The crisis as an opportunity

Last week I visited, an expertmeeting called by the smallest coalition party of our present government, the "Christen Unie".
In the meeting, a group of young christian professionals in development-cooperation, fair trade and environment, that call themselve "the aid an trade guild", presented 3 key issues from their Momentum Manifesto. (a) Fiscal and monetary valueing of social and ecological values
(b) North-South and BRIC (Brasil, Russia, India, China: How to stop the south-north net transfers and (c) Production, Trade and Social Responsibility.

It was an interesting mix of participants, young and old orthodox protestants (CU members and officals or representatives at provincial or municipal levels), the young signatories of the manifesto, and high level representatives from trade unions, private sector umbrella's and academe.

In the third workshop that I attended, we discussed the issues 4, 5 and 6 of the manifesto: (4) Chain-responsibility, (5) Transparancy on the whole chain and (6) government's role in regulating the market (Market Master).

It was interesting to see how the official representatives of larger bodies tried to position: The private sector refers to the European Union for issues of "fair competition", which led the labour union to reply "there your representatives prevent any steps in this direction".

I pressed for the inclusion of more sectors and products in initiatives such as IDH / (Dutch) Initiative for Sustainable Trade . In my view, creating a bottom-line in the market regarding sustainability is a multi-stakeholder process, where the innovators should get a premium, and after a certain period (7 years) the late-comers should be forced to comply.

Once the minutes of the meeting are ready, we may take initiatives towards other political parties and meanwhile we will stay in touch with the Aid & Trade Guild.