Madam, – Although there are many private agendas on which we base how we will vote on the Treaty of Lisbon – anti-abortion, European aid, neutrality etc – there is one common agenda on which many Europeans are agreed and it is this. This treaty assumes that the market economy is the only one possible for the member-states – that capitalism, with its “greed is good” ethos, is the only economic system possible. This is clearly untrue.
It should be clear to everyone that capitalism is neither in harmony with the planet’s ecosystem nor with the search for an egalitarian society. Its central tenet, private ownership and profit, gorges itself on an already dying planet and the exploitation of the meek. This is passé and the treaty needs to come out and state that categorically.
It should propose something new – new thinking that befits a 21st century civilisation.
Any union that boasts Beethoven's Ode to Joyas its anthem ought to have a treaty worthy of distinction.
– Yours, etc,