 Yeah, good morning everyone and welcome to the first session of the day. We have quite a nice attendance, otherwise on a conference the morning session is always the one that is really hard to get attendance to. And this is a really, really interesting roundtable and we have three great speakers. Oh yeah, I should introduce myself. So I am Alexandra Arnton. I'm the moderator for this session. I am an economist at Nottingham Trans University in the UK. So it's a little bit earlier here. The session today is the place of the work at time reduction in the Green New Deal propositions and initiatives for climate, how to help people in the transition to work time reduction. We have three great speakers, they're slightly different than the programme because we had some people who in the last minute couldn't join us and we've had some great speakers jumping in and taking their place. So our first speaker is Christoph Schneider, which coordinates the programmatic work of the democracy in Europe movement 2025 on technological sovereignty and been part of the working team on the Green New Deal for the Europe proposal. So a really good starting sort of position for this session. Then we will have our second speaker, Will Strong. Will is one of the co-founders on autonomy and is the director of research. Autonomy has been involved in developing the Green New Deal Europe proposal. So he's going continue on the Christoph's discussion and talk a little bit about post-growth and green growth in the context on the Green New Deal. Our third speaker is Martin Scheiderven and is a member of the European Parliament representing Germany. He's a member of the Linke or the left and is co-chair of the European United Left Nordic Green Left Parliamentary Grouping. So I am sure that this is going to be a really, really great session and I am happy if Christoph, are you ready to start your talk? I am. Thanks Alexandra for the introduction and good morning everyone. Yeah, let me start by saying I jumped in yesterday in the evening. So the talk might not be as round as some other talks that you heard at this conference, but I'll give you an insight into the Green New Deal for Europe and I'll do also something which is based on my in a way my professional role as a sociologist. I work in technology assessment and I do research on the importance of visions of the future for technological innovations but also for the the politics of innovation. So how we as a society deal with future visions and from that perspective I'm also like I will take like a bird's eye view on on the Green New Deal and yeah say a few words about the importance of visions in society. Okay, so I'll share my screen. Yeah, hold on, I think I think Toroldo needs to stop sharing her screen but we're just trying to get to that before you start sharing your stuff. No, no, you can start. Yeah, I'm sorry, we have some technical problems where our technical organizer is having her computer frozen but I mean it's one of those things. So I think you can try Christoph to share your screen with work technically. I am currently sharing my screen. Because she's the host. Okay, we'll try to do that as soon as we can. And just Alexandra, just explain why Pierre and David are not present today. I will do that. So okay so we have someone who's seeing Christoph slides. All right, we'll just take a session. So we had two other speakers who were originally supposed to be with us. We had David Adler who sadly couldn't join us because he was supposed to be flying back from, oh god, I should really have that in front of me. He was supposed to fly back from Bolivia and his flight was cancelled one day before he was supposed to fly back because of airstrikes and he sadly therefore had to say that he cannot participate because he's back in a place where he doesn't have Wi-Fi and wasn't able to join us. Then we had Pierre who was also supposed to be a speaker today. He had to contact us at midnight last night, tell us that since he's the general rapporteur on the budget for the European Parliament and the budget for the Green New Deal, they have been informed that financial package must be in by next Wednesday. So he was given a very strict timeline in the very, very close to yeah of course next Wednesday. So sadly he had to bow out in the last minute. They're both really sorry but we are going to continue with the session as best as we can. Right, so Christoph, it seems like we're having some issues for you to share at your screen. Some people seem to be seeing it and some people not. Okay, shall I try to do it again? Yeah, I think you will just continue your presentations because we have a lot of our attendees who managed to see it without any problem. Okay, all right. Just continue your presentation. Thank you so much. I'm sorry. Okay. So yeah, I said I will kind of switch the perspective from between sociologist and activist and let me start with the sociologist. Before I start about the Green New Deal for Europe, which is one specific campaign that champions the Green New Deal idea, I think it's important to consider that there is no single Green New Deal on the globe. It's like we have multiple Green New Deals and also in different forms. I'd like to talk about three forms today. One is it's kind of a new policy paradigm. I think that has made it very popular. Then it's also something taken up by social movements to energize themselves and in a way to do social movement work based on the idea of a Green New Deal. And on a more general level, we could say it's an evolving visionary discourse that talks about desirable futures and in a way therefore also helps us to understand our present better by looking at what might be a better future out of the climate crisis. Oh, okay. Keyboard doesn't work. So mouse policy paradigm. The Green New Deal kind of became popular by through Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Ed Markey having this proposal in US Congress in 2018. However, as a policy paradigm, it's older than that. The wording Green New Deal appeared around the financial crisis of 2008. Economists in the UK took in a way the slogan and formulated a proposal for the UK how to get out of the financial crisis by investing in green industry and green jobs. And yeah, some other discussions took place then, but this made it very popular in 2018. And also in like the in the past 10 years of Green New Deal debate, a very important thing has always been the referencing back to the original Green New Deal in the 1930s in the USA as kind of an historic example and also to learn from the strategies and tactics of that time. And basically the actual Green New Deal or the policy ideas are a break with neoliberal ideology to a larger or to a lesser extent. We can I think it's a very challenged paradigm. And I think the core idea is use the state and the state's resources to invest in new infrastructures and in a new economy. And infrastructure and economy should be green in a way, protect the environment, protect the climate. So it's a clear break with in a way letting the markets make the decisions, let the financial private corporations rule the world towards let's reconsider the importance of public investment in the future. And also like in this policy paradigm, this idea of investment can have very broad aims from in a way smaller aims like have used it as a green stimulus now after the COVID crisis, for example, or more ambitious goals like, yeah, let's create a sustainable and democratic economy by doing this as well. And in a way, at least the wording somehow found its way into the European Union as well. There's a European Green Deal important that the new is left out of the branding and I think also out of the policies. Yeah, then there's a debate whether Joe Biden actually also takes some green deal ideas or not. So but it's very important to see that this is actually a very impactful paradigm. And we are in a way also mainstream politics is talking about ideas and aspects of a green new deal or a green deal. So it's much more than only a vision or a conversation. But importantly, it's not only something that happens in established political institutions, but it's also something that happens in social movements that have been quick to to take either the slogan up or actually have been involved in further developing the concept like in the Green New Deal for Europe campaign. Yeah, and I think for social movement, it's both, it's on the one hand, it's a transformative narrative. It's a green new deal that helps us to understand a bad old order, the bad old deal in a way and can claim we need a new deal for society, politics and the economy. Yeah, we see for example, the sunrise movement in the USA campaigns on green jobs for all. There's a debate on an international green new deal that goes beyond nation states and the European Union, something. And for example, in Germany, there's a campaign that has not the word in green new deal, but talks about a new economic miracle. And the economic miracle was the 50s in Germany, in a way, also a time that was very influenced by the green by the new deal in the US, but helped in a way Germany recover after the war. So they use this framing, but it's similar going back to the past to envision a better future in a way. Let's give me some, I'll give you some details about and some insights about what happens in such a green new deal campaign and all in a social movement. And yeah, I was partly involved in the Green New Deal for Europe campaign. Therefore, I can say a few words about this. So the Green New Deal for Europe campaign came out of the democracy in Europe movement, where we since 2016, we have been developing visions and ideas and political alliances