TINA's aunt

TINA – There Is No Alternative – was Mrs Thatcher’s motto in the 1980s to implement her conservative neoliberal project in the United Kingdom. The motto continues to shape the discourses of leaders and institutions at international level. It served to justify the European response to the sovereign debt crisis in 2010, is the basis for the actions of Mrs Lagarde’s European Central Bank (ECB) and, more recently, was the basis for the message from NATO Secretary General Mr Rutte to the US President regarding the agreement on the Alliance’s defence spending.

There are always alternatives – especially when there is transparency, a sense of common good, political will, imagination and leadership. What TINA seeks to do is to prevent these alternatives from emerging, as they threaten the interests protected by the discourse of inevitability. The European response to the 2010 sovereign debt crisis – to pursue fiscal consolidation policies in a context of lack of demand, a liquidity trap and deflation risks – was presented as inevitable. However, there were alternatives, as Mr Draghi belatedly and contrarily demonstrated when he took over as ECB president.

The European project, born after the Second World War and based on the European social model, is still alive. Despite the weaknesses revealed in the 21st century, it remains a global reference. It brought peace to the continent, strengthened the middle classes, promoted social and territorial cohesion, defended human rights, the dignity of work, the integration of immigrants, the right to asylum, solidarity, the environment, health and freedom. Today, however, it finds itself at a crossroads. Threatened by Putin’s and Trump’s wars, Europe faces two options: i) give in to TINA and the whims of the oligarchs (in order to appease them), sacrificing the European social model; or ii) take charge of its collective destiny and establish itself as a reference for freedom and “humanity of humanity” (in Edgar Morin’s sense).

The G7 recently gave in to TINA when it exempted American multinationals from the 15% global minimum corporate tax proposed by the OECD. It is also what governments do when they set defence spending targets without first defining the objectives. And this is what happens in Europe, when this same defence is supposed to be financed at the expense of national budgets, compromising the welfare state and colluding with the rentier and speculative behaviour of multinationals and the financial system.

However, every TINA has its TIA – There Is Alternative . In the area of ​​defence – and even as a way of dealing better with the ghosts of the past – this alternative would involve a European policy financed with the European Union’s own resources, and not at the expense of national budgets. The EU has the capacity to tax multinationals and the financial system effectively – something that Member States alone cannot do. Furthermore, it could redirect its financial system towards the common good, strengthening the European social model and the middle classes, instead of sacrificing them.

This July 4th, the United States celebrates 249 years of independence and liberal democracy. Benjamin Franklin, one of the country’s founding fathers, said that “he who gives up liberty for safety deserves neither liberty nor safety,” and loses both, we add. Liberty is, and will continue to be, the most essential value of all.

Professor and researcher at Católica Porto Business School