Countdown to the European Union elections 2009

The election of the European Parliament will take place in less than three months (from 4 - 7 June 2009). These are the biggest trans-national elections in history as elected candidates will represent 500 million Europeans.

It is also an ideal opportunity to encourage election candidates to sign the pledge to implement the Simultaneous Policy alongside other governments. No doubt the Simultaneous Policy organisations will be announcing the campaign and tools to help with this in due course.

In the meantime, it is possible to find the list of election candidates on party websites. I have started sending message like the following to candidates:

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Congratulations on being the lead candidate on the party list for our regions European Election.

I am contacting you to ask your position on the Simultaneous Policy campaign. I am also sending you the pledge form for supporting the Simultaneous Policy campaign in case you have not signed this already.

As Gordon Brown and other leaders have been heard to say repeatedly in recent weeks and months: “Global problems require global solutions”.

The Simultaneous Policy or Simpol campaign brings people together around the world to discuss, develop and approve the policies they wish to see implemented. Anyone can take part in this process by signing up as a Simpol Adopter, which is free to do. This democratic and transparent process is ongoing. In the last annual vote conducted in October 2008, the top five issues identified by Adopters were: Climate change, The power of transnational corporations, Environment, International financial markets and other financial issues, Governance (global and national).

You can find further details in the policy section of http://www.simpol.org.uk/

Politicians are asked to sign a pledge agreeing in principle to implement these policies alongside other governments when all, or sufficient, other governments have made the same pledge. Until such time that implementation can be triggered, it is business as usual: doing as much as we can unilaterally, while trying to address these pressing issues through attempting to forge international deals and facing down powerful vested interests that play governments off against each other, threatening disinvestment if their agenda is not followed.

If you add your pledge to those already received from other politicians at both national and European level it will move us closer to being able to implement policies that have the backing of the people of the world. The Simultaneous Policy is to be coherent package that can break through the obstacle of destructive competition between nations to move the world into a new era of constructive cooperation. The pledge is provisional as the policies can only be finalised when there is sufficient global support as they need to address the situation faced at that time and all people of voting age will be given a chance to approve or reject the package.

The campaign is undeniably ambitious, but conventional policy making has failed to address global problems adequately and may be unable to do so. By signing and returning the attached pledge you are indicating you are prepared to give the Simultaneous Policy approach a try as a parallel strategy. The pledge can also be downloaded from:
http://www.simpol.org.uk/Pages/PDF/candidatesform0108.pdf

Adopters undertake to encourage their preferred party to support the campaign. Those without a party preference undertake to give a preference to any candidates at elections (within reason) who have signed the pledge. Hence the campaign makes addressing global problems an election issue and signing the pledge can provide an advantage to those candidates that have done so. In the run up to the election, Simpol’s website will indicate which candidates have signed the pledge.

Please let me know if you will sign the pledge and if so, any statement of support you would like to communicate to voters in our region. If you do not wish to sign the pledge, I would be interested to know why as I can see no disadvantage from signing. As global problems threaten to run out of control, it is surely worth a try.

Global problems do indeed require global solutions. It will be wonderful if those are introduced in the immediate future. But if that does not happen it will be wonderful to know that the Simultaneous Policy approach has your support as a parallel strategy.