Challenge 3 Social Equality

Vision

Bolt is a bold party that seeks to advance social equality to the greatest extent possible while adhering to economic, social, and political limitations. Bolt’s political choices must be systematically influenced by social equality, particularly when those choices conflict with the
desires and interests of influential elites and corporate interests.

Bolt understands that social equality is the entire equality of chances for everyone. Striving for full equality of opportunity entails removing the influence of as many factors as possible that influence life outcomes but have nothing to do with free choices. These factors include one’s birth circumstances, family circumstances, social identity, disability, and broader biological conditions. Many inequalities are often the result of problematic social structures, such as class privilege, patriarchy, heteronormativity, ableism, the primacy of the Christian religion, and racism, which Bolt acknowledges.

Bolt recognizes the importance of free will in shaping one’s life, but also the limitations of free will in an unequal world. In most cases, expanding the space for free choice promotes equality of opportunity. However, in the presence of significant income and wealth inequality, choice is not always a genuine option. In such cases, policy’s role cannot be limited to expanding formal choice; it must also include levelling the playing field so that choice can be enjoyed fairly by all.

Equality of opportunities should lead to, but does not presuppose, equality of outcomes. Equality of opportunity leads to statistical equality of outcomes at the group level. Equality of opportunity requires that equality of wealth, income, and status not become so broad as to become privilege.

Social equality entails assisting people in achieving their own definition of a good life: it entails inclusion, interdependence, participation, fighting discrimination, and making room for (inventing) diversity. People are free to define and pursue a good life in a variety of ways. Unless they conflict with the rights of other social groups, these differences in conceptions of the good life will be celebrated. Furthermore, Bolt acknowledges the space for people to invent new dimensions of diversity as they reflect, operate on, and change their bodies, identities, and group structures in order to live good lives. Individuals cannot survive on their own, and equality is a key component in building communities and society itself by giving everyone a stake in society. Finally, supporting inclusion necessitates taking action against all forms of discrimination, strengthening public policies aimed at eliminating discrimination, and providing victims of discrimination with individual and collective action options.

Respecting differences and encouraging inclusion includes group identities. Gender, sex, sexual orientation, race, class, ethnic group, religion, disability, and their intersections are all included. Indeed, achieving true equality of respect and statistical equality of outcomes at the
level of these groups is the essence of true social equality.

Social equality applies to non-Europeans. Throughout its imperial history, Europe has unfairly benefited from and deeply harmed societies outside of Europe. Europe, aware of this, will not abuse its position and will work to correct inequalities between countries and peoples.

Everyone is responsible for pursuing social equality, and social equality is a cross-cutting concern in all policy areas. Fairness, not market preferences, should determine work rewards, and businesses should be aware of their social responsibilities. Public authorities at all levels play a critical role in achieving social equality. Individuals must strive to understand and care for other people and their experiences, as well as act fairly toward them.

Protect the human and civil rights of groups and minorities

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” Let’s make Europe equal as soon as possible!

Protect the human and civil rights of women

Gender equality is a fundamental human right and one that should be rapidly achieved. In the current state of our society, women are still treated unfairly, face more barriers than their male counterparts, are subject to specific types of violence, and are discriminated against in their private, public, and professional lives. An example of this is the fact that women are heavily discriminated against in the workplace; they tend to have lower salaries, are underrepresented in senior management positions, and experience workplace bullying and harassment. Another example is that menstruating people are restricted in their ability to participate in society and are structurally disadvantaged due to their periods; period poverty is a global problem.

In the law

• Promote legislation and concrete action to address persistent discrimination against women.
• Work towards ending violence against women in a comprehensive manner, including through the ratification of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating both violence against women and domestic violence (the “Istanbul Convention”).

