Manifesto of the Green League

Version 1998

Approved in the Annual Conference of the Green League, May 24^th, 1998

FOR A RESPONSIBLE FUTURE - THE GREEN LEAGUE

• IT'S TIME TO TAKE THE NEXT STEP

1. A limitless material growth is impossible - towards a solid welfare without taxing nature
2. The total employment society has run its course - basic income system as a solution
3. Inequality grows - let us build a new solidarity
4. Losing grip on power - towards a democratic information society
5. Problems exceed the capabilities of a nation state - towards a new kind of international co-operation

• THE GREEN LEAGUE - A NEW WAVE PARTY

IT'S TIME TO TAKE THE NEXT STEP

The goals of the Green League and its sister parties in other countries are based on companionship between man and nature, individual freedom and mutual equality of people, non-violence and civil democracy. Respecting these values, a transition must be made to a humane and ecologically sound society, meaning material production and consumption be sized according to Earth's capabilities. Reaching these goals require modern material production and technological revolution be brought under control. The ability to guide development must be taken from market forces and given back to politics.

During the 70's and 80's, in more industrialized parts of the globe, matters of the environment were serious political topics. The final breakthrough in environmental thinking came during the 90's when environmental questions became a part of international politics. The Rio environment summit of 1992, the Cairo population summit of 1994 and the Kyoto air summit of 1997 exemplify the changes in international politics. Their results are by no means satisfactory, but the first steps in the right direction. Environmental problems, the greatest facing mankind, are finally taken seriously both in national and international decision-making. This development is irreversible.

One step in the new direction is the fact that in 1995 the Green League was the first Western-European green party to enter government. Italy and France soon followed suite alongside Finland. Prior to that, the Greens had taken part in many interim governments during the collapse of the Soviet Union (Estonia, Lithuania, Georgia).

The green future is ecological, socially just, equal and peaceful. Accordingly, relations between states, inside societies and between individuals decrease violence.

The most important means for the Greens to reach their goals are as follows:

• an ecological-social green tax reform
• a basic income system
• a wide equality policy
• more multidimensional democratic civil activity
• co-operation between states and new international systems of decision-making

The Greens choose an ecological and socially responsible road to the future. The most advanced technology must be used to modernize the society onto an ecologically sound basis and the structures of the welfare state need renewal. This requires a new majority that extends beyond the traditional political alliances and is ready to unprejudicially tread a new path. Yesterday's dreamy road is part of today's political reality. Tomorrow, this road lying before us has an even more realizable and realistic alternative. It's time to courageously take the next step.

1. A LIMITLESS MATERIAL GROWTH IS IMPOSSIBLE - TOWARDS A SOLID WELFARE WITHOUT TAXING NATURE

The Earth's population grows at a rate of some 100 million people every year. Material production has, in a few decades, increased by an amount equal to the whole previous production of mankind's existence. A limitless material growth is impossible. One reason for this is the fact that non-renewable natural resources will deplete sooner or later during the 2000's. Carbon dioxide emissions connected to material production have enormously strengthened the greenhouse effect on Earth. This in turn causes global climate change, bringing unpredictable consequences. Desertation runs rampant on many continents and the multiformity of nature is irreversibly decreasing.

A STRUCTURAL CHANGE TO AN ECOLOGICALLY SOUND SOCIETY

Those who recognize problems caused by material growth speak of a transition to a society of sound development. However, too many of us regard environmental issues as a luxury, addressed only if it does not mean cutting back on the demands of material growth. Taking care of problems, cleaning the air, the soil and the waterways - a major cleanup of the environment - is generally accepted. The Greens feel that this is not enough. The causes of the problems must be removed. An ecological structural change leading by degrees into an ecologically sound society is required. Market mechanisms alone will not accomplish this, political action will.

Making a transition to an ecologically sound society means giving up the pursuit of material growth and powerfully indulging in the development of technology that uses nature responsibly. Both production and consumption must be brought onto an ecologically sound basis. The goal is a world in balance, within the capabilities of the ecosystems. In the long, run all other options for the future are unrealistic.

The use of non-renewable natural resources must be cut to minimum and pollution emissions must not exceed the capabilities of the environment.

The basis of a sound energy economy lies in renewable natural resources: wind, sun and biomass, in Finland particularly, woodchip. The transition to a society of renewable energy should be quick, in a span of a couple of generations. Therefore, direct more resources towards renewable energy research. Sensible saving does not require large sacrifices. We can reach our welfare level even when taxing nature to a significantly lesser degree. Lower natural resource consumption need not lower the level of welfare.

