International trade between climate change and pandemic: which solutions facing free trade? Which safeguards in a digital world?

In these difficult times of pandemic, growing inequality and global warming, it is up to us to take the initiatives that will make tomorrow’s world better and more just.

We call for a political shift to take back democratic control over trade rules.

We must use trade as a matrix :

• To improve our use of resources
• To share wealth
• To upgrade working conditions
• To change our consumption habits and have the lowest impact on climate
• To promote food that protects our health and that is produced sustainably
• To promote links with countries that share our commitment

Europe must promote with all partners fair trade instead of free trade:

• We want a new trade policy when a global pandemic demonstrates the major health and social risks we are facing around the world
• We want a new trade policy when climate change is the direct consequence of our patterns of consumption, production and wastage
• We want a new trade policy when our health standards are permanently flouted by increasingly toxic environmental dumping
• We want a new trade policy when public resources are weakened by unpunished fiscal dumping
• We want a new trade policy when digital multinationals are taking huge profits, exploiting workers and failing to pay their taxes as a provocation to citizens.

It is time to reshape our global trade approach in a world facing rising inequalities, pandemics and global competition among workers.

Albert Klein