This is why I would like to see a binding rate range that member states must commit to ahead of the next European budget in 2020. Compliance with this corridor would determine access to the European Cohesion Fund, because members cannot enjoy European solidarity and play against the others at the same time. I commend the European Commission’s recent initiatives in this regard and, through the efforts of Margrethe Vestager and Pierre Moscovici, its push for certain players and countries to make changes. We must go further: we cannot have lower corporation taxes financed by our structural funds. Doing so is to take Europe backwards, to encourage division.
My second proposal is to develop true social convergence and gradually bring our social models closer together. Doing so is entirely compatible with our global competitiveness. I don’t see any contradiction between these ambitions. Because we must see the world as it is. A few years ago, some people would say “you know, a panEuropean ambition is a bad idea; competitiveness is our priority.” Those who tried lost their people’s trust. What did the British people say ahead of the Brexit vote? The British middle class said “your competitiveness is all good and well, but it is not for me. The attractiveness of London’s financial centre is not for me.” When you listen closely, what were the American people really saying? “This open America, this competitiveness that you have sold us, isn’t made for us, the middle classes.” Isolationism is gaining ground, wherever democracies have taken this no-holds-barred approach to competition as far as it can go.
So in Europe, we need a revamped social model: not one stuck in the twentieth century, and not that of a catchup economy. We need to set out the terms at European level, as this is the right scale for this battle. I would like to begin talks as early as November to define the common minimum European social standards, and to build that floor I would also like to build rules for convergence. We should establish a minimum wage that takes into account the economic realities of each country, while gradually moving towards convergence.
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