Life before
profits

Housing as a Fundamental Right

The Party of the European Left defends housing as a fundamental human right and demands a paradigm shift, with urgent measures:

• Rent control in areas under pressure.
• Massive development of public and cooperative housing, aiming for at least 20% of housing in large cities to be social housing.
• Strict limits on speculation and purchases by investment funds, with vacant housing being put to social use.
• A moratorium on tourist rentals in saturated areas.

We propose a European Investment Plan for Affordable Housing, mobilising public funds to finance exclusively administrations and cooperatives, excluding speculative actors. The European Commission claims to be launching a strategy to combat poverty, but its target of reducing the number of people at risk of exclusion by 15 million by 2050 is scandalously insufficient.

The Social Pillar, which has no binding legal force and remains subject to austerity constraints, remains largely symbolic. We, on the contrary, advocate a concrete approach based on guaranteed healthcare, decent wages, the right to training and massive public investment to make services truly universal.

Retired people are now among the poorest in society. The commodification of pensions undermines intergenerational solidarity and the very foundations of society. We advocate earlier retirement, with dignity and in good health, for all generations. The current European reforms are insufficient and do not challenge a failing system; on the contrary, we propose alternatives to push back against the logic of profit.

public services: The Heart of the European Social Shield

Public services meet essential needs and must be accessible throughout Europe. As a social safety net in times of crisis, they are nevertheless threatened by capitalist forces seeking to convert them into lucrative markets.

Healthcare systems, weakened by austerity, are seeing financial logic take precedence over quality of care, to the detriment of patients and staff. Yet health — both physical and mental — is a fundamental right. Precariousness and the dismantling of public services limit access to it. Defending a public, universal and high-quality healthcare system means guaranteeing dignity and autonomy for all. Mental health, too often ignored or stigmatised, is nevertheless at the heart of contemporary social needs.

Fighting for a healthcare system that is accessible to all means defending individuals’ capacity to emancipate themselves, to engage in society and to resist authoritarian logics that exploit suffering and isolation.

Public health and public health research are also necessary levers for progress. We advocate for social investment, which considers healthcare as an economic and democratic lever, recognising that services for all generate jobs, cohesion and better collective health.

Similarly, education, a pillar of human emancipation, is being transformed into a multi-tiered system: public schools, a pillar of the social safety net, are deteriorating while for-profit private schools are thriving. From childcare to students and researchers, education and research have become targets of commodification to the detriment of young people, families and, ultimately, society as a whole.

Autonomous public research is a guarantee of social and economic progress for society and cannot be governed by economic dogma.

As for energy, which has become a commodity subject to organised deregulation, it illustrates the failure of the dogma of competition: speculation, unsustainable bills, record profits. Europe must break with this model to guarantee universal access to affordable, low-carbon and cooperative energy.

In addition to preserving public services, with rights for employees and beneficiaries, we are committed to creating new public services, areas of society that should be removed from commodification. Faced with unsustainable speculation, many cities and local and national elected representatives are therefore devising new public services for food, with short supply chains and high-quality local shops, to meet the needs of the population.

For forty years, public services such as health, culture, transport, education and research have been subject to privatisation and commodification, to the detriment of quality and workers’ living conditions. They must regain their role: to protect, empower and guarantee dignity for all.

Making Solidarity a Political Project Again Through Social Investment

Austerity is not just an economic policy, but a “biopolitical” mechanism: it redefines who is worthy of care and who is not, who is protected and who is expendable.

The Party of the European Left affirms that a renewal of public services and social protection is essential to building a model of human development and progress. They must respond to needs rather than profitability, thanks to investments supported by the European Central Bank. As essential common goods, public services and social protections must be at the heart of the ecological transition and solidarity.

Their reconfiguration requires stronger democracy: elected representatives, users, employees and local authorities must have access to assessments and make decisions based on social and ecological criteria. These structures must be based on collective ownership, with a sufficient number of trained employees who have the right to influence the organisation of work. Parliaments and popular consultation must be able to define and expand the scope of public services, research, equality, ecological transition, and the security of training and professional pathways.