In the public sector

• Ensure that countries lead by example and apply inclusive and equal policies that actively contribute towards effective and sustainable gender equality. Comprehensive strategies are needed to address the issues, with a broad range of measures such as training and overcoming stereotypes. Women not only continue to be underrepresented in decision-making positions at all levels, but the rate of progression in this regard is slow.
  1. Implement comprehensive programmes to encourage women to get into politics and support them once there, through training courses, mentoring, public campaigns, and other means.
  2. Educate the public about the benefits of gender parity in political decision making.
• Require political parties to ensure equal representation of men and women on their lists of candidates for elections. 6 The European Commission itself has explained that “formal quotas are an effective way to accelerate the pace of progress and encourage political parties to seek the participation of women.”
• Ensure gender parity 8 within the public sector through various means, such as setting quotas or giving preference to female candidates during the recruitment process. 9 Such measures will be in place as long as necessary, up until the desired outcome has been achieved.
• Make reporting on gender representation mandatory at all levels of government, whether at the national, local, or regional level. This will draw attention to the lack of female representation. Public reporting can also prompt change due to possible reputational risks.

In the workplace

• All mid-sized to large businesses should be required to disclose and report on gender balance and the gender pay gap. Across the EU, wage gaps between genders are still at 16.0%. 10 Greater transparency on gender pay gaps will aid in addressing gender inequality in the workplace and ensuring women’s representation at all levels throughout companies. Gender reporting increases accountability and drives action towards more inclusive and fairer policies. Bolt is proposing:
  1. In the short term, mid-sized to large companies (more than 100 employees) will be required to disclose how much they pay male and female staff in terms of salaries and bonuses, 11 and in the medium term they will be obliged to obtain a government certificate demonstrating pay equality. Failure to comply will result in fines. ○ Businesses will have to disclose gender balance across the company in their annual financial statements, including the number of women in senior management positions, from the moment the legislation comes into effect.
  2. Every state-owned company, regardless of its size, ought to disclose its gender balance across the whole enterprise in the short term. All state-owned companies will also have to produce a report demonstrating equal pay on an annual basis.
  3. Sanction companies that do not extend to each individual the same benefits, salaries, opportunities for training or promotion because of their gender identity, and include reference to non-discrimination on these grounds in any vacancy announcements.
• Set a 40% quota for women on the boards of all publicly traded enterprises. In 2018, the average female representation on European boards stood at 33.6. This measure will not only positively impact the performance of companies, but will also lead to an increased number of women across the company as a whole.
  1. All companies that are publicly traded on a stock market will be required to have 40% female representation on their corporate boards by midterm. Failure to comply with this regulation will result in heavy fines, suspended remuneration of board members, and/or a possible delisting from the market.
  2. Existing companies will be given a five-year timeframe to achieve the quota, while newly listed companies will be required to comply with the requirement at the time of listing.
• State-owned companies should act as role models. State-owned companies ought to have 50% female representation on their corporate boards by midterm.
• Incentivise He For She programmes make men part of the solution, not the problem. Bolt believes that all parties need to participate in the conversation for a solution to evolve. For this reason, it is necessary to encourage more dialogue and to create initiatives in the workplace, consisting of men supporting good practises and sensitising others to the issues. Those can and should take various forms men attending women’s meetings to take part in discussions, listen, and ask questions; men simply standing up every time a woman is treated in an unfair manner; or pledges consisting of men refusing to speak on a panel that has no women or participate in a meeting that women are not part of.
• Require all mid-sized to large companies to have confidential channels and hotlines separate from general employee relations to report inappropriate and discriminatory behaviour, violence, and/or sexual harassment. Women still face sexual harassment and violence, as well as inappropriate behaviours in the workplace. 17 Bolt will require employers to have those reporting channels in place and have them managed by an external company or by a separate human resources team that includes women.
• Introduce measures to empower women with children to have a successful career. The following measures will benefit all types of parents (including but not limited to single men, women, heterosexual and homosexual couples):
  1. Incentivise companies’ internal nurseries and working modes, enabling flexibility suited for each parent’s needs.
  2. Enable equal paid maternity and paternity leave for a specific period of time, and then extra time off that can be shared according to the parents’ preferences. Encourage both parents to take vacation time. The length of leave can be decided according to the countries’ existing frameworks, but equality shall prevail.
  3. Pilot more flexible “more-people-working-less” models. The sharp rise in productivity has created an imbalance in the labour markets. A reduction in individual working hours would absorb much of the structural unemployment that has resulted.
  4. Implement Family Working Time following parental leave to allow both parents to transition back to work starting part-time, with possible compensation of reduced income during specific life phases (e.g. during early infancy as foreseen in the German Parental Leave Act) to betterbalance between parents’ responsibilities for family, caregiving, and generating income. This would follow parental leave and last up to three years. Both parents would, for example, work 80% of the full time, and the loss of wages would be compensated with a digressive rate based on income level and duration.

