This European social consultation will provide a common space of meeting and debate among people and collectives in order to develop proposals and projects which allow us to transform society.

The consultation-debate in Europe should allow social movements to take the initiative, building a process that is complementary to the mobilization around international summits and forums. It will also serve to support a process of cohesion among European social movements, based on the construction of ideas and proposals, direct participation and social criticism. It is designed to be an instrument for lancing proposals by social movements and for expressing the will of European society to build its own future.

It is also about beginning a process that will allow us to overcome the current capitalist "democracy" that puts capital before people. In order to reverse this situation, we have to encourage the direct participation of the entire citizenry.

The consultation-debate will be focused on local action. It should serve to reinforce the work of groups and networks in the local context and is also an instrument to connect local and global struggles. If "another world is possible", the consultation can and must allow us to take an important step toward that world.

This document outlines the beginning steps and the short-term strategy that will allow us to move toward the objectives to be defined among all of us. The declaration of the campaign against the World Bank, Barcelona 2001, is an important step in the presentation of this proposal. The wide social base brought together around this campaign provides an essential starting point from which to initiate this collective process. As we develop the project, we will reach out to all the groups and organizations that make up the social movements against neoliberal globalization in Europe and around the world.

This is why we call on all organizations, networks and social movements, and to all citizens in general, to reflect on the proposal presented here, beyond the initials and specificities of each group, in order to create a broad social network to take charge of and make this project possible.

BASIC IDEAS

The success of this consultation depends on knowing how to integrate the vision and action of the largest number of people and sectors in society, and that the resulting process is able to transform people as well as structures.

Therefore, if we want to be successful in this way, we should make sure that the following steps are taken: First, create an organizing system which is absolutely participatory in its decision-making and creation, determined by the grassroots, proactive and collectivist. This will make it horizontal and decentralized.

Second, develop an analysis and diagnosis of the current system of capitalist globalization. We must be able to make convincing arguments about why the Consultation is an extremely powerful form of peaceful insurgence to the current situation. This may mean carrying out a study, educating ourselves, developing materials and working with the mass media.

Third, to make sure that the response is massive, the project should be designed with the intention of making in easy to understand able to get people hooked. It should be very graphic and easy to understand, and it should also be convincing, challenging and open.

POSIBLE STAGES OF THE CONSULTATION-DEBATE

The consultation should have three major stages. The first one consists of initiating a process of extension and making contact with movements and organizations through a process of "internal consultation" that will allow us to learn about various ideas, proposals, limitations and additions to the project. This will result in a call for a first international meeting where the network that will promote the European Consultation will be built and where the following steps will be defined.

The second stage, which will take much more time, will be focused on building a process of social debate through assemblies, seminaries, and meetings, in each of the territories involved. The goal is to strengthen and widen the existing social fabric, develop transformational proposals and reach a social consensus that will make the next stage possible.

The third stage is designed to reach out on a massive scale, extending the debate throughout the entire population, using all available means to get people to participate and make their opinions heard.

Based on this point of view, we propose to all people and affinity groups interested in participating in this process of construction, to begin carrying out the following work:

1. Extend and make the proposal for a European social consultation reach all groups, networks and social movements in Europe, as well as all international forums.
2. Design and begin a process of internal consultation in order to collect the opinions of groups and networks around this idea and to start building a network that will allow us to start building this project.
3. Organize a first European meeting, which will allow us to establish the groundwork for the project.
4. Build a website and communications system that will make possible our collective work at a distance.

Begin creating work groups- in local, regional and global contexts- which move forward in spreading the project and elaborating proposals on the basis of both collaboration and autonomy.

We begin with an internal consultation among social movements One of the major difficulties that we are finding in trying to initiate this process is how to integrate the very different sensibilities of all the social movements that should participate.

It is very important that the first steps of the consultation and the first decisions made are very participatory, transparent and that they are the result of well thought-out consensus, with the balanced participation of all groups.

On the other hand, another significant advantage in beginning with a process of debate through the internal consultation will be facilitating a process through which groups can participate in the common definition of the process from the different geographic and social contexts of the European continent. This is a key issue in making sure that movements from all of the countries in Europe get involved.

Because of all of this, what better than an internal consultation among all groups that results in a first meeting for the European social consultation?

Ways of spreading the internal consultation throughout Europe

The first objective of this process will be to foment the creation of various groups that will promote the project in each physical territory of Europe. Each group of promoters will spread the debate about the process in their own state or region. How will this be done?

• Through personal contacts
• Through the internet
• Through various international meetings
• Through "mini-caravans" or visits by various affinity groups to possible promoting groups throughout Europe
• Through the organization of regional meetings Blocks of questions for the internal consultation (here you have a first draft of blocks in which the questions for the internal consultation can be integrated):
  1. - Thematic areas (immigration, ecology, social rights, political system...)
  2. - Objectives of the European Social Consultation
  3. - Design of the process of the European Social Consultation
  4. - Organization of the Process
  5. - Organization of the First Meeting for the European Social Consultation
  6. - What conditions should be meet for you to get involved in the process?

Proposal for a Calendar from the initiation of internal consultation until the first meeting.

• October-November-December (or first three months...):
   
  Groups who will promote the consultation-debate throughout the continent will be contacted. Questions will go out to the most active groups and responses collected, while they will begin to spread the process to other collectives. As responses are sent in they will be updated on the website. Various questions and responses will stimulate discussion on the internet listserves.
• 85January-February-March... (or next three months...):
   
  Based on the responses from the internal consultation, which will continue throughout the period, and the debate among the most active Groups, a meeting will be organized for the spring.
  The important thing about the calandar is that we propose an interval ofapproximately six months from the time we start the internalconsultation, until we carry out the first meeting. The calendar for the following period will be defined in the meeting itself.

SOME IDEAS ABOUT ORGANIZATION
How will things be structured right now, at the beginning?

• The promoting group will continue to develop the proposal while they reach out to different collectives, principally through face-to-face meetings. The first promoting groups will spread the initiative with the goal of finding new promoting groups throughout Europe.
• Local nodes and affinity groups will work on the internal consultation and will continue to give form to and discuss the proposal until the first meeting, while they continue their regular activities. These nodes will plan the participatory process in their communities and will contribute to the design of the process through physical assemblies or through the internet.

And further on...
Large unitary assemblies will be held in concentric regions of variable size where organic decisions will be taken.
The technical decisions, once they have general philosophy of the movement has been established, will be delegated to the various commissions. The modus operandi of the network will be to continue agreeing on a small number of common principles through different assembly meetings in varying territorial scales (local, regional, statewide, European), working with total autonomy until it is necessary to build an additional level of common principles.

Technological Support

• Necessary Distribution Lists
• Activist-Coordination Website: Includes all the debates translated into the different languages, coordinates meetings, agendas, minutes, contacts, movements involved
• Documentation Center Websites: store objective data, provide rigor and develop proposals. There can be various depending on the areas which are conceived as most important.

PGA