to make the European Union more democratic. And yeah, we've been early to champion a green new deal for the European Union. But then in 2019, after the European Parliament election, this campaign was started and other activists, organizations, think tanks, researchers were invited and luckily also joined in a way the further definition of what a green new deal in Europe would look like. And Will was involved, he will say his perspective on that later on. Also, the very importantly, actually the Green New Deal group was involved and they were the economists around 2010, I guess, in the UK who developed the first, in a way, policy framework of a green new deal. And Pettifor is very known. She's in that group. So yeah, we're lucky to have a lot of institutional and brain power going into that vision. And basically, it was a collaborative effort to write a vision and to be very explicit about what this could look like, because it's also based on this understanding of the green new deal that it's so urgent that we have a systemic transformation of politics, economy and our society, that in a way, we cannot wait for better times to emerge, that we have to be able to use existing institutions, existing processes to engender transformative change. And therefore, it's like both, it has this visionary aspect, but there's also a lot of policy detail in it. It's a very long document, around 120 pages, as you can imagine, with so many authors and movements being involved. So I will only focus on the core ideas that the 10 pillars, and basically, what was key to writing this Green New Deal for Europe was that the aim was to combine social justice in the ideas of social justice and the organizations concerned with social justice with environmental justice and with democracy, or in a way, aspirations for democratization. So pillar one is meeting the scale of the challenge. I already said something about that. We need to be very quick in engendering such a transformation. And we need to be ambitious and bold and big because it's not like a carbon tax will not solve this. It's much more. So yeah, pillar two, pressing idle resources into public service, that's the public investment part. It's suggested in the document that in a way, there could be European investment bonds used by the European Investment Bank, which have a public purpose that is social justice, environmental justice, climate protection. And they would be in a way, they would soak up private capital, but then turn it into a public use. And therefore, this is the idea that we have actually a lot of idle resources, we just need the political direction that we give to them, to the to capital. Pillow three, empowering citizens and communities, that's the democratic aspect. A core idea is that this money should not only be allocated in Brussels, but it should be given to communities and towns and cities all over Europe, so that they can then democratically decide how to spend that money into climate protection and social justice. There's a job guarantee in it, which is tied to the shortening of the working week. I guess Will can say more about this later. Raising the standard of living through doing this, so improving the quality of public life, improving the quality of infrastructure. It's about fostering equality and also entrenching it in these new infrastructures and institutions that would come up in the process. It's about investing in the future, I said that. And here, like Alexandra already said, I do mainly in a way, digital politics. And this is also the part where we where we put in ideas about democratizing digital infrastructures. And I think this is also very important. Because it shows like in such a Green New Deal vision, I think it's important to not only go with the mainstream ideas of what is ecologically sustainable or socially just, but we need to think really about the new deal and think about all the systemic challenges that we face. And in a way, digitalization is clearly one of them. And it needs a new deal as well. Also in terms of ecology, like it's a very wasteful industry that is very extremely tied to fostering consumerism and, in a way, degrading democracy. So it's very important to also have systemic change in the digital arena. Then it's about the vision that we go away from endless growth towards, in a way, well being as a key indicator of the economy. It's about much more than just looking at the European Union. It's about seeing the European Union as an institution that is also responsible for climate justice around the world and pillar 10 very close to pillar one committing to action today. So I'll be more of the sociologist again at the end of my talk. And if we, it's very like you find so many books and also good books by now that mention or champion the idea of a Green New Deal. We have the social movements. I talked about that. You see it appearing in the media increasingly. We have a panel in this conference now that we talk about the Green New Deal and shortening the working time. There are right wing ideologues that worry about Stalinism coming back. And so this is, I think this is extremely important that it's not just policy and activists, working group stuff, but that it's actually going into a public arena and that we have it as a visionary discourse. However, I think there are still some challenges that I'd like to discuss also in this panel. Visions are extremely important. In a way, our present is in many ways the result of visions in the past and visions about how to structure policy and the economy or neoliberalism. You could say it was also a visionary ideology to break with the in the US, to break with the New Deal. But also something you know that made clear, yeah, you will have more liberties, you will have globalization and more individualization. So in a way, also based on such a vision that she was very successful in winning over the young voters in the 80s. And in a way, I think a Green New Deal needs to win over people. And it needs to be a force that helps us to foster societal and political imagination. So and I think if we only see it as this policy thing, it's not enough. It needs to be a generative idea, you know, out of which more activities and more ideas and more visions come into being in a way. And I think strategy wise, it's very important to build bridges across political traditions and also political domains, institutions, movements, everyday life, research. In a way, I'd like to see the Green New Deal discourse become mainstream. And maybe less detailed. Because I think it needs to be tangible in everyday life. And currently, it's still a very intellectual academic policy discourse that is sometimes difficult to understand. And yeah, how could it become more tangible? I think key is really reframing the economy, the purpose, the moral aspects of what makes a good economy. But it also needs to have something more, not only words, but it needs to be able to create experiences, lived experiences for examples, you know, that you can point to like cities or regions that have successful projects that you could frame as Green New Deal projects in a way, because they show us what could be possible in a new societal contract in a way. So I think this is the task. Sorry, this is super interesting. And I love all of these ideas. Could, would you be able to summarize that? Yeah, yeah. Excellent, because that's just my last slide. How do I summarize it? So I think Green New Deal is a very hopeful and promising vision that has been able to transcend domains already. It's in policy, it's in social movements, it brings together different actors from with different traditions. And we need to build on that. But I think it needs to become, it needs to become a powerful story, and not only a lot of policy ideas. Brilliant. Thank you so much. I think exactly taking that what you said, this is sort of an intellectual idea and making it mainstream is such an important point. And I want to remind our participants that you can ask questions during the speaker's time using the Q&A button in the bottom of the screen. We will have one more speaker and then we will start addressing some of those questions. But please write down the question that comes up in your mind and we'll have a great discussion after our next speaker. Will, are you ready? Yeah, yeah. Great, yeah, thanks. And thanks, Christoph, for being the Super Sub. Super substitute for our talk. It's been a really good conference so far and I am looking forward to this afternoon's sessions. So I'm the Director of Research at Autonomy. We're a research organisation based in the UK and we helped organise this conference alongside some other great organisations. And I think it's really heartening to see that a number of four-day week campaigns are kind of popping up around Europe. And I think there's a way in which the Green New Deal and all the different initiatives that Christoph probably pointed to the fact there's various Green New Deals going around. I think there's an opportunity to kind of dovetail and four-day week campaigns and Green New Deal initiatives. Not just because ideologically they are in sync, but also because practically there is a growing kind of momentum behind these both of these initiatives. I think it could be useful for there to be some kind of collaboration. And I think this is conferences like this are an opportunity for us to kind of think through what that might be. Now the original New Deal in the US, Roosevelt's New Deal was partly driven by someone called Frances Perkins who she came from the labor movement in the US. It was one of Roosevelt's most dear advisors basically. And for the longest amount of time I believe she held some kind of record for