TOWARDS A QUALITATIVE GROWTH

All growth is not damaging. Growth producing more by using less is acceptable and desirable. A global responsibility means a strong decrease in the use of natural resources and securing the basic requirements of life in underdeveloped countries.

Green growth means better quality, an increase in the amount of skill in products and an improvement in services. This is possible due to a high level of environmentally conscious skill. Government action must direct the transition from disposable to long-life and from quantitative to qualitative life.

However, mankind still walks the path of unsound development. It is worth noting that the sooner the transition begins, the less painful it will be. The Earth's population can still be stabilised in a controlled way. In the transition to an ecologically sound society ecological goals direct everything: economy, consumption, traffic, matters of housing and community planning. New indicators of development must be introduced. Among them, a calculation of an ecological national product ("green GNP"), in which losses due to environmental stress are accounted for. Assessment of environmental effects must incorporate all enterprises that significantly alter the environment and the results taken into account at all decision-making levels.

A GREEN TAX REFORM

It is essential to the transition that rules of economic life change in ways that support saving energy, natural resources and sound work. In order to make the market mechanism work in a just and ecologically sound way it must be directed with incentives, taxes and transfers of income.

The most essential economical reform is an environmentally political and employment-increasing ecological-social tax reform. The goal of the green tax reform is transition from taxing work to taxing the stressing of the environment and natural resources. The green tax reform is realistic and completely realizable; after 1995 first tentative steps in this direction have been taken in the Finnish state budget.

THE ERA OF CHEAP ENERGY IS OVER

Up until now cheap energy and cheap raw materials have fueled material growth. Nature and the future generations, who will not have non-renewable energy sources, will pay our energy bills due. In the long run, the only right price for energy is the price of renewable energy.

The most important goals of a responsible energy policy are saving energy and making a transition to renewable sources of energy. By increasing the efficiency of energy and by decreasing the consumption of energy in industrialized countries, total energy consumption can be halved in a matter of a few decades. This goal strives by degrees and uses known increases in energy taxation.

By increasing environmental taxes it is possible to decrease other taxes and add transfers of income by a corresponding sum. The total level of taxation must not, however, be increased. Instead there must be ways to decrease it. Reductions in taxation must primarily target the taxation of work. The green tax reform is in this way a social one: it increases the demand for work and creates jobs.

The social turnaround requires ecological traffic planning, because traffic is one of the greatest environmental taxers. The stress on traffic policy must move from private cars to public transportation. Light traffic conditions must improve and private driving must decrease through traffic policy, city planning and taxation. Private driving decreases by means of traffic policy and city planning. Automobile taxation must be clearly linked to car consumption and the stress of automobile taxation must remain on taxing fossil fuels. Electric cars must be favored by removing their automobile tax until the year 2005 and by financing the buildup of a charging station network. International co-operation must be directed towards decreasing air traffic. This means moving information rather than people and things. It also requires continental ultra-fast train connections.

TOWARDS A SOUND PRODUCTION STRUCTURE

Finland's production structure must be made ecologically sound. The favorable tendency towards sound technology, where an electronics industry based on high technology and high skills is significant, must be encouraged. New forms of energy and study thereof along with energy saving techniques must be made into Finnish export mainstays. A transition must be made from an energy-intensive industry that uses non-renewable energy resources and raw materials to a manifold business structure. Service sector must be improved and a transition must be made to skilled industry, where the degree of refining increases. Workforce-intensive repair construction and environmental management contribute to employment and a balance between geographical areas. A change of the production structure also guarantees good conditions for financing educational, cultural and information services.

The effects of economy must not exceed the capabilities of nature. A polluter must pay for the damage caused. The expense of polluting must be transferred in total to the polluter, to his products and to his buyers. The responsibility of the producer must be extended to the whole life of the product - from product design to waste management. Products and materials therein must be re-used. Prohibition of waste creation initiated swiftly.

THE NEW CHALLENGES OF ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY

Protecting the atmosphere must be brought into the center stage of international politics. As a part of European climate policy, pressuring North American and Asian industrial countries to significantly reduce their emissions, Finland must reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. An international fund must be founded to help energy-saving actions of the poorest countries.

