ABSTRACT
If the new Europe is the one that arises as the European Union’s economic integration deepens and as its links with eastern Europe strengthen, then the issue of a guaranteed minimum income is of central importance to it. But what sort of guaranteed minimum income should one go for? Along with a number of academics and organisations across Europe, I have been arguing for a number of years that, whatever the short-term strategy, the ultimate objective must be the introduction of an unconditional basic income, i.e. an income granted to every citizen or permanent resident on an individual basis, without means test or willingness-to-work conditions.2