In the education system

• Educate students about the advantages and importance of having a discrimination-free society and workforce. For example, a diverse workforce is profitable for companies as it improves both levels of productivity and employment.
• Incentivize girls and women to enter careers in which they are often underrepresented. This could be done in many ways, including by setting up state-sponsored ‘summer camps’ for sectors that are generally dominated by men to incentivise equal representation in younger generations. This would provide an opportunity for women to familiarise themselves with possible careers and/or studies.
• Have internal bias training for professionals in the education system, including teachers and professors, to ensure that girls and women have the same chances and opportunities as others, and that they are not steered towards particular careers.

Combating period poverty

Menstrual hygiene is not a choice or a luxury, but a necessity that should be treated accordingly in the context of society, charity, and taxation. Bolt is committed to combating period poverty and achieving greater equality through access to free menstrual products. Therefore, this policy focuses on enabling access to free menstrual products such as tampons and pads in public buildings.

• Governments and local administrations ensure the distribution of free menstrual products to schools and other educational institutions, prisons, hospitals, food banks, homeless shelters, women’s shelters, and similar facilities, as well as to public toilets. The primary aim should be to ensure free access to sanitary pads.
• Handling in public spaces: Depending on local conditions, either hygiene items are provided in all rooms or easily and generally, access is made possible. For example, in a common, protected anteroom for all genders. It is important here that “all rooms” also include male toilets and disabled-friendly toilets.
• Proper education and awareness-raising on healthy menstrual hygiene and the removal of taboos are an important part of the fight against period poverty. Everyone should have access to knowledge to develop an understanding of how to deal with periods. Also, Bolt is committed to educating menstruating persons through schools and doctors about possible alternatives to hygienic pads and tampons. This will provide an opportunity for the use of environmentally-friendly and healthy hygiene products.
• Bolt supports and promotes initiatives such as the EU Ecolabel for hygiene products to increase the production and consumption of hygiene products with a lower environmental impact. Every menstruating person should be entitled to a free menstrual cup from a gynaecologist every three years.

Protect the human and civil rights of LGBTIQ+ people

Bolt is based on the principles of equality for all, equal opportunities, and respect for human rights. Individuals who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer (LGBTIQ+) are subject to discriminatory practices, violence, harassment, and so much more in every realm of their lives. Each LGBTIQ+ individual faces different challenges and has different needs; there is no one-size-fits-all policy. Bolt aims to introduce regulations and concrete actions to achieve equality in law and in practise for all. By this, we don’t mean an abstract concept of equality but pure equality; we will settle for nothing less. We want to ensure that LGBTIQ+ people have access to the
same rights and protections as others. It is also key to eliminate all forms of discrimination, whether in the private or public sphere, through education, incentives in the workplace, etc. In short, love is love, and it’s that simple.