the longest time in the cabinet or in the office out of all advisors. Now she came from the labor movement, she came from a kind of a worker-oriented background and it was kind of seen that she was one of the main drivers of the Fair Labor Standards Act which basically was the act which limited working hours to 40 hours a week. So that was one of the first times that you know as one of the major pieces of legislation within Roosevelt's New Deal which basically reduced the working week or put a cap on the working week as it were. Prior to this you know US labor movements have been trying have been campaigning for many years and I think that pressure kind of the pressure of trade unions trying to reduce the working week throughout the 30s and the post post Great War period really was expressed in this kind of legislation. So Frances Perkins was really an expression of a large kind of you know a large amount of labor activity in the years before. In the UK labor movements had basically been pushing for shorter working weeks right back to the factory acts in the 19th century and so they've been that pressure was really really important to achieve any kind of working time reduction after World War I then ultimately after World War II as well. And so all that's to say that basically that the part the Green New Deal really does need to have labor movements behind it and that's not to say that it can be the only actors. I think that that's not necessarily true today but we the labor movement really has has driven that historically. Now since the original New Deal it's been about 80 years. How far has progress come in terms of working time reduction? It's been not been great to be honest. There's been a big stalling of working time reduction across OECD nations and obviously you know we should mention the fact that the Global South you know working time is working hours off the charts but in terms of a kind of a easily easily tracked progress from let's say the Green New sorry the original New Deal in the 1930s to now there's been very little progress a real stalling particularly since the 1980s. Now as Christoph mentioned this is obviously the time of the emergence of a kind of neoliberal governmentality a neoliberal form of economic governance where things like working time reduction really do go off the menu and that's partly because of the kind of smashing of worker power both in the UK and the US but also we see that decline in countries around Europe as well. So I think to some extent the Green New Deal is an opportunity, clearly an opportunity to really get these issues back on the agenda and I think we should hold those advocates of a Green New Deal to account around the issue of working time. So you know it's quite clear that working time is whether it's whether you have a job and you work too much, whether you don't have a job and you're looking for work, you don't have enough working time, whether you're self-employed or employed under an employer working time is an issue basically and there are all sorts of different desires and needs and so on. Any New Deal would need to reckon with this fact. So Christoph mentioned multiple crises that we're facing obviously the crisis of precarity, of the kind of flexibilisation of the labour market, all these issues need to be kind of part of a New Deal but I'm basically saying here I think part of this conference we need to make sure that working time reduction and caps on working hours and reducing overwork are definitely part of a Green New Deal package. Now I think the Green New Deal is an opportunity partly because yes it's historically you know following the lineage of the New Deal it kind of follows in that tradition but also pragmatically it's actually something as Christoph said is really really blowing up all over the world. So as a vehicle the Green New Deal is very very important for us to engage in I think particularly those who are advocating for working time reduction. Now I think there's two I want to make two comments and I think we can move to discussion after this. I think as there's a slight tension with the Green New Deal which we have to navigate as a political project basically. So what is this tension I'm talking about? Well the issue of labour of the value of labour. On the one hand any Green New Deal needs to tap into an existing common sense of society an existing kind of work focused orientation society and that means engaging in a discussion about job creation. Job creation on a mass scale transitioning from industries from fossil fuel and carbon intensive industries to green industries things like care which are non-carbon intensive but also greening the environment so things like rewilding and new forms of renewable energy and so on. On the one hand we have to lean into this kind of discourse this yes create jobs jobs jobs jobs jobs and that's precisely the kind of the historical situation we're in but of course we want to talk about what kind of jobs. So I'm pleased to see that the Green New Deal initiative so Green New Deal for Europe initiative as Christoph said is a huge long document fairly comprehensive has included the definition of a good green jobs being something with reduced hours so that's 30 hours 32 hours and so on but I think it's an opportunity for us to try and bake in that as a new standard for what counts as a good job. We shouldn't necessarily just kind of continue with treating jobs as a kind of black box as to yes that's just good to have a job we should actually be you know in 2020 you know by this point we should be able to define what we think is a good job what we think a job should do for people as a means to an end rather than just an end in itself. I think partly the reason why we often have to settle for less in today's political climate is because we're always under fire for you know I mean the threat of unemployment the threat of kind of flexibilisation is often making us just kind of settle for a job per se but I think the Green New Deal for Europe so and the Green New Deal in general has to really push that. So I think the tension between both on the one hand just saying going leaning to the jobs discourse and also making sure that we have some kind of you know kind of caveat that actually yes jobs are good because they provide an income but ultimately you know jobs are a means to a good life so that I think that's that that fight needs to that struggle needs to happen. There's also a second tension which I think revolves around growth basically now I think you know we talked a little bit about this yesterday in the in the session on post growth there's obviously competing perspectives around degrowth, post growth, green growth and and somewhere in the middle there's the Green New Deal. Now again to some extent the Green New Deal advocates need to in order to speak the language of of the present day we they can't look kind of the generally accepted mainstream language we need to speak in terms of growth so you know the Green New Deal could create x you know billion pounds of investment or it could be you know create x you know million jobs and so on but we do actually need to think about to what extent as as as a society we need to degrow certain things degrow certain industries and grow certain others. There's a great series in the New Left Review that the the kind of quasi academic journal in the UK I say quasi because actually it's much more accessible than an academic journal. There's a great debate going on on green strategy between those who advocate for for green growth so the idea that we can continue growth but in a green sustainable manner and those who advocate degrowth positions now I think it's a really good point made by someone called Lele who who basically advocates the idea that ultimately for example the global south does not need to degrow because ultimately that would not have a net effect really on global emissions but the global north definitely does need to degrow in certain ways our production and consumption patterns are clearly unsustainable and so in some sense we need to kind of navigate within a Green New Deal whether we're going to what we're going to degrow so what you know obviously some industries we are going to be scaling back and transitioning workers over but in some sense we also need to figure out what you know what industries we're going to grow and there's there's a kind of you know it's to some extent it's not in my remit but to kind of map and scale and give a timeline for how how much growth in certain areas renewable energy kind of like retrofitting and so on and for how long basically because I think ultimately if we if it's very easy to to fall into a trap of letting growth become yet another end goal another purpose in itself but we should really be thinking about you know what do we need to grow and and and for how long basically so I think there's on the one hand I think you know degrowth and post growth has been around for quite a long time people at Tim Jackson and so on very very influential economists and that whole tradition is very well established but ultimately they've kind of as far as I can see kind of failed to really capture the imagination in and the political mainstream as the Green the Green New Deal has so I think the Green New Deal is an opportunity for a very a green orientated worker focused project which ultimately should listen to the concerns of degrowth and post growth but it's obviously something which actually has some real momentum here and I think any working time reduction campaign you know although working time reductions have been part of degrowth and post growth for many years every campaign should really engage with the Green New Deal to