In Europe, an asset of the rich is making its way “with public acclaim” to “finance climate and social change and help countries that are victims of climate deregulation”. The initiators of the “Tax the rich” petition, a collection of signatures backed by various personalities, wrote to the French MEP Aurore Lalucq, from the neo-Marxist economist Thomas Piketty to the President of the Belgian Socialist Party Paul Magnette to the world coordinator of the Progressive Alliance Conny Reuter from the Socialist Group, to former EU Commissioner László Andor (Hungarian Socialist Party and thus from the PSE) and NGOs like Oxfam. Technically, it is a European Citizens’ Initiative (ICE), an institution created in 2012 and provided for in the Lisbon Treaty, under which citizens “who manage to collect at least one million signatures in at least seven Member States have the right to submit a to submit an application”. the European Commission to propose or amend a European legal act.”
The first step is the proposal, the second is the registration of the proposal by the European Commission, the third is the collection of 1 million signatures within one year of the registration of the popular initiative. What is new about the Super Patrimonial Petition is that Brussels decided to officially register it on July 11th. The decision, according to a statement by the EU Commission, “is of a legal nature and does not prejudge the Commission’s final legal and political conclusions on this initiative and any action it intends to take should the initiative receive the necessary support.” Yes if the petition gets the necessary signatures, “the Commission must react,” it says. So far, the EU Commission has received 127 proposals and registered 102, 8 of which have already been converted into official documents (the last one concerns the ban on the marketing of shark fins).
The Tax on the Rich petition, on the other hand, breaks down an open door: A tax on great wealth is already on the political platforms of many European left-wing parties, including Elly Schlein’s Democratic Party, which has put it at the forefront of his economic reform plan. The message from Tax the Rich advocates could be shared by key leaders of the left and ultra-left. In fact, explaining the goals of the signature collection, they write that “inequalities have steadily increased to the point that today the richest 1% of the world’s population owns almost half of the world’s wealth and the same 1% emits even more.” than the poorer half of the planet”, while European economic and social policies have failed. Consequently, “there is an urgent need to radically orient the European Union towards just and democratic climate change” and this must be done with a “tax on wealth” through a specific European directive. The revenue from this new tax on large estates “should be earmarked for a just environmental and social transition and drive Union and national policies dedicated to this end”. The proposal has already been signed by more than 130 MEPs. “What we have achieved for multinationals, we must now do for the rich,” they write in reference to the 15% global minimum tax for multinationals, which is expected to come into force this year. But how rich? The proposal does not mention thresholds or percentages, the exact amount of the tax must be determined “collectively and democratically”, i.e. by the EU. One hypothesis is 1.5% per year on assets over 50 million, but that would be a very limited elite. The threshold could be lower. In Italy, the parliamentary left has proposed a rebate with progressive rates from assets of 500,000 euros.