In the law

• Legalise marriage for all. Unfortunately, in many countries in Europe, some people cannot yet get married because of the gender of the person they love. The fact that other types of partnerships exist and are available does not mean that this is acceptable in any way. This is why Bolt will work to legalise marriage for all across the European Union where it is not already the case, in order for heterosexual and homosexual couples to have access to the exact same rights, procedures, and union in the eyes of the state.
• Legalise adoption for same-sex couples. So many children need families, and so many families—or individuals—want children. The only criteria that should matter is whether one can and will provide a safe and loving environment for a child. Equality means that all should have the same rights, including the right to adopt a child. No, same-sex parents are not less able to raise a child than heterosexual ones. No, a child does not need both a maternal and a paternal figure. Otherwise, how could we explain that so many children raised by single parents or by homosexual parents are like everybody else? Otherwise, how could we justify letting single parents raise children alone? For these reasons, Bolt will work to:
  1. Every adult (regardless of their gender identity, sexual orientation, or marital status) has the opportunity to adopt a child based on the same criteria as those imposed for adoption on heterosexual couples according to local law.
  2. Ensure that the procedure will be the same as for heterosexual couples. Homosexual couples and single parents should not have to jump through any additional hoops to be able to adopt. No discrimination should take place on the basis of a parent’s gender identity, sexual orientation, or marital status.
• Guarantee transgender rights:
  1. Make gender affirming procedures, such as hormone treatment, surgery, and psychological support, accessible for transgender people, and ensure that they are reimbursed by public health insurance schemes.
  2. Challenge legislation that requires transgender individuals to do the following to change their gender legally: undergo medical procedures (such laws are still present in 23 countries in Europe and need to be challenged rapidly), 25 or be diagnosed as mentally ill.
  3. Ensure that people are able to use the facilities linked to their own gender identification (e.g. bathrooms).
• Guarantee intersex rights:
  1. Prohibit medically unnecessary “sex-normalising” surgery, sterilisation and other treatments performed on intersex babies and children without their informed consent. Such treatment shall be deferred “until such time as the child is able to participate in the decision,” unless there is a risk to the child’s life. As of April 2018, Malta and Portugal are the only countries in the world to ban medically unnecessary surgery on the genitals of intersex infants.
  2. Ensure that there are no administrative obstacles for intersex individuals in being recognized, getting necessary administrative papers, etc. Gender markers in identity documents and birth registries should be reviewed to better protect intersex people (see point below).
  3. Promote legislation that allows non-binary people to choose their gender on IDs, forms, and official documents (as X or Q, for example). Add the use of singular “they” instead of only “he or she” or “he/she” in documents and forms. States could also consider making the registration of one’s gender optional on birth certificates and other identity documents.
• Promote and revise legislation that addresses persistent discrimination against LGBTIQ+ people. While legislation is in place to tackle discrimination, it is essential to increase its visibility and revise laws where necessary. Ensure that adequate deterrents, such as fines and criminal penalties, are in place and applied when acts of violence (hate crimes) or discrimination take place because of a person’s orientation, sexuality, and/or gender.
• Conduct training for the police on hate crimes against LGBTIQ+ people.

In the public sector

• Ensure that countries lead by example and apply inclusive and equal policies to actively contribute towards real equality. Comprehensive strategies are needed to address the issues, with a broad range of measures that could be used to accomplish this goal.
  1. Implement comprehensive programmes to encourage minorities to get into politics and support them once there, through training courses, mentoring, public campaigns, and other means. ○ Educate the public about the benefits of diversity in political decision making.
• Train judges, magistrates, and other civil servants to recognise and address implicit biases towards minorities. The justice system is vital to ensuring that disputes are resolved in an orderly manner and that victims are protected. Through training and other methods, Bolt wants to reinstate confidence in the justice system and ensure that biases towards minorities are maintained at a minimum, if not eliminated, through training and other methods.