The greens do not support nuclear power, because the excavation, the transportation, the containment and the final placement of nuclear fuel are not safely organized. Furthermore, power companies are unable and unwilling to compensate for the losses of eventual major accidents. Mining uranium in itself causes major environmental problems. In transition from nuclear and coal power to renewable energy sources, it is possible to use natural gas. However, its environmental effects must be assessed.

Finland needs its own, strongly natural methods-based agriculture. The ecological structural change of production also solves the problem of taxing the water. A transition to ethical animal husbandry along with natural methods agriculture is encouraged. These two may also serve as a competitive benefit for Finland in the export market. In order to further responsible production and consumption, the origin and manner of production must be clearly marked on products for consumer information.

Finland has a particular obligation in preserving the multiformity of her swamps and forests. The bases of this obligation are international agreements on the multiformity of nature. The use of forests must not endanger the diversity of their fauna. Therefore the combination of economical use of forests and nature preservation must be determinedly continued using the latest research results. Nature preservation areas must increase, especially in Southern Finland, and the survival of endangered species is helped by restoration, if necessary. All old forests in natural state, so-called aarniometsät, be quickly brought under preservation.

Preserving the Baltic Sea is of special interest to the Finnish Greens. Over 100 million people live in the influx area of our in-sea. Therefore, it is one of the most taxed water systems in the world. It must be saved by co-operation between states and by founding an international Baltic Sea fund.

The constructed cultural heritage must also be preserved, because it contains significant economical and immaterial values. Spending on building preservation must be increased and cultural/historical valuable buildings restored.

RULES FOR GENETIC ALTERATION

The long-term effects of gene technology on environment and health must be investigated. Gene technology causes a special risk if it is proliferated quickly, when the heritage of natural species can change. The medical applications of gene technology also involve ethical and animal preservation problems that need solving. Gene technology, permitting genetically altered animals into nature, must not be used. The use of these applications in gene technology must not increase before risk management has significantly improved and the value basis of the applications is openly agreed upon.

2. THE TOTAL EMPLOYMENT SOCIETY HAS RUN ITS COURSE - BASIC INCOME SYSTEM AS A SOLUTION - THE CRISIS OF THE WELFARE STATE MUST BE MET WITH REFORM

The Greens support a welfare state whose basic objective inhibits alienation and inequality of its citizens. However, the structures of the welfare state have to modernize and develop into a modern welfare society. The task of the welfare society is to further the equality and control of its citizens' lives and create preconditions for humane and globally responsible action. The modern system must improve in a way where citizens' individual needs and freedom of choice are realized even better.

The long-term historical goals of the Greens are to lessen the work necessary to gain sustenance, to shorten working hours and to add free time available for meaningful individual and communal activity. The structure of a society based on the total employment system has collapsed. In the transition to a new society, we must have new ways to combine the traditional system of wage work, and social security.

The world market has opened, international competition has hardened and new technology is in wide use, which means redefining the basic elements of the welfare state. The slump and unemployment of the 1990's made the unemployment security system that was built for a relatively low rate of unemployment into a too expensive and pacifying system. All citizens must have security of sustenance, and at the same time, the system must be made simpler and incentives for action must be added. The social security system's structure must be improved in such a way that the smallest of net salaries will be high enough to encourage employment.

Traditional employment, 40 hours a week in the same workplace for decades, is becoming increasingly rare. So-called atypical employment, short-term and irregular work is becoming more common. This challenge must too be address to within the structural change of the welfare state. The rift between employment and unemployment must be narrowed. Sustenance must not be directly coupled with work. Instead they must be combined by means of a basic income system. This means a new kind of fairness in the distribution of income.

BASIC INCOME SYSTEM NOW!

The green proposal for renewing social security - a proposal gaining support from various directions - is the creation of a basic income system. Transition to this system is dealt into three parts:

1. Income-bound part, comprising among other things of work pension, sick day allowance, time-bound unemployment allowance and parents' allowance.
2. An automatic basic income paid to persons with low income. Its purpose is not to guarantee sustenance to people who are able to work but to provide additional support to for example people in low salary jobs and short-term work, small-scale entrepreneurs, persons on sabbatical, those participating in work dealing and those in transition to a self-supported economy. Basic income decreases with an increase in income. An increase in self-acquired income also increases total income.
3. A need determination-based part of the social security, guaranteeing sustenance for persons who cannot gain sustenance by working due to disability or to some other well-founded reason.

