General Assembly 2012

1. General Assembly 2012 http://en.forum-civil-society.org Copenhagen 31 May 2012 Workshop 1 The common goodsTowards a common understanding and definition

2. Short historical reminder of the FORUM endeavours • In 2008 : After the Charter of [individual] Fundamental Rights, it seemed necessary to the Forum to reflect on collective goods and rights in the EU. • In February 2009, The Castellina Manifesto: It is now time for civil society to participate in defining a new, and newly global, framework for common goods and collective rights related to the management of our economies, individual behaviour, to the evaluation of policies and to indicators of progress. ->http://en.forum-civil-society.org/spip.php?article176 • October 19, 2009 : Think-tank meeting on “Common Goods and Collective Rights”. The complete audio-record is availbale here ->http://en.forum-civil-society.org/spip.php?rubrique41 • Following this meeting, a work-group was created, which drafted a working-paper submitted in May 2010 for comment by European civil society (-> http://forum-civil-society.org/spip.php?article442) and debated over during a meeting “Towards a European Societal Compact” held on December 6, 2010. The complete audio record of this last meeting is available here ->http://en.forum-civil-society.org/spip.php?rubrique44 Permanent Forum of European Civil Society

3. 1st Conclusion: There are four permanent key issues Since time immemorial in the evolution of the universe, human beings have been constantly confronted with the need to answer four key issues in order to live in society: • How to define the quality of welfare, and how to measure progress regularly? • How to mobilizeall societal actors towards achieving these qualitative objectives of welfare, and how to measure progress regularly? • How to distribute, equitably among societal actors, wealth and well-being created by all, and how to measure progress regularly? • How to share out, among all societal actors, the burden of those risks which, by their very nature, cannot be controlled by a single category of them: risks which, therefore, must legitimately be shared out between all those who are, to varying degrees, both the cause and victims of these risks – for example, by poverty, accident, involuntary unemployment, sickness, old age, pollution, dwindling natural resources, climate change etc.? Permanent Forum of European Civil Society

4. 2nd: The consensual response offered to these four key issues constitutes the Societal Compact. In a democratic system, it results from the dialogue among citizens and the political world. In case of consensus, social cohesion is itself strengthened. 3rd: Fundamental Rights are not only individual rights. The FORUM believes that they are also collective goods and rights. They are things and tangible or intangible rights on which each one, as a resident of a community, has a right to non-exclusive use and of which the Union and the Member States are merely “managers for third parties”. For instance: - Clean water, clean air, a stable currency, banks adequately regulated, etc. - A food and/or pharmaceutical industry less concerned about their profits than about the future of the planet and its habitants. - Peace, security, education, etc. Permanent Forum of European Civil Society

5. 4th: The concept of collective goods and rights does not exist in the arsenal of legal concepts within the EU. It is not even certain that the concept exists at all. It must be “invented” and formally introduced within the whole arsenal of legal concepts. In the FORUM opinion, collective rights constitute a new type of rights. They can no longer be examined solely under the international Law because they go beyond the exclusive competence of sovereign states. It is no longer solely at the national level that it can be decided over their recognition and enforcement. They require being considered by sovereign states which accept to mutualise (share out) the exercise of their sovereignty. Permanent Forum of European Civil Society

6. 5th: If the concept itself is universal, it does not necessarily cover the same kind of goods and rights everywhere nor for ever! Their precise nature varies not only from one period to another but also from one place to another in function of local culture. As far as most EU Member States are concerned, a universal social security system was considered as a collective “good” and “right” to be preserved in the 20th century, but which today many people want to question. And in USA, the very idea of such a universal system is considered as an infringement of a person’s fundamental right. Permanent Forum of European Civil Society

7. 6th: Therefore there must be, in any community of humans, “someone” responsible for: • Determining the “current” list of collective goods and rights and re-evaluating it regularly depending on the evolution of “paradigms recognized and shared” by the members of the community, • Adopting, on behalf of the community who is the sole owner of the collective goods and rights, guidance rules in order to frame the action of the Government of the community in its mission of “manager for third parties”, • Assessing regularly progress bearing to choices previously made to the four key issues cited above, and • Proposing corrections arising from this regular assessment. • As far as the EU is concerned, the FORUM suggests to entrust this responsibility jointly to the EESC (as counsellor) and the European Parliament. Permanent Forum of European Civil Society