7 - the fact that neoliberalism is the law of the land in Europe.

A lot of those points seem like things left leaning politicians are trying to push for, so the fact that many countries are now voting right wing parties to power makes me a bit worried for EU’s future. (Recent examples are Italy, Sweden, Finland and many more coming according to polls).

"The European Commission on Thursday unveiled its annual strategic foresight report, setting out its focus for the coming years.

The 21-page document illustrates the EU’s take on where the world is going. It’s also a rough guide to understand the ideology of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who still hasn’t indicated whether she intends to continue in her role for another five years.

Spoiler alert: There are no major surprises. The report includes many of Brussels’ favorite words: “open strategic autonomy,” “resilience,” “sustainability,” and “geoeconomics.” The overarching idea is that the EU needs to beef up its autonomy as the golden age of globalization comes to an end. But in so doing, it must push forward its green transition at the cost of €620 billion per year and clamp down on domestic inequality.

POLITICO unpacks the details and answers critical questions about the EU’s big-picture exercise.

1. The return of geopolitics The world is ever more divided between the West and China — and Europe cannot be a bystander. “The time where liberal democracy was the model of obvious choice is over,” said Commission Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič in a press conference on Thursday when the report was unveiled.

The Commission foresees a “battle of offers” as Europe and the U.S. jostle with Beijing to lure developing nations over to their side. The key takeaway is that the old model of globalization — built on free trade and global supply chains — is gone. Instead, we’re entering a new era of “geoeconomics.” In a nutshell, that means Europe must cut back its strategic dependencies on other countries and instead tap its domestic resources and boost production on the Continent.

2. A sustainable economic model The EU needs to adapt its capitalist model to a new age where net zero and sustainability are the overarching priorities. Though the Commission’s proposals might freak out hardcore neoliberals, they do reflect a new post-COVID economic consensus where the state plays a larger role. “It [the EU] should also consider how to reduce the tax burden on labour and to shift it to other tax bases less detrimental to growth, also to address inequality in a context of population ageing,” reads the report.

One of the most eye-catching ideas is to consider in GDP estimates noneconomic factors such as life expectancy. Šefčovič indicated that with these new rules, the size of the EU’s economy would exceed that of the U.S., China and India (separately, not combined).

3. Boosting investment The European Investment Bank (EIB) must scale up its role and cough up the lion’s share of the €620 billion needed to finance the Green Deal and REPowerEU each year. “[It] should provide stronger support to strategic investments relevant to the two [digital and green] transitions such as raw materials, green tech or biotechnology, especially for cutting-edge projects,” reads the report.

The document is thin on details — but senior officials told Playbook that one way to achieve this would be to review the EIB’s mandate and expand its role.

4. A more skilled workforce The EU’s workforce is more educated than ever — but new industries are struggling to fill vacancies. Problems include a mismatch in skills, rising numbers of low-quality jobs, and too few women studying STEM subjects.

5. Too much inequality Life is getting tougher for lower-income workers, who are bearing the brunt of climate change while paying more for food, and other goods and services. To make matters worse, inequality among EU countries is increasing, not to mention the wealth gap between young and old.

Record levels of wealth concentration are stifling social mobility and fueling political polarization. The answer? More redistribution, according to the report.

6. Crisis of democracy It is pretty rare for EU officials to analyze political headwinds — but that’s exactly what they do in the final section of the report. The argument is not exactly original: Polarization and disinformation are pushing EU voters towards populist parties. And for that, there is no easy solution.

That’s a pretty good list.

Polarization and disinformation are pushing EU voters towards populist parties. And for that, there is no easy solution.

Wow, that’s quite the ignorant statement to make in a world where people are forced to vote for more extreme parties because the more center parties have been in power without any real results due to corruption and incompetence. That doesn’t make the extreme choice the better one but in a system where you’re only able to impact reality at scale by being allowed to vote for rich people with big marketing budgets, well, the only other option is not to play at all.

(Some reasons) Why people vote for right wing populists:

• billionaires are above the law
• be it a pandemic, recession, whatever, billionaires profit from all crises
• there are two strata in society: people who have to work and people who choose whether to work. So long as the latter exists and invests all their time into ensuring that the former will forever be the vast majority of society, people will protest vote
• worse, the billionaires pay millionaires to tell thousandaires what the various classes in society are and who the ‘real’ enemy is and it will always be foreigners or the gays or some BS like that (an enemy that’s always simultaneously infinitely strong and weak)
• there’s billionaires in the first place

(I’m well aware that other things can be reasons, too, like perceived loss of living standards, increased political corruption etc. But honestly, I think it’s all down to rich people fucking things up…see below for some proposed fixes)

Approaches that could fix this (good luck trying that in the arch-neoliberal EU):

• ALL wealth above X amount simply gets taken from you. I know it’s complicated with shares in companies etc. But I’m sure where there’s a will there’s a way. Cap wealth at €100mil or whatever
• inheritance tax becomes 99% above £1million
• remuneration ratios: CEOs cannot earn more / hold more shares than 10x more than the lowest earning employee in the company. This has to include subsidiaries and 3rd parties, otherwise companies will just hire other companies to get around this

The above and the fallout from it, would instantly free up money for public services, free education and healthcare and eradicate homelessnes. You wouldn’t need a UBI, if public services were good enough and well funded.

Technically I’m far more radical in my opinions and think that housing should be declared a human right and all drugs legalised and all those fancy things, but honestly, it feels we have more pressing matters at hand, namely, inequality. Until that gets fixed, we can’t really progress as a society.

My main worry here being that it can’t be done. I simply don’t see how, as a society, we will ever gain the cohesion to implement decisive action against the ruling classes. They have become untouchable and would rather burn the whole thing down than give an inch.

“The time where liberal democracy was the model of obvious choice is over,” said Commission Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič in a press conference on Thursday when the report was unveiled.

Took them long enough to realize!

Record levels of wealth concentration are stifling social mobility and fueling political polarization. The answer? More redistribution, according to the report.

Wait, Europe based? Who wrote this report?

Crisis of democracy

Polarization and disinformation are pushing EU voters towards populist parties. And for that, there is no easy solution.

Disinformation doesn’t need to mentioned again, he already said liberal democracy wasn’t the solution.