Basic Income European Network

| 17/07/03 | | |
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The 10th BIEN Congress will be held on 19-20 September 2004 in Barcelona, coordinated by Red Renta Básica, the Spanish basic income network, in collaboration with the three Barcelona universities and various local organisations that have shown interest in basic income. The 2004 BIEN Congress will be organised within the framework of a massive two-month event organised in August-September 2004 by the municipality of Barcelona (with the support of UNESCO and other national and international organisations) - the Forum of Cultures.


The Universal Forum of Cultures: 9 May - 26 September 2004


A massive initiative. The (first) Universal Forum of Cultures will take place in Barcelona from 9 May to 26 September 2004 on a new site currently under construction along the sea, to the East of the olympic village, about 4 km from the city's old centre, with a good metro/bus/cyclepath connection. The initiative of the Forum was taken by Barcelona's city council administration under Pasqual Maragall (socialist Mayor from 1982 to 1995 and now often mentioned as successor to the retiring Jordi Pujol as president of Catalonia). It is expected to consist of an overlapping sequence of 44 congresses (the "Dialogues" section of the Forum), 24 exhibitions, 30 celebrations, 423 concerts, 48 street shows, etc. Five million visitors from across the world are expected over the 4 months period.


Diversity/ Sustainability/ Peace. The official formulation of the purpose of the Forum is as follows: "The profound changes wrought by the globalisation process have brought new challenges and opportunities which affect our present and shape our future. The Universal Forum of Cultures provides a meeting point and platform for dialogue, where people from the world over can come together to look for solutions and jointly tackle the questions addressed." The three focal themes of the forum are "Cultural diversity" ("constructive dialogue among different peoples"), "Sustainable development" ("new ways of growing that respect natural resources") and "Conditions for peace" (especially "respect for other cultures and for the environement").


A generous deal. The UNESCO is co-sponsoring the event, but the bulk of the funding is coming from the municipality of Barcelona, the autonomous region of Catalonia and Spain's central government. There will be a standard registration fee (in the range of EUR 60-80 for a four-day period) which would cover access to all Forum events, a public transport pass, lunches and coffee breaks. In addition, the Forum will organise accommodation at discount rates in a broad set of hotels and university residences.


The Dialogue on Emerging Rights: 18-21 September 2004


Five parallel events. Catalonia's Institute of Human Rights (a Barcelona-based research-and-action NGO with a staff of about 20 people headed by Rosa Bada) has been allocated a four-day slot in the Forum, from Saturday 18 to Tuesday 21 September 2004. It will use this slot to host and/or co-organise five events under one general heading provisionally formulated as "Human rights, emerging needs and new opportunities". The BIEN congress will be one of these events under the provisional title "Right to basic income: Egalitarian democracy". The other four (at this stage) are "Right to individual and collective identity: Plural democracy", "Right to the city: participatory democracy", "Right to development: solidary democracy", "Right to international responsibility: guarantist democracy". Participants in the other four events could be given access to parts of the BIEN congress, and conversely.


Four days, with BIEN's Congress in the middle. The present plan is to have a part common to all five events, namely the first day and the morning of the fourth, with all participants of the separate events strongly encouraged to take part in this common part, whose exact content remains to be determined. The five separate events will take place on the second and third day (Sunday 19 and Monday 20 September). Simultaneous translation will be provided at the plenaries for Catalan, Spanish, English and French. The daily timetable for the sessions should be 9.30am to 1pm and 2pm to 5.30pm, with people free to spend their evenings attending other Forum events. BIEN's General Assembly should take place on the evening of Monday 20 September. A local event on basic income (in Catalan and Spanish, preferably in the city centre) is due to be organised just before, namely in the evening of Friday 18 September.


BIEN's 10th Congress: 19-20 September 2004


Scientific Committee. Establishing the programme of BIEN's Congress will be the responsibility of a scientific committee, in consultation with BIEN's executive committee. Its coordinator is Jose Noguera, professor of sociology at the Universitat autonoma de Barcelona. The other members are Dani Raventos (professor at the Universitat de Barcelona and chairman of the Red Renta Basica), David Casassas (researcher at the Universitat de Barcelona and member of BIEN's Executive Committee), Sandra Gonzalez (researcher at the Universitat de Barcelona) and Francisco Ramos (Barcelona's Provincial Council). A joint meeting of the scientific committee and BIEN's Executive Committee is scheduled for Saturday 25 October 2003 in Barcelona. Please send any comment or suggestion regarding the structure or content of the congress by that date to Jose Noguera.


Plenary sessions. BIEN's two-day Congress will combine, as usual, plenary sessions with guest speakers (first morning and second afternoon) and parallel workshops with volunteered papers (first afternoon and second morning). The first session (Sunday morning) will consider issues of principle (two subthemes are being explored: "Family-friendly policy and parental wage" and "Right to basic income and duty of reciprocity"), while the final session (Monday afternoon) will consider prospects for (important steps towards) basic income in the North and in the South. Final decisions will be taken at a later stage. Suggestions of potential keynote speakers (preferably, but not exclusively, non-men, non-Anglo-American and not heard before, to counteract familiar natural tendencies) are welcome (contact the scientific committee).


Call for panel coordinators. There will be room for four times four workshops each for a maximum of 100 minutes and with a maximum of four papers. To create more coherence, a substantial proportion of the sessions will take the form of panels, i.e. pre-organised workshops on a common question. A call is therefore hereby made for panel coordinators. Proposals must mention the title of the panel, a brief formulation of questions to be discussed and a first list of potential participants (4 paper givers + 1 chair). Make sure the participants are from different countries and do not hesitate to recruit competent people who are quite critical of basic income but have something to say we need to hear. The panel proposals should reach the scientific committee of the Congress as soon as possible and no later by 30 September 2003. Panels will be selected (and possibly further panels suggested) at the October meeting of the committee. Panel proposals and their composition (with abstract for each paper) will need to be confirmed by 30 March, and their final approval will occur at that stage.


The sort of themes on which panel proposals would be most welcome include:


· "Basic incom e and varieties of economic democracy"

· "Refundable tax credits as a backdoor path to basic income?"

· "Voluntary career interruption schemes and other working time policies as a backdoor path to basic income"

· "Prospects for a universal basic pension"

· "Basic income and multi-level government"

· "Basic income and the recognition of care work"

· " Basic income: a strategy for specifically disadvantaged groups?"

· "Anticipating the administrative problems of basic income and related universal schemes"

· "Basic Income as a Mechanism for the Promotion of Worker's Bargaining Power"


Call for papers. Other papers relevant to basic income can also be submitted independently of the panels. Do not do so, however, before October 2003, when the themes of the panels will be announced and the number of remaining slots estimated. The deadline for paper proposals will be 30 March 2004). Fitting into a coherent session will be one factor taken into account in the selection process.


More details will be posted in due course; alternatively visit Red Renta Básica.