The basic income system makes it easier to do part-time work, one-off jobs and small salary work. It prevents the emergence of poverty traps, decreases the amount of arbitrary interpretations and increases the freedom of the individual. The basic income system facilitates the creation of new, reasonable duties for civil organizations, co-operatives and alternative small enterprises. It also decreases inequality between areas, prevents large-scale moving and uncontrolled city growth.

The basic income system also requires a renewal in the modern pension and study support systems. Furthermore, it requires conditions of employment to be more flexible than those in place do today. The significance of independent workers and workers of free professions increases as the old centralized industry system is modified.

Employment is also promoted by targeting tax cuts to small and middle incomes given by the basic income system. This would increase employment specifically in the service industry, where new jobs are created by making the business structure more versatile.

TOWARDS A NEW DEALING OF WORK

One of the most important means of dealing work is to shorten personal working hours. A transition from eight hours to six hours a day should be considered in those businesses where it's possible. Simultaneously, different models for increased choice must be created: working hours must be flexible when the situation in a person's life requires. The working life must be organized in such a way that men and women can use their abilities to their fullest extent and have a good family life too. The shortening of personal working hours does not necessarily mean a decrease in the total working hours, because the purpose of dealing work is creating more possibilities to work.

The already begun tax freedom of minor assistance jobs must be extended and the local money practices based on interchange of services must be encouraged.

The green tax reform both increases employment and improves preservation of the environment.

GREATER FREEDOM OF CHOICE THROUGH A REORGANISATION OF WELFARE SERVICES

Services must be produced so that the user's views affect the production of services. The responsibility to organize welfare services and the supervision of their quality must remain a duty of the state and the local administration. The services themselves can, however, be produced along the public service producers by private service enterprises, co-operatives, organizations or even members of the family. Thus, users have more freedom of choice.

Basic social and health services must be guaranteed to citizens. The quality and quantity of services must be nationally normalized so people in different parts of the country are not put in unequal positions. The services must not end because of the states financial difficulties. Free services can be given a fee, if necessary.

AN ABODE IS A BASIC RIGHT

The Finnish apartment policy, in practice, forces citizens to buy their own apartment. The Finnish model of apartment acquisition demands a high level of salaries and substantial transitions of income. A goal-oriented and long-sighted apartment policy must be used to find alternatives. The amount of apartments not requiring the inhabitant to take a large personal loan must increase. State support must specially direct the production of rental and right-of-abode apartments. In the long term, a new support system integrated to the basic income system must be constructed.

TOWARDS A WIDE HEALTH POLICY

A humane and economical health policy is based on a total view of the human being, stressing wide and pre-emptive action on different branches of government. The essentials in the green health policy are a healthy and safe environment that furthers physical and mental health along with every person's responsibility of his own health.

A public health system funded by tax money is fairer and cheaper than a system based on insurances or customer fees. The customer fees must not be significantly raised from the present level and pre-emptive action must remain free of charge.

The open services and small institutional units that replace heavy institutional care must develop further. The rift between established medicine and alternative medicine must narrow. The effectiveness of alternative medicine must be studied further. The level of education and postgraduate education of health care personnel must not be cut back.

3. INEQUALITY GROWS - LET US BUILD A NEW SOLIDARITY

The so far uncontrolled structural change, due to the opening of the world economy and the arrival of new technology, adds inequality and intensifies social controversies. The increase of inequality must be met with a determined equality policy. The highest criterion in the advance of a humane civilization is taking care of minorities and the weak. The Finnish society - and Europe - need a new kind of solidarity.

The greatest cause for inequality is long-term unemployment and the alienation it causes. The green tax reform and the creation of a basic income system are major means combating alienation.

THE CITY AND THE COUNTRYSIDE NEED EACH OTHER

The Greens oppose creating artificial controversies between inhabitants of cities and inhabitants of countryside. In the long run, an ecological rearrangement and technical modernization of production and consumption are the common future of cities and countryside. The transition to basic income system benefits the under- and unemployed people of both locations. Trials on basic income system must initiate on those areas of countryside in risk of alienation. City dwellers in atypical employment and people with versatile employment in the countryside have similar problems that the basic income system addresses. Neoenterprising, distant work and networking create new possibilities in cities and countryside both.

The Greens want responsibility for the development of the whole country. The entire country, cities and countryside must be developed as a mutually complementing structure. In order to develop an already fair and sustainable traffic policy, a national strategy comprising all forms of traffic including light traffic must be devised. A determined development of fast and cheap train connections must promote the equalization of different areas.

