nationalised.
• Banks that hold people's savings, investment banks and insurance companies should all be separate institutions.
• The national debt of the countries in the eurozone should be reorganised and the privation of the countries in crisis should be stopped.
• European tax havens should be closed down and bank privacy stopped at the same time as the EU should promote a global solution to the problem of tax havens. Countries should start exchanging tax information automatically.
• In order to stop speculations with tax competition and tax planning, minimum tax levels should be established. The purchaser companies should be made liable for the payment of their subcontractors' taxes with the introduction of a chain of liability as in the Netherlands. The register of shareholders should be made public and the list of the real owners of companies should be made a public record.
• The property and actions of enterprises and banks should be made transparent by bookkeeping that is specific to each country.
• A wide-ranging investment plan should be targeted to support ecologically sustainable businesses and traffic, public and social services, and production.
• If the crisis in the eurozone or problems with the European currency cannot be solved sustainably, the common currency should be dismantled in a controlled way and a referendum should be organised in each country on EMU membership.
• The free trade negotiations between the European Union and the United States should be stopped and the previous agreements between the two should be reassessed.

Towards a More Social Europe

• Finland must ratify article 4.1 of the European Social Charter which defines the right of workers to decent remuneration. According to the article, workers have the right to a remuneration that gives them a decent standard of living.
• A remuneration council must be set up at the EU level which is in charge of coordinating remuneration in order to stop wage competition and the problems this competition causes. Collective bargaining and the development of remuneration should be coordinated with additional mechanisms in the different member states.
• Minimum levels of salaries, social welfare benefits and working conditions and the minimum rises in these payments should be set at the European level.
• Socially equal education and services should be supported everywhere in Europe.
• The EU Structural Funds and the programmes financed by those funds, as well as new financial policy means should be targeted at the reduction of regional differences and unemployment. The livelihood of the countryside and the development and well-being of villages should be supported by the rural development funds and the Leader programme.
• The minimum levels of taxation should be harmonised in order to stop international tax evasion and tax competition, and supranational taxes on banking should be introduced.
• There should be a general European property tax, and legislation on maximum income should be developed.
• In all member states, foreign workers should be paid salaries and wages according to the stipulations of the collective agreements in those countries. Compliance with this principle should be strictly monitored.

Support to Human Rights and Peace in Europe and the World

• Violence in close relationships and hate crime against minorities should be tackled at the European level as well as in each member state.
• Instead of strict border controls, the position of paperless immigrants should be improved as should people's legal right to enter the European Union area.
• The member states should be urged to respect the rights of minorities. Peaceful demonstrations, such as the Pride Parades must be allowed in all member states of the EU. The European Union must support the organisations and popular movements of the minorities and their cooperation at the European level.
• The right to decide about one's own body is an essential human right. The right to safe abortion that is decided by the pregnant woman herself must be achieved in all member states of the European Union.
• We must end the internal exile of the Roma in the European Union and take steps to improve the position of the Roma in all member states.
• Free mobility and immigration both within and outside the European Union must be promoted.
• The preconditions of the increased international youth exchange must be safeguarded.
• The European Union must promote global debt relief in its foreign policy.
• Crisis management in the European Union must be based on the Charter of the United Nations and military organisations must be subordinate to civilian crisis management.
• The Common Security and Defence Policy should not be militarised.
• Europe must be free of weapons of mass destruction.
• The European Union should take the place of the United Kingdom and France in the United Nations Security Council.

An Ecologically, Socially, Economically and Globally More Sustainable Europe

• The special conditions in the northern areas must be taken into account in the Common Agricultural Policy.
• More money should be invested in the environmental protection of the Baltic Sea and the Arctic areas.
• Genetically modified products must be banned and agricultural subsidies only allocated to ecologically sustainable agricultural production in the EU.
• The European Union member states must commit to curbing their polluting sufficiently and the EU must regain its position as a globally progressive actor in climate and environmental protection.
• The member states of the European Union should promote a sustainable fisheries policy and they should avoid making new agreements that lead to overfishing.
• The European Union must promote a global tax on greenhouse gas emissions.