In the workplace

• Sanction companies that do not extend to each individual the same benefits, salaries, opportunities for hiring, training, or promotion regardless of one’s sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or sex characteristics, and include reference to non-discrimination on these grounds in vacancy announcements.
• Require all mid-sized to large companies to have confidential channels and hotlines, separate from general employee relations, to report inappropriate and discriminatory behaviour, violence, and/or sexual harassment. Bolt will require employers to have reporting channels in place that are managed by an external company or by a separate human resources team.
• Incentivise companies to train staff—especially awareness of issues faced by their LGBTIQ+ colleagues.
• Provide incentives to companies to ensure that they address the specific rights of transgender 34 and intersex 35 people at work.
  1. Companies should adopt policies for trans inclusion, including the recognition of the gender identity of trans staff, customers, and other stakeholders, regardless of whether this is reflected in official documents (which includes establishing policies that require company staff to respect the name, pronouns, terms, and gender used by the person concerned).
  2. Companies should ensure safe and non-discriminatory access to bathrooms and other single-sex facilities, as well as non-discriminatory dress codes.
  3. Companies also need to adopt policies to respect the rights of intersex people at work, including access to personal services and changing rooms, dress codes, healthcare and medical attention.

In the education system

• Cover all subjects in sexual education classes. Education is key to eliminating inequalities and unfair treatments and to fostering a culture of mutual understanding and acceptance. It is important to make sure that, in a safe learning environment 36, they have access to the information and resources that concern them, their classmates, and the rest of the world. For this reason, Bolt will advocate for a European educational standard in sex education:
  1. Not only should heterosexuality be discussed, but also all other types of sexual orientations and gender identities (for example, what it means to be non-binary, cisgender, transgender, or intersex).
  2. Methods of contraception and protection are explained and discussed.
  3. All of the above is to be done without shaming, false explanations, and religious commentary, and in a way that is non-discriminatory and inclusive.
• Educate students about the advantages and importance of having a discrimination-free society and workforce. For example, a diverse workforce is profitable for companies as it improves both levels of productivity and employment.

Protect the human and civil rights with regards to ethnicity, national origin, descent and skin colour

Current legal instruments at the national, European, and international level fail to protect individuals facing prejudice, unequal treatment, and social exclusion. Minorities still experience discriminatory treatment and hate crimes, including in education, employment, social services, interaction with law enforcement, etc. Discrimination based on ethnicity and skin colour remains one of the most experienced forms of inequality, with these minorities remaining the most disadvantaged and persecuted individuals in society. Additionally, discrimination against Roma people is particularly problematic across Europe. Roma people represent the largest ethnic minority in Europe; it is estimated that there are 10–12 million Roma people in total, some 6 million
of whom live in the EU and most of whom hold the citizenship of an EU country. Recent publications show that as many as 80% of Roma are still at risk of poverty.

In the law

Promote and revise legislation that addresses persistent discrimination against certain groups. While legislation is in place to tackle discrimination, it is essential to increase its visibility and revise it where necessary.

• Ensure that adequate deterrents, such as fines and criminal penalties, are in place and applied when acts of violence (hate crimes) or discrimination take place due to someone’s ethnicity, national origin, descent, or skin colour.
• Immediately remove any exceptions which permit discrimination on these grounds

Strengthen law enforcement systems in order to end police violence, harassment, and profiling and ensure that the police fulfil their duty to protect society. The police practise of ethnic profiling 41 still exists in most countries (e.g. in France, young men perceived as black or Arab are 20 times more likely to be stopped than the rest of the population). Recent statistics show
that in 2017, almost half of those who were stopped by the police believed that this was due to their immigrant or ethnic minority background. 43 Bolt therefore proposes to work to:

• End ethnic profiling during police identity checks and require officers to issue a stop form for every identity check, to encourage well-grounded stops and greater accountability.
• Limit officers’ discretionary authority by requiring reasonable and individualised suspicion for all checks and searches and developing clear guidance for law enforcement officers.
• End police violence through training, accountability mechanisms, and monitoring.
  Remove the terms “race”, “racism”, and “racial discrimination” from all legislation. The current concept of different races is socially constructed, as scientifically there is only one human race (Homo sapiens). The use of such terms should therefore be eliminated in the law and the concept should be redefined. On this merit, policies against discrimination shall consist of the following terms: ethnicity, national origin, descent, or skin colour. N.B. Bolt does not dispute the fact that “racism” * in the traditional meaning of the word * exists and needs to end, but believes that acknowledging that all humans are of one race is a key factor in ending discrimination.