FOR EQUALITY AGAINST DISCRIMINATION

The awareness of equality between man and woman must be increased in all contexts. Equality increases the comfort level and efficiency in the workplace. It increases security and the quality of life at home. To further equality for example, workplace equality plans must be devised and their realization monitored. In addition it must be secured that Finland's international commitments, such as the Beijing treaty, (improving women's standing) are realized as a part of national legislation.

Age discrimination in the workplace must be opposed in all its forms. The chances of young and aged workers to participate in work must improve by developing legislation and by affecting attitudes preventing employment.

Discrimination based on sexual orientation, objected to by the Greens for a long time, is finally banned in the Finnish crime law and constitution. However, the practical realization protecting against discrimination must be secured by instituting the position of a discrimination protection ombudsman, whose responsibilities include the equal treatment of sexual minorities in Finland. The relationship between two men or two women must be guaranteed the same social rights and duties as the relationship between a man and a woman.

The equality of the disabled, observing their interests in community planning and their right to participate in the community is self-evident to the Greens and should spread wider into society.

It is the view of the Greens that the Finnish society must tolerate multiformity, different opinions and ways of life. A functional multicultural society must be able to withstand controversies, differences met in peaceful interaction. Alternative social and ecological experiments must be supported.

The Green cultural policy supports as many faceted and multiform cultures as possible. The proper operating conditions must be secured to the makers of art and culture. The cultural services for children and youth must be specially attended to.

The rights of the Swedish-speaking population, the gypsies, the sami people and ASL-users along with immigrant minorities must be secured.

The minorities and the living possibilities of their cultures must also internationally be defended. Finland has a particular duty supporting attempts of the Fenno-Ugrian peoples living in near areas to keep their cultural, linguistic and national originality.

FROM MONOCULTURE TO MULTICULTURE

The principle behind the nearing of the Finnish original population and the immigrants must be the simultaneous, mutual respect of multiculturality and commonly accepted procedures.

The cause of the refugees is close to the heart of the Greens. From a person persecuted an asylum is a human right and a part of our global responsibility. The protection of the Geneva Convention and the European treaty on human rights must be guaranteed to refugees to its fullest extent.

Racism is not tolerated in any shape or form; decisive action must eradicate it. Upbringing to tolerance starts in early childhood.

The Green defends freedom of a view of world and of religion. In a multicultural society the state treats different religious communities equally. The Green specially appreciates the work done by different churches in development co-operation, in defending peace and in the welfare state.

Responsibility for those without the vote and who cannot voice their suffering in words must be shouldered. Responsibility for animals has come into politics to stay. The Greens want to take the direction of ethical animal husbandry. Animals and their behavior, according to their species, must be respected everywhere.

4. LOSING GRIP ON POWER - TOWARDS A DEMOCRATIC INFORMATION SOCIETY

THE CITIZENS CHANCES TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE MUST BE INCREASED

The state decision-making process, not to mention the international one, is moving away from citizens and the goals they set for their lives. The technicalization, complication and internationalization of society leads into development towards confined cabinet politics, detached from public conversation and towards expert power, whose values and ends cannot be questioned. Simultaneously the capabilities of citizens to take responsibility for decisions and take part in conversation have greatly increased. That is why citizen's chances to direct influence must also increase.

The publicity of the preparation of decision-making must increase on international, national, areal and local levels. Dialogue between representative democracy and citizens' movements must be added. The subsidiary principle must be realized also nationally; political decision-making must transfer to areal and local levels.

A referendum must be used in significant national and local questions. These referenda are realized in connection with national and local election. The citizens must be given the right to place initiatives to be processed by the parliament. The possibilities of information technology to enhance democracy, acquire knowledge and take part in political decision-making must be exploited. New methods of voting that would more precisely indicate the multidimensional will of the citizens must be boldly pondered and experimented on.

The realization of relativity in parliamentary elections must improve. Presently, the vote threshold changes from a few percent to over ten percent. Same relative part of the votes should yield a seat in the parliament in all election districts. This is reached through different means, for example by combining election districts or with the equalization seat system working in many countries.

The general principle is the most qualified candidates are nominated for public offices. The offices of all leading civil servants must be time-dependent. All election and party funding must be public.