some extent and make and kind of work through these tensions basically what is a good job how can working time reduction be baked into it but also you know how how can working time reduction be part of the kind of scaling back of our carbon emissions and the scaling back of certain industries to an extent as well no I think just a final note on that as well as I think beyond beyond the kind of necessity the environmental necessity of working time reduction which we talked about yesterday in terms of the you know the relationship between working time and carbon emissions we should also note the fact that working time reduction could also be part of a political project to make it desirable to provoke a desire for a better life basically you know the Green New Deal needs to be sustainable it needs to be just it also needs to be fun basically I think ultimately to say to someone we're going to be scaling back certain parts of the economy we're going to have to you know we can't live life like we used to that can provoke anxiety and also the idea that the world's going to get worse but if you say to someone we're going to change the way we do things in society but we're also going to be able to work less have more time for family for friends for things you want to do this is this is something I think is a key political ingredient for any project is to kind of produce that desire basically so I think there's ways in which the Green New Deal is a really great opportunity for the working time reduction movement and so with that I think we should go to questions and we can kind of talk through some of these things collectively. Brilliant thank you so much. Two really good talks about the Green New Deal and really complimentary to each other I feel like you guys were really answering some of each other questions but we've had a lot of questions coming through during this time and I'm hoping that we can see both of us speak is because I think there are some I'm going to start with some of the more general questions so one one of the main questions that that sort of come up in different ways how can we finance the Green New Deal is there could you guys give some more details some suggestions and at the same time a related one could you guys specify a little bit of some of the more concrete instruments that is suggested within the within the EU proposal please. Should we start with Christoph please? Yeah that's very important the finance how to finance it question basically the US Green New Deal and what we propose in for the European Union is both based on this intellectual tradition of modern monetary theory which is the idea that basically a state with us in with a certain power within the global economy cannot become bankrupt if it's able to print its own money and it goes also back to to Keynesian economics and and other things so the idea is in very concrete let's make it very concrete in what we propose in Europe is that basically we look at what the European Central Bank is already doing they are doing quantitative easing that means that they're basically creating money and it's basically almost for free for banks to and the banks then decide what to do with the money and basically the banks does actually create the money by making these decisions or create in a way capital by making that these decisions and what we say this should be complemented by public and democratically legitimized decisions on investment and there could be a Europe the EU already has the European investment bank and they already do a lot of ecological and social projects all over the EU so they get some money from the and so our proposal is let's use that institution and boost it massively up and link it to the European Central Bank so that it actually can hand out a lot of money and so this would be then the aim would be to in a way redirect financial resources from the private capital financial market and have in a way a public institution that is much more powerful in having a mission of what to do with the money and that's how it would be financed it would be financed in a way by through in a way in a way public credits but also the idea is to have investment bonds in Europe that is you offer it on the private market you offer green bonds so private capital could then invest in these green bonds and get a certain revenue on it like with an interest rate that is so attractive that a lot of private capital actors would actually invest in that and so it would also then soak up private capital use a public institution to give this private capital a mission ecological and sustainable and social transformation and yeah that's where the money would in our proposal come from but there are other debates you know that a green new deal would also need to raise taxes because you cannot live endlessly on credit you need to pay the credit back at some point so this is ongoing and I don't think that's the one silver solution but actually I often think if you look at what the neoliberal system is already doing with with money you know it's flowing the globe that's why we have so many problems you know if money is not the problem in my reading the problem is how to use that money and how to change the decisions made with it great thank you so much Will do you want to make a comment on these questions as well on the finance question no I think Christoph kind of went through that and it's also not my own expertise to be honest but I think what was the other question any concrete instruments that the EU are suggesting or that that's been part maybe of the work that you've been part of no I mean so so the way that I've we fed into the green new deal for Europe was to kind of define you know the kind of what a job guarantee which includes a working time reduction would be that's not come from the EU I don't know if Christoph wants them it can respond to that I it's not my area to be honest okay no that's fine I think that there's been quite a lot of questions so we can one other question was that sort of the historic new deal had a strong focus on public employment programs and it's partly been touched upon by in the talks but part of the appeal it is where work is a word of work is a word of losing their jobs and how does this relate to the demand for work time reduction well I think I think there's a unique opportunity for public sectors around around Europe and the world basically to kind of become yeah like a new gold standard for what employment is basically and that's because public you know obviously the public sector has greater control or the city governments have greater control over the public sector in terms of working conditions working practices and so on and you know typically just speaking from the from the UK experience that the public sector has always been a bit of a pioneer of decent working conditions decent pay and so on you know decent pensions and so on so I think if we're talking about the next stage of creating good work good jobs and then the public sector has a really huge role to play and I think the public works programs of the original new deal can be an example for I think in the chat you can see Aidan talking about you know like what would the equivalent green new deal and what the current new green new deal projects be well you know we have rewilding we have you know you have a huge care service where it's necessary I think although I think it's you know sometimes the green new deal can become a bit of an umbrella for all the good things we want I think it kind of makes sense like as Christoph said what's the new deal part the care service that's huge infrastructure that's needed there that can be an ongoing public works program does it I mean we're seeing right now during COVID that if you outsource these services any kind of public service to a private sector provider it's really not going well and do we really want to hand over our care needs to to private sector and then the kind of market forces probably not we will need a huge public infrastructure program and of course care work and just to take that example to continue with that example care work is you know often badly paid very stressful and you get a lot of burnout now I think this is a perfect sector if you're going to create a new gold standard for employment to have reduced hours greater employment numbers and and a kind of a care service that other countries look at and say oh like look how they do it there right now we look at the Bertzog system in in in Holland and we you know we often in the UK we look to kind of that part of the world also Scandinavia to kind of say look at look at the kind of utopian forms but wouldn't it be great if you know countries would have that innovative public works program where working time reduction is baked into it from the get go I think that's necessary I agree with will and and I think you know if you consider the green you deal as this vision that comes up against neoliberalism and then you have the neoliberal world in which we live emphasizes in a way private private life over emphasizes private life and and the private aspect of the economy and I think the green you deal ties very strongly to social democratic decisions traditions that that see in a way that the state as a key actor in in in shaping the economy and creating a more progressive society in a way and yeah you know I think this also this has then we need to also reconsider what is public life and not only only job as a not only see jobs as a part of a newly of a new of a new found in a way public endeavor and public public life and public purpose which and in a way and to go away from this over emphasis of the private aspect of our lives and yeah I think this could be one