Local elections are forthcoming, in about a year. So my party prepares and writes an election program. Here under my own notes for the introduction of the economy paragraph.
One of the strengths of the green movement is to refuse the monetization of alls aspects of our lifes. We refuse to place a price sticker in a flower, or in the clean air that the inhabitants of Utrecht deserve. Yet we are not only greens, we are also fully aware of the many inequalities of our city. And we fight against them, not only by redistributing the produced financial gains, but also by encouraging and supporting greener and fairer ways of extraction, production, trade and consumption. A local green economy is possible and needed, in all the dimensions that the word “economy” covers.
Utrecht is not a city that extract natural resources, but we have decided, in the years that GroenLinks have shared the city government, to transition our energy from fossil to renewable. This green energy transition changes our economy, producing new labor and making polluting work unneeded. And needles to say, reduces the cost of environmental damage to other cities like Groningen, by stoping our use of gas. Almost as important as the fact that we are transitioning to greener energies as a city, is that we are researching which financial support is needed for our citizens with lower incomes to do so. Green energies are a better future, and a low income today should not jeopardize anybody to stop polluting in the future.
Utrecht is not a city of big fabrics. Our productive economy is focused in creating services and knowledge. The pandemic of COVID19 has changed the way work is happening. We will support the conversion of emptied office space into well connected working areas, available for persons working away from their office, but without disrupting their home space. Knowledge workers will neither have to travel to far away offices, nor disrupt their families working at home. Yet a knowledge economy is not only highly educated people that uses a computer all day long. Our university and the innovative companies that surround her, institutions like the RIVM and all the biological research production that is done there, need a diversity of employees, not only in educational level, but also in gender, ethnicity, experience and abilities. We work with as much as the employers as the employees to advance to a employed diverse workforce for our knowledge industry.
Considering the bigger cities of our country, Utrecht is the most centric. That means that a great deal of our trade passes through our streets and waterways. Utrecht economics is strongly influenced by our position as a logistic node for The Netherlands. We wil be studying the diminishing of city taxes for green transports and ways to make polluting companies ameliorate the effects of their work. Also, we are already in conversations with the companies that surround us, in order to make the areas where many distribution centers are located more green and less polluting.
Last but not least, given the active character of our city, the hospitality sector of our economy is alive and kicking, even after the shock of a full year and more of lockdown. The city government has supported our local service providers and will keep doing so, financially if needed be. Yet we know that even in Utrecht, our exciting night life can be exclusive and discriminative. We do not accept this. The work for an inclusive horeca sector is work in progress. Even as important for the consumers of the horeca to be treated fairly in all moments, we will keep encouraging the entrepreneurship of minority groups, that even in times of pandemic, are one of the sectors with higher levels of business starters. This energy needs the support of all Utrecht, and certainly from the city government.
In the precedent lines I have touched the principles that guide our more specific policies, regarding the main sectors of the economy of Utrecht: extraction, production, trade and consumption. GroenLinks is a social party, coming from a tradition of politics that understood long ago that the fair use of the means of production is the main tool of people emancipation. We are proud of our past and we fight still today for a more equitative society, so our economy policy actions points for Utrecht are spread through all our program. What we have added to that tradition is to realize that without a better nature, all the richess of the world will emancipate nobody. So, in the articulation of these principles, in our action points, we strive for a fair city, not only with regard to economy, but also fair to the coming generations and to the nature. Nor our daughters and sons, nor nature has a price.