TOWARDS AN ECOLOGICALLY RESPONSIBLE CITIZENS' INFORMATION SOCIETY

The Green League appreciates research and education, because culture, knowledge and skills are inevitable necessities for the solution of global problems. It is only with them that an understanding is created, on which sustainable growth, ecological reforms and citizens' community with solidarity is built. The Green culturation policy is based on passing on, and learning a basis, by the help of which it develops new attitudes towards social change, acquire new knowledge and assess it and it's production critically.

The technified working life led to specialization, which is irreversible. It must continually be complemented with an understanding of wholes and based on a wide general education. Narrow professional degrees cannot respond to the changing needs of the future.

The right for life-long learning must be guaranteed. Education must remain free of charge, along with presently free library services. Learning a new profession, complementary education and general education must be possible in all phases of life. Working life must bear its responsibility in this issue.

The goal of basic teaching is to bring the pupils up to communal responsibility as well. The difference of the pupils must be taken into account. In conjunction with making the specialization and multivaluezation of schools possible, the realization of equality in education must be secured.

High-level research calls for multivalued, open and adequately resourced universities. Neutral evaluation methods must develop on all areas of research and education. The publicity of the research and its funding must be guaranteed regardless of applications, profit points of view and even research that questions this must be secured.

Scientific research must be more and more pointed towards building the natural and human scientific basis for an ecologically sound society. Expanding information technology to different areas means a possibility for more environmentally friendly means of production. Simultaneously it creates foundation to more accurate understanding of the Earth and natural process. It helps sensitively find dangers and threats, counteracting them.

The possibilities opened by information networks must be utilized. At best, communication in information networks creates global awareness and responsibility, which is a prerequisite for change and the creation of a new majority.

Freedom of speech and expression in the information networks must be secured. Information networks must be available free of charge in educational institutions, libraries, workers and peoples schools and different official institutions. All the public information produced by the public government must be available free of charge through the Internet. Because a fluent use of a computer is a citizen's skill, comparable to reading, those alienated from the new technology, especially the long-term unemployed and the elderly generation must receive free or at least low-cost guidance in using computers.

Monopolization of network technology must be prohibited and technical possibilities to use all worlds languages and writing systems in full scale communication must be created.

5. PROBLEMS EXCEED THE CAPABILITIES OF A NATION STATE - TOWARDS A NEW INTERNATIONAL CO-OPERATION A EUROPEAN COMMON RESPONSIBILITY OF THE WORLD

As traffic, communications and the market internationalize, the different parts of the world are increasingly dependent on each other. At the same time problems are worldwide. They demand a global agreement and decision-making system, where the inhabitants of all continents can take an equal part. The action of the United Nations must be renewed, which serves its political and economical strengthening. UN must become an even more capable organ in solving the planet's problems and a world economy, environment and development council must be created alongside the Security Council.

The greatest threat to world peace is international inequality. It is now, and will be the main cause of international conflicts. The wealthy and industrialized European Union has a special responsibility in all eviatingand releasing global tensions and in transition to and international system of agreements. Opening the world market and dismantling regulation increases the power of multinational corporations and investors with respect to democratic political decision-making. It is of utmost importance to return to politics the possibilities to guide development taken away by the market forces. For this goal, new structures, guidance systems and co-operation over the boundaries of nation states are needed.

The European integration must be strengthened and the introduction of a common currency is one step in this direction. The European Union must increasingly develop into an ecological and social direction in a manner that environmental and social policies become central policies. Decision-making in the Union must be democratized and the majority principal increasingly used. The Nordic publicity principle of documents must apply everywhere in the Union. The seances of the council of ministers must be public as well.

A Eurobank council must be founded to supervise the actions of the European Central Bank. The European Union must make a European agreement on employment, solidarity and ecology. A minimum level of social security must be decreed in the area of the European Union. Also, a minimum level of taxation must be decreed in order to prohibit competition for lower taxes and poorer social security between companies in the European area. Sufficiently high levels of environmental and energy taxes must be reached. Environmental legislation and environmental norms must be decreed, applying on the whole Europe. A global system of environmental damage and energy taxation must be created.

A European investment fund is needed to fund basic investments that save the environment. In the long run all European funded and built continental systems of sustainable energy production, recycling, transport and human transport must be initiated.

EU's financing policy must be structurally developed so it does not solely concentrate on agricultural support. Common action must be taken, strengthening the social, political and cultural structures along with ecological reconstruction of Eastern Europe.