thing and what I also think is that we don't we own not only have like employment and in a way the private economy and the public sector but especially with the digital world that we live in now a lot of areas are coming into being that are based on commons you know where people can do stuff something important something less important but you know where where we we would also need a lot of free time to make actually to to embrace these new new opportunities to do things outside of wage labor on and maybe things that have a public purpose as well you know democracy research innovation and we just got a question that is very sort of relevant to what you just said that both of you have sort of emphasized the needs to create jobs that are creating well-being well-being and environmental sustainability what kind of mechanisms do you think can be used to create these kind of jobs especially at looking at the different scales of the economy we have local national multinational and linking that to another question which is that the original New Deal focused a lot on these traditional male jobs I know Will you just spoke about the care economy but is there another gendered aspect to work in Green New Deal I mean we don't just want women to stay within care work so two hard questions but yeah no I think you know an obvious mechanism I think you know this conference has shown an obvious mechanism for maintaining and creating and deciding what jobs you know get created and what kinds of jobs these are is a trade union basically and so in terms of like a tool a real mechanism for change and traditionally has been trade unions basically and I think obviously there's people have found frustration with large unions being very slow and moving towards Green New Deal perspectives but it is happening in the UK and also across Europe and we heard yesterday Igor Matau kind of one of its main impetuses imperatives behind its working time reduction campaigning is is to transition from certain industries into into greener ones and so I think fine I think the short answer is at different scales local and national trade unions should always be in the conversation alongside policymakers and those and various forms of expertise as well and I think that conversation should also happen with local communities though as well right like there's we've seen too often we've seen deindustrialization happen over the last 30 40 years where there's been literally no control over how an industry comes and goes from a particular location and that can ruin lives for generations basically you know huge have huge anti-depressant use and so on so forth in in communities across Europe where they they've just had livelihoods taken away so you need to have that engagement obviously and in terms of the gendered nature of work yeah I think it's an it's an opportunity basically to to try and have a kind of wipe away a lot of that that those kind of gendered roles I think from my perspective I think often the gendered nature of work is often the division between unpaid and and paid work I think for better or for worse there's often been what you know what's called the feminization of work in terms of basically both genders are now finding out what it means to have bad jobs I think you know traditionally you know women and still are mainly in part-time work and also been lower paid but the labor markets have become so withered and deteriorated that actually it's becoming more of a common condition the real inequality is really about time use outside of work as well and so I think I think it is an opportunity to wipe away the vestiges of of of basically a kind of patriarchal gender roles in terms of what kind of work and I think the care work thing is a real opportunity to do that because if you provide decent well-paid care work then to the extent that we have you know I'm talking about the UK as a particularly bad example but obviously it's around across Europe as well if you introduce decent employment doing something which is socially orientated and loads of loads of well-paid jobs basically then I think you start you will start seeing it populated by both you know both men and women and so I think that's one way of doing it and Juliet sure mentioned this yesterday right it's about basically creating better paid roles in traditionally what was you know understood as women's work and I think you'll see that kind of material incentive will help greatly and it won't destroy it won't destroy kind of gender inequality but I think it will really help because it because then ultimately then if you can start you know earning to provide yourself and a family that's to some extent going some way to thinking you know to kind of like what some you know perhaps more traditionally might would see as a dignified work basically yeah let me add to that I think I completely agree with Will that you know it's what it's also important to reimagine what is purpose what is the purpose of work what is socially useful work and actually I think you know where a Green New Deal vision and also working time reduction could also tie in is the the conversation that we find in ourselves now with the coming economic crisis out of the corona pandemic at least in Germany we have this discussion about what our system relevant jobs and they you know the initial thing was yeah they are the jobs where people needed to work when everyone was on the sofa and yeah people in the supermarket people in care people driving public transports things like that and I think you know when we think about the economy that that in a way is sustainable on earth we need to have a in a way a needs-based economy I think which has in a way democratic mechanisms in deciding what are what are the needs that we want to focus our economic energies on and in a way this conversation is ongoing and I think you know when you look into that these are not the the 60 70 hours investment bank of jobs or you know the stuff that David Graber also has been writing about all these bullshit jobs where people also feel that it's unnecessary what they do but some most many of them get a decent wage you know so and many others you know who feel a great purpose in their work face shift working conditions and so you know economic crisis plus looking for new orientation symbolic meanings I think this could be the moment now to to to set this off you know and not as a defensive thing as a defensive narrative but actually as a in a way and very energizing and engaging and empower empowering narrative you know that your life our lives will get better if we work less and have a more sustainable economy I think that's an incredibly positive spin on on what's really hard to train for a lot of people thank you for that um we have a question here that is sort of building a little bit on that democratic because a lot of you guys have been talking or sort of echoing the sort of democratic idea of a Green New Deal so a Green New Deal will be a massive infrastructure project led mainly by the state in a lot of um especially in the starting point um so and in this question it's sort of incomparable to the nationalizations and expansion of the state post world war two so well is there any tensions between this idea of a democratic vision of a Green New Deal and the actual necessary mobilization of the sort of central state um apparitions and in that case how can we overcome this sort of conflict I'll let Kristoff go first this one because I keep jumping in okay feel free to jump in Will um yeah my answer to that is I think this depends on the on the power constellations you know what we will be able to to orchestrate outside of the state um to shape to shape this state at least you know let's hope that states increase this stuff and do it more and I think this already needs a lot of political mobilization but then what we in the Green New Deal for Europe campaign clearly emphasizes it should be a transformation of the state itself you know and we need to have yeah broad coalitions and social movements that are able to to voice these demands outside of the state and outside of parliaments and um yeah like I know and and I mean this is also the tension is is I think within the debate there are some weaker versions of the Green New Deal which say yeah okay state investment in green economy that's it and and and some stronger versions and this really depends on on on politics in a larger sense I guess I think um yeah I think it's a really good question I think I'd like to think and we should really aim for for us to move beyond those that dichotomy I think that's what the question was going basically between big kind of big state kind of mobilizations and democratic engagement but it's tough because we've had basically decades of of a kind of people being so far from power so far from democratic control that it's almost you know it it'll take a certain amount of integration so that that process kind of becomes much more natural but I think it has to happen basically you I think ultimately there was something which happened with the Labour Party in the UK during the last election they released these kind of regional manifestos and I think that's there's something in that which is kind of it there needs to be huge state projects there needs to be parameters set by the state in terms of yeah in terms of our you know resource output and our our kind of carbon emissions and so on and so forth and how many wind farms we need to make and etc and how much care work we need to kind of allocate but then that I think that can be taken down to a much more local level where this is the this is the remit you know each region will have their own specificities in terms of what their capacity