(Photo:from "Vietato vietare"-unai pasqual/Flickr) Poverty must increasingly be understood as a problem of democracy as well as equality. Only in that way can the most paralysing effects of capitalism be understood as problems of autonomy. Europe could lead the way as a potentially transformative power in leading this new understanding. Niccolo Milanese The European institutions nominate each year as the ‘European Year of...’ The most recent examples are the ‘European Year of Intercultural Dialogue’ (2008) and the ‘European Year of Creativity and Innovation’ (2009). It is questionable the extent to which such European years serve a purpose – they typically involve no new funding for initiatives, and often have a very low public visibility. Unlike previous years, however, for 2010 the theme chosen is extremely topical given recent events in Europe and in the world: ‘European Year of Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion’. At the moment 79 million people inside the EU are estimated to live in poverty, despite living in the world’s richest economic area, and outside of the EU almost half the world population lives on less than €2 a day. Whilst the year as such is unlikely to foretell any sea-change in European policy either inside or outside the EU, the nomination of a year after a theme permits the possibility of critical dialogue on the signification of the theme, and the influencing of the way the problem is thought about at a European level. Naming is not only often the first move of politics - to name one’s opponent - but is also the first move of philosophy - to name one’s subject. Moreover, there are concrete opportunities to influence European Union policy in the area over the coming months – one of the first tasks of the newly selected European Commission will be to propose the new budget and objectives of the European Union for the coming period. Now that the Lisbon Treaty has entered into force, the elected European Parliament has co-decision with the European Council (of the member states) over the short and long term budgets of the Union, so if the opportunity is taken there should be greater democratic discussion over the budgetary priorities of the Union. Of critical interest in the way the European year has been named is the conjunction of ‘Combating Poverty’ and ‘Social Exclusion’. This allows for the two things to be understood together to some extent, that poverty should be seen as a form of social exclusion. This makes poverty into a question of democracy: to be poor is not only to be materially poor and thereby lack to a greater or lesser extent the basic means for living, but also to lack the possibility of participating in a society as an equal member. Economic living standards and means of participation in society have to be thought together. This immediately poses the questions ‘what society?’ and ‘what means of participation?’ The answers must be thought about both within the European space and outside it. Within the European space the situation is fractured and rendered incoherent by the intransigence of nation states in certain overlapping domains. Although the ‘economic’ community of the European Union is unified to a certain extent by the possibility of largely unrestricted capital flows, a common market and the existence of a common currency in some member states, the free movement of peoples between these countries is much more restricted than the movement of capital, and the possibilities of participation in society changes dramatically for people as they move through member states. For as long as the nation state is seen as the primary locus of democratic legitimacy, it will remain difficult to say that there is a common European society. Policy decisions regarding combating unemployment and economic inequalities remain largely at nation state level, with the exception of decisions over European Structural Funds and Cohesion, which remain sensitive political tools. Yet the situation inside the EU is becoming sufficiently dramatic that greater community solidarity in the area seems irresistible if only the arguments were made. At the moment those governments with some of the most difficult poverty situations to deal with are those cutting back most on social spending. The Latvian government, for example, is spending less than 10% of its annual budget on social issues, as the recent IMF bailout forced it cut its government spending, whilst the Swedish government spends more than 30% of its annual budget on social issues. Other ‘rich’ member states seem to be failing in their obligations: the UK and Ireland, for example, have the highest levels of child poverty in the EU. Overwhelmingly required over the coming months are transnational campaigns highlighting inequalities existing within the EU area. This poses the question of what organisms exist to run such campaigns, and one of the depressing conclusions is that political parties, which should be the means of participation and representation for all sectors of society, are in large part still handcuffed by their nationalised structures. NGOs and civil society therefore have to be the medium, but without ignoring that increasing the possibility for democratic participation, and therefore reforming the outdated political-party structures, is an integral part of combating poverty and the only sustainable structural solution. The European Union does have a common aid budget and also a common strategy for development in the rest of the world. In the Lisbon Treaty combating poverty is made an explicit objective of the European External Action force to be formed around the newly selected High Representative for External Affairs, Baroness Ashton. The crucial question, unlikely to be asked over the coming months, is what degree of participation is possible for poorer countries, and the global poor themselves, in deciding over the way this money is used and strategy decided? To what extent are they ‘socially excluded’? Posing this question is to challenge the sedimented logic of the nation state – where those born on a territory decide only amongst themselves on their common actions both inside and outside of the territory. In an increasingly interconnected world this logic is wholly inadequate, and the European Union is a potentially transformative structure in challenging this logic. Rather than conceiving of European external action as Europe’s action on the world, rather European external action should increasingly take into account the points of view of those it is trying to help. The High Representative for External Affairs must become not only a voice of Europe in the World but also a Voice of the World in Europe, a representative of the world’s poor. Only in that way will EU external action go beyond hand-outs or conflict resolution, and start to create the possibility of building a common world together. Once again, there are no organisms but civil society to make these arguments for the moment. It is with arguments of democracy, autonomy and equality that such campaigns will be successful: we must rediscover and reinvent these vocabularies.