A tax (the so-called Tobin-tax) must be decreed on international transfers of currency and currency manipulation. The European Union can hold a key position in decreeing this tax in OECD-countries and eventually globally.

TOWARDS A SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEMS OF DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

The central content of development co-operation must be improving the prerequisites for equality, human rights, environmental protection and sustainable development. This work is connected with battling torture, the death penalty, arbitrary imprisonment, ethnical and sexual discrimination and using child labour that is against international treaties.

The debt problem of developing countries is a severe obstacle of development. A system reorganizing the debts of the poorest developing countries must be quickly planned and realized.

The solution of the debt and balance of payments problems is a prerequisite for counteracting hunger and securing enough food for the global population. The problem is not the amount of food, but the solution lies in dismantling unequal economical and political structures.

A fair price must be paid to the developing countries for their raw materials and goods. The refining of raw materials must be supported. The opening of world market must be accepted in a form where it supports a global equalization. The inhabitants of the industrialized countries, Europeans included, must accept the ensuing gradual increase in cost of living.

Controlling the increase of population is a central goal for the Greens. The problems are largest in developing countries, where supportive action must be concentrated in improving the families' conditions of living. Women's social status especially chances for education, independent work, and maternal health care must improve. Children's quality of life must also be secured.

In World Trade Organization, IMF and other forums Finland and the European Union must take active action so that anti-environmental and anti-equal action would curb with social and ecological norms decreed on international trade. Finland must not take part in agreements on international world trade and investments that do not meet these requirements.

One of the key problems in developing countries is a arms race, prohibiting the advance of the poorest countries. The challenge facing international security and development co-operation policy is channeling the arms race funds into solving environmental, energy, health and education problems.

The Finnish development co-operation funding must increase to one percent of the BNP and at least to .7 percent before the year 2004.

MILITARY DEFENCE ON A NEW BASIS

The most effective form of defense is removing the causes of war. The amount of conflicts between countries and areas is best decreased by improving human equality, supporting the democratic decision-making system, interfering with human rights violations and decreasing environmental damage and irresponsible use of natural resources. Development co-operation must be based on reaching these goals.

More covering and binding agreements than the present ones must be reached to decrease the number of weapons - particularly nuclear weapons - and prohibit the use of biological and chemical weapons. The Finnish defense strategy must be renewed in such a way that Finland can give up using land mines according to international practice.

A new security system based on the expansion of the European Union and the solidification of the organization for European security and co-operation must be created in Europe. From the Finnish point of view it is extremely important that Russia and the other states in the former Soviet Union be given a chance to participate in the creation of this system. There is no cause for Finland to apply for a NATO membership. The West-European Union WEU must not be made into the military branch of the EU; the EU must remain a civilian organization.

The changing world also calls for a renewal of the military and civilian service system. They must be converted into a common citizen's service. It is possible to serve in citizen's service along with military service with duties connected to health care, social services, environmental protection, development co-operation and peace work. In the long run, state-required forced service must be cut to a minimum, and the organization of the remaining citizen's service must be based on equality between genders.

THE GREEN LEAGUE - A NEW WAVE PARTY

The Green League was originally born from alternative movements, people who wanted to shoulder the responsibility of the direction of world development. This is why our party differs greatly from the traditional parties.

Openness is the central part of the party's function. We don't ask for membership cards or the shade of green from those who want to join us. Instead we ask for willingness to take action and further common causes. The Green League is a young and international party, where a new member's voice is heard in the politics and discussion of the party.

Our principle is that every member organization of the League is an independent unit and acts in its own way. The local organizations directly elect their representatives in the party conference.

The League in its decision-making stresses the status of the council representing the membership. The council makes ideological decisions, prepares programs and makes the most important political decisions.

The League attempts to prevent centralization of power and stagnation by cycling its trustee positions. The members of the council and the party government, along with the presidents of the party, can only be elected for a maximum four years. The Greens also strive for a network manner of operations where there is no single power centrum, but many independent, inter-supporting groups that are born and live with their duties. The Greens oppose the group discipline imposed by the old parties, which paralyses the formation of a living opinion.

The Greens act both as a parliamentary party and in citizens' organizations and free citizens' movements and groups. Different types of action suit different situations. Laws are changed in the parliament, county budget is formed in the county council, but when needed, especially in environmental protection, there must be daring to take direct action. Direct action must be open, non-violent and responsible for its consequences.

Translation: Jarkko Karhunen