is so we much more they're much more rural regions much more city-based regions and I think basically you can have that engagement beyond just focus groups and it's a huge effort but I think the state should basically do that because that's that's that's how you get a population on board with the new industrial strategy basically as far as I can see that's that's how you integrate such a huge change that we need to ultimately achieve I think I think you have you have some kind of that some kind of halfway house between here's the agenda we need and we're going to go out there and win that argument and convince you of that but we also you're going to be involved in discussions as to you know what you know what can be done in your in what's ideal in your particular region what is and you know kind of what's what's required in terms of x y and z and lots of local knowledge remember that this this there's there's that great book by James Scott called seeing like a state which which I which I would recommend although it's it's written 1998 I think it's still very relevant where it talks about utopian state projects and how they would how they failed before basically and often it's because it's it very hard to integrate local knowledge into a state project but I think ultimately that's that's something which can mitigate some of the more heavy-handed blunt state instruments and also create that buy-in from local populations so I think having you know much more on the ground knowledge I think it's probably much more possible now with various different technologies and and with that understanding so I think it's a really important question and ultimately one which needs to have that engagement rather than simply top-down mobilization but equally requiring that it's not just up to local authorities to sort it out themselves I think there does need to be a certain state's responsibility there I think you're right I think actually that is one of those things that technology really have helped because before it was either one or the other but now we we can have that sort of overarching steering of this project almost to speak but but still have the interaction at different levels and I'm gonna let Margarita and Maggie at the standard come in and and make a comment Adrienne if you could give her speaking rights please it's always a bit exciting with new technologies as well to make everything work okay can you hear me yes thank you okay okay yes I'd like to to make a three-point first I would like to remember that the original new deal already had some real strong working-time reduction demands some of the democratic senators in this time proposed really to go to the 30 hours week and this was hindered by the massive resistance of the employers and her organizations but anyway they realized the reduction from 48 hours to the 40 hours in this time and this is not few so I think the green new deal today could more directly connect to the the old new deal in this question too and I think in the in all the debates on post-growth and how to to come really to an attractive other model of living and of economy I think the Kristoff said already that the the the aspect of vision is very important to to as a driver for for winning people and I think we really have to use time as a concrete part of utopia and that we have to come in a point that the the the currency of the economy today it is money or consume and that we come to the alternative that free time is the lead currency that people really have the feeling they win anything when they don't consume so much and because they don't have to work so much and that we make this narrative strong now okay this is the one thing and the other thing is the is always the question with the working places and we have the problem that many of the jobs who are now in the really environment destroying industries like coal plants like automotive industry etc that they are really the best paint industrial jobs and when we want to propose the people please leave these destroying environment destroying jobs and make something in the care work or in the public traffic for example then we have really to to at least we have to support the trade unions fighting in these branches to bringing up to bring up the wages and to make better the working conditions in these branches at the moment we have this stupid discussion on system relevant professions in the corona crisis and the applause and actually we have a collective bar gaining round of value this is the trade union for the services also for the public services and the the the the people working in the hospitals and working in the in the public traffic the the employers say no they don't want pay anything more even when they applauded in the corona crisis it's crazy and this is such a hard struggle and I think first we have to fight this struggle to better up this not industrial jobs and also I think a Green New Deal has to explain as already will mention much much more concrete in in every local community or region where are the green jobs really with facts with payment and and so on we make concrete plans only to say or when we will introduce the green new deal there will be one million jobs for the climate this is fine but so general if nobody will move for that and this is I think one big task we have now as Green Lefts let's say to show that now completely I think that that is some really really really good points and I think that really come or echoes or or how do you say really compliment some of the things that we heard from both Christoph and Will and thank you so much I think one of the I would like to link another question from one of our participants into someone what been saying here which is because the focus here is of course work-time reduction and we had the comments now that the old deal did suggest as as Margaret said the old deal did suggest that we needed to focus on work-time reduction and really trying to create that feeling that free time actually is a currency is something that we need to focus on but a lot of critics of the Green New Deal have said that it actually would require a massive expansion of labour so they basically say that well a Green New Deal will require a lot more working time rather than less any sort of respond any comments to this? Sure I mean I think there is there's a danger there's always a danger that we there's always a danger in our societies that we overwork and we double up work and so on and so forth but I guess what we're talking about here is a transition and I think there's a few things to say in a way so we're talking about on the one hand transitioning industries so that's like reallocating labour but on the other hand existing labour on the other hand there's also potentially more innovative ways to kind of tie in seasonal work so say you know rewilding might have to have to happen you know in in different working patterns to like normal kinds of work so you might for example have students instead of working in whatever you know retail in their summer holidays they might be doing rewilding or they might be doing plugging in so green projects in a much more kind of like dynamic way well paid and so on so forth but still kind of like putting having different kind new kinds of labour and reallocating those who are typically not counted in labour markets obviously students don't count as as they count as those outside of employment right so in a way I think it's it's although there will be there's plenty of work to be done I think it's this is what this is the important say of transitioning from industries which we've been talking about but also of kind of creating opportunities for people to be to be involved on on on terms which work for workers so I think I'm not entirely convinced by the idea that that we need an army of like we need like a really militarization of of labour power in order to kind of reach our green targets I think there's a mixture of scaling back reallocation of labour from different industries and obviously you know I do think there's a role to be played of of of of new technologies as well so I think it's a slightly it's a slightly kind of austere vision of the future where ultimately we the only way we can figure out how to can move to a green future is basically lots of people putting in loads and loads of toil so I think I think there's a way I think it's not as bleak as that basically uh yeah I also think it's it's difficult to to talk about the you know the final stage of a Green New Deal in 20 years uh but and I agree with Will but we need to focus on is the transition now how to get the transition going and what in a way what remind your comments about reallocating labour reminded me of a debate that I followed when we wrote the the Green New Deal paper which was about that it's not enough and there was good research supporting that it's not enough to simply in a way foster renewable energies because if you only foster the renewable energies they will go on top of your existing energy mix and all we do is consume more energy and energy will in a way remain cheap and so it it it encourages a growth in energy consumption that basically we cannot afford much longer so the argument there was you need to foster renewable energies but you also need to decrease fossil energies and maybe you know such an argument could also be made about labor time if we reallocate labor time towards these more necessary and urgent tasks this needs to go hand in hand with with in a way using I think actually and it's not about only using the free will of people on the labour market but using laws and other things to make certain industries you know to to in what we said before to degrow them and also