March 2008 : We, civilians of the Netherlands,Flanders and of Europe, call upon a radical re-orientation of our economies. This call is motivated by the fast-growing urgency of global issues, such as climate change, re-source depletion, the persistence of wide-spread poverty and increasing global inequality. The urgency of these issues forces us to discuss a necessary transition of all wealthy economies, thus also those of Belgium, the Netherlands and Europe. No matter how fundamental such a reorientation or trend break as we envisage it will be, it will not bring about a decrease in human welfare. On the contrary, it will protect us from even bigger future problems, such as health hazards, environmental degradation, a further increase ithe global poverty gap, and armed conlicts and refugee movements. We are in the convenient position that a
directional change is currently still possible. And therefore we want to act now.