In the public sector

• Ensure that countries lead by example and apply inclusive and equal policies to actively contribute towards real equality. Comprehensive strategies are needed to address the issues with a broad range of measures, such as:
  1. Implementing comprehensive programmes to encourage minorities to get into politics and support them once in, through training courses, mentoring, public campaigns, and other means.
  2. Educating the public about the benefits of diversity in political decision making.
• Train judges, magistrates, and other civil servants to recognise and address implicit biases towards minorities. The justice system is vital to ensuring that disputes are resolved in an orderly manner and that victims are protected. Across Europe, people who are, or seem to be, from minority groups linked to their ethnicity or skin colour are still more likely to face arrest, charging, prosecution or imprisonment. 45 It is therefore essential for judges, magistrates and other civil servants to demonstrate fairness and justice when carrying out their responsibilities. Bolt wants to restore confidence in the justice system and ensure that biases towards minorities are maintained at a minimum, if not eliminated, through training and other methods.

In the workplace

• Increase ethnic and cultural diversity in companies across the continent. Achieving greater diversity is not only the right thing to do but is also profitable for companies; it is more likely to bring competitive advantage to a company and is linked to higher financial returns. 46 Bolt wants to ensure that both the private and public sectors respect and promote diversity and encourage the minority workforce to enter careers in which they are underrepresented.
• Motivate and encourage the minority workforce to enter careers in which they are underrepresented.
• Require all mid-sized to large companies to have confidential channels and hotlines, separate from general employee relations, to report inappropriate, discriminatory, and inappropriate behaviour, violence, and/or harassment. Workplace discrimination can take many forms. It occurs during recruitment and interviews and is reflected in unequal pay, unjustified dismissals, and harassment. 47 Bolt will require employers to have those reporting channels in place and have them managed by an external company or by a separate human resources team.
• Perform temporary positive discrimination (e.g., special practises aimed at fostering equality: “supporting groups of people who face, or have faced, entrenched discrimination so they can have similar access to opportunities as others in the community”) 48 to speed up economic, social, and cultural integration.

In the education system

• Incentivise and protect diversity in schools to promote better educational opportunities. Promoting diversity in schools has several advantages, including educational benefits and the promotion of good relations between people of different backgrounds.49 Bolt wants school curricula to better incorporate diversity. For example, through cross-cultural exchange, the study of books by authors from different backgrounds and with different perspectives, through workshops, and by using more practical pedagogical tools. Additionally, provide internal erasmus opportunities within different regions of the country to diminish regional differences.

Systematic equality of opportunities

• Close the gaps between discriminated groups and the population at large and ensure real equality of opportunities. Systematic differences in health outcomes, housing situation, income, and environmental conditions between discriminated groups and the population at large warrant positive action in closing those gaps and ensuring real equality of opportunities.
  1. Governments and local governments should make sure that quality of housing is systematically the same with what concerns climate standards across social groups.”

Protect human and civil rights of Roma people

• Ensure that Roma people have equal rights, both in the legal system and in practice, and that no more discrimination is tolerated. For this, ensure that they have equal access to education, housing, employment, and healthcare.
  1. Ensure that people are not evicted during the winter, and advocate for a school year truce on expulsions to allow children to stay in school.
  2. Create awareness-raising campaigns about the Roma community to decrease stigma.
  3. Ensure equal access for Roma children to public schools, regardless of living situations. For this, eliminate administrative hurdles (such as requiring children to live in the neighbourhood of the school in order to be able to register there).
  4. Ensure that Roma people have access to basic infrastructure and human needs such as running water, electricity, and heating.
  5. Incentivise programmes at the local level to help tackle issues Roma people most commonly