degrow the amount of work that goes into them but yeah I mean you know and Patty for she's a she's the one of the main experts on the Green New Deal she talks about we need to have a needs-based localised economy and this will be very labour intensive where you find all kind of positions on labour time in the Green New Deal debate. Thank you so much we got a really good comment here from a participant Remy said that let's not forget that an important issue of the Green New Deal is to shift from industrial agriculture to bio farming which requires a lot of manual labour and and this kind of labour is there's an unqualified labour that is really hard to find at the moment and I think this has been echoed somewhat a little bit now in the corona crisis where we at least here in the UK we saw that suddenly there are a lot of agriculture farmers could not find workers even though we had a massive increase in unemployment or people were out of the work so there is probably also need in some kind of change in social norms how we're thinking around work and I think this is one of the really large challenges. We had a question from a while ago which is asking how we can imagine a democratic plan about what part of the economy needs to be sized down and what needs to grow but I feel like we have addressed that in different way. So I would like to look at the question we can keep that in mind when we're looking at one of our long questions which is the risk that when if we're wanting the Green New Deal to become mainstream and sort of we have this everyone is on the same track how can we avoid the sort of hijacking of a deal when the EU commission is talking about Green New Deal and it ends up to being just another version of sort of capitalist or green capitalism that has sort of been yeah I would like to say use this PR for some parties or organisations lately. First off I'll let you start with this one. Yeah I think actually the scale of the challenge you know what we I think what we face when it comes to climate change is we need civilisation and redesign systemic all aspects of our lives in a way need to will be affected and the point is do we manage to shape this democratically or will it just happen and force us to do things and I think the big opportunity in light of this challenge could be that maybe the Green New Deal maybe in two years it's something else you know the name has changed but that we are we look at how can we build the alliances and do the hard work of combining different political traditions different political actors with different competencies with different values sometimes you know what they see as the most desirable and the least desirable I think Green New Deal clearly is something in the in the progressive side of politics but also here you know it's very important and urgent and hard to build these networks and coalitions and find a shared language that is enough to work together but is not so strongly shared that every everyone wants the same you know I think it can kind of work like that. I I agree it's very difficult I think there's there's a problem there's a problem in terms of it as a as a signification in a way because in the so let's take an example in the UK at the moment there was a progressive movement called Build Back Better they called themselves that and as a coalition of organizations I think autonomy was was kind of part of it to some extent lots of organizations are part of it and then as soon as the government started using the term Build Back Better and so did and Joe Biden used it too suddenly you're in a different situation where you're kind of you realize you're up strength versus strength who can claim and define what that means and at that at that point you know a government a right wing government a typically near liberal but ultimately now maybe becoming a bit like a big state right wing government is now defining the terms of Build Back Better and they probably have more force and greater communication system than even the progressive forces battling it in a way right so I think there's a danger of of of that happening I think it's less it's less dangerous with the green new deal because ultimately the green part is actually it's dead against a lot of the lobbying interests which are backing big kind of right wing states so in some sense you know I know BP tries to look green and so on but it's quite hard for BP and so on to try and claim the green mantle they are like quite clearly oil companies so I think I think there's always a danger of being co-opted but that's why it's really important that we actually it's not necessarily just about detail but it's about it's about the messaging that this is what a green new deal means and it and ultimately message one is change new message you know message two is about you know and that that newness equates to a whole new you know set of provisions for people in society and then also the green part is that we we need to be clear about what it means and I think that's why it's helpful to have organizations like even you know direct action groups like XR and kind of other kind of slightly more liberal minded green politicians there's a whole as Christof saying a whole constellation of actors which are it's useful to kind of you know put on the agenda like what what a green new deal does mean and what it doesn't mean and I think we need to keep that up otherwise there is a real danger that the language can be taken just as we've seen before thank you so much we are in this interesting situation now so we have we are waiting for our third speaker Marjin Shidavan and he is currently running like because he's taken a coronatist that he could not take at any other point than this morning and I think that is just reflecting the kind of situation we are in now where we're having this an online conference we're trying to talk about work-time reduction even though we're in this situation where we may be a lot of us are working more than ever some of us are not working at all despite really wanting to and now one of the people who are speaking are slightly delayed because he's taking a a coronatist which is given back by some other new identified key workers and so please keep asking questions we are waiting for Marjin and for him so he will basically we're gonna have some more questions then he's gonna come in and have his talk so we're almost having like a little bit of two sessions in one and I there has been a question regarding a little the global context of a Green New Deal so we're speaking a lot of course about the EU because of our sort of locality but a Green New Deal of course has to incorporate the whole world and something that is really important in part of this sort of global Green New Deal will be a sharing technology it's often tends as least being an economist it tends to be assumed that this happens automatically but we see a lot of barriers in real life any thoughts what are the sort of work that's being done there I mean so the thing is that I think Christof can speak a bit more concretely I'm not as I say it's not necessarily my remit but I think there's ultimately there's an interesting entanglement between the global like the relationship in the global south and the global north as being effectively a remnant of colonialism and some would say still today a there being a a almost de facto colonial relationship going on so I think there's an interesting discussion to be had about the transfer of different green technologies and knowledge as and not as one of exchange but as one of to some extent reparations and because obviously there's something to be said for the idea that like some some global south countries are to some extent kind of jumping over the industrial period fine but others are just kind of and have been entering it in a slightly in a similar way that some of the global north countries did decades ago and to the extent that you know it's the kind of arrogance of a global north perspective to say no you can't do that because we need to play the planet so there needs to be a like a very very robust industrial strategy which is working in partnership to make sure that there can be kind of prosperity without a and and kind of avoiding a a new colonial relationship of of kind of like policing global south in the global south in terms of its its environmental impact and as I say I think I think there's there's it's important to remember that basically you know it's not the in terms of carbon emissions and you know per capita and so on the global south is not in need of a drastic degrowth in the same way that the global north is and in fact you start seeing some of these proposals for real rewilding the globe that actually come from the global north and actually talk about rewilding much of the global south so there's there's a real danger in basically forgetting that this kind of history of the global north and south relationship and we don't want to kind of kind of yeah we don't want to have a quite nihilistic approach which is effectively saying that we sometimes can kind of do away with with kind of the global south prosperity in in view of kind of keeping environmental limits in place I think it's a really thorny issue which I think those things need to be considered basically yeah the global dimension is absolutely crucial and yeah I think we also need to debate you know the role of of institutions like the IMF or something like that what would they look like in a as a Green New Deal institution and then not as a neoliberal institution David Adler he's actually doing some work on that so he would be the better guy to answer this question but I can give you an idea that we have in the Green New Deal for Europe proposal which is based on this idea of research and technology cooperation and transfer and so that the european union comes much more oriented towards you know research as a public good and not as a as a good to foster private economic growth which is typically the strategy with a lot of patents involved in industry corporations towards you know researching these new technologies in a much more public and collaborative and open manner so that's one aspect but I think what what is also important to consider there is the knowledge transfer from the south to the north and one example that really struck me was a form of COVID testing that was pioneered in in Africa because of the experience they had with other such diseases was you know a testing system where you test 10 pieces at the same time and only if only if you get a positive result you test each of the 10 pieces individually and therefore you basically increase your efficiency of testings by testing by 10 and I mean we can we can see why this was such an idea was not developed in the in the in the north you know but I think you know this is an just one example where we I think there's such a lot a lot of a wealth of knowledge and approaches to deal with with a much more complicated economic and social environment you know and that that also could could benefit us and I think yeah global green you deal it needs to be the thing such as similar like neoliberalism when the became a global system you know um so just had some a couple of questions pop up um starting with the one that is building straight on what you spoke about now Kristen so basically a lot of green technologies depend on these pressure metals um that are mining the global south and how do we ensure that we don't sort of intensify almost the colonialism that we're trying to move away from and sort of the pillage of the global south um so I'm just going to let you do a quick sort of reply for that while I have a look at it yeah I'll reply by with the words of Thea Rio Frankis she's one of the champions of the Green New Deal in the US and I was in a in a session with her a couple of months ago and she argued that it's urgent that we also define an idea of what she called supply chain justice into Green New Deal policies such that you know um particularly the supply chains for the the technologies that we need um have more oversight are organized more responsibly and foster in a way uh justice that was her idea on that yeah so um a question from Marike Marike sorry I'm very bad so could you elaborate a bit more on how to build up power relations that are necessary for a just transition so um she has a concrete example here on one hand we have like 15 000 refugees um on lesbos they're desperately longing for a decent life and a meaningful job on the other hand our farmers don't find workers how do we make a match and create this new economic reality meeting the needs of the people and planets so we need both visionaries but also power I'm not sure who who wants to start creating sorry I can't I can't find the question okay it's on the Q&A button in the bottom of the screen and then you have from Marike oh right yeah okay so it's how to build these kind of power relations to create a just transition I mean the second part is the second second part of the question is slightly I mean we should be I just think want to just caveat to be careful that we don't necessarily want to just say you know just it relates to the previous question where we took where there's it mentioned kind of unqualified agricultural work and ultimately I'm not sure any of us have a vision of the future where we say look let's get some unqualified uh agricultural workers and let's continue as as we were doing right it's quite backbreaking work it's very low paid it's not just simply about matching labor to to demand right we want to make sure that is a well-paid jobs that you know that actually there's there's certain healthy health and safety rules in place there's a little quite a lot of modern-day slavery I know I'm not saying agriculture is the worst for it but I'm just saying that there's there's it's not simply about matching up although I do agree that ultimately the overwork and underwork problem does need to be resolved I just think we should be careful to when we talk about the idea that we need to get as much cheap migrant labour in to do some of the bad jobs um yeah and when it comes to power I restate one of my arguments in a in another manner and I think we are in the times of profound disorientation and also ideological breakdown in a way so neoliberalism does no longer convince it's just zombie institutions that continue with that stuff the right has been very successful to draw into that confusion um in the in the past years you know emphasizing nationalism racism and all these other stuff and I think a power in such a situation needs to also be built as narrative power we need to be able to tell a story of a desirable future and and this needs to be you know become the telling of the story needs to be the process that builds the coalition that that makes this story it's it's not it's like chicken and egg you know it needs to happen at the same time that we need to have a lot of voices but that they engage and see a shared project in a way and yeah thank you it's not easy questions we're basically asking you guys to solve these massive or answers massive complicated questions but but I think that is giving some real insights and we have a final question um I will I have just found that uh Martin is held up his coronatis did not work as smoothly as he was hoping and he will be unable to come and join this session I think we we as I said we have one more question but it's also been a really really great session I'm so thankful to both of you Christoph and Will coming in the late minute and creating this really really good conversation around the Green New Deal really bringing in some insights um to to what is a massive massive project but but really exciting and I think really this excitement has also shown through um so Christoph you mentioned earlier the work-time reduction uh would or could be combined with the job guarantee program is there anything more you could say about this or is it just a matter of sort of setting a work-time limit for job guarantee jobs uh oh um for yeah and then that becomes the maximum that the private sector we need to adjust to yeah like in the proposal the Green New Deal for Euro proposal it's actually public sector jobs tied to a four-day work week tied to social and ecological pub um yeah but I agree you know if we it's not enough to focus on this one policy um and and uh and I think yeah probably Will is the one to answer this huh I mean I think I think sorry Alex what are you gonna say no I was gonna say do you want to make a comment I think I think the the job guarantee if done properly is all the caveats could be a good thing um I think there is there are dangers of a job guarantee where for example lots of the proposals particularly coming from those of an MMT modern monetary theory um uh background proposed that it's it's it's a it's a it's the lowest level job where there's no possibility of raising the wages um creating a kind of reserve army of workers that's a job guarantee I don't think we want because ultimately how can you possibly give people like a low baseline wage it's going to be unqualified work what kind of work do these people are these people going to do I mean ultimately you don't want carers to be unqualified you don't want people working um in an environmental new environment technologies to be unqualified you know there's a whole range of jobs that we'll need to need to be well paid and skilled so I think in the one hand we need to be wary of that and the other hand we also don't want the jobs guarantee to be somehow a replacement for welfare um which is again sometimes part of the proposals not part of the Green New Deal for Europe proposal I'd say but it's just something to keep in mind that sometimes proposals say look there needs to be a job guarantee and if people refuse the job guarantee you know what happens then so if you say okay we can guarantee you a job it's this job which is very low paid and it's not something you're not necessarily interested in um do these people can these people still um take on social security benefits can you know and so on and so forth so I think there are certain things we need to be aware of and ultimately I think job creation and job public works programs and those kind of things where you can produce you know generally people want to work right people want to have some kind of work and so you put stuff on the table and also mechanisms for so people can have access to them um that's what we should be doing rather than a guarantee becoming something potentially quite grim um and I think I think the Green New Deal for Europe's proposal for a job guarantee is worded well enough so that it gives options rather than kind of prescribing so I think that's important thank you so much and I think that uh that is some really good concluding comments basically trying creating a deal that is capturing people's action because in reality people want to work right people are excited when they have a job that they find meaningful and at the same time trying to sort of create this idea of free time as currency I really I really like that sort of comment and this has been a really great session thank you both Will Strong and Christoph Schneider thank you for your speaks for your interactions for your comments um we are going to run off this session now I'm going to hand over to Adrian um but once again thank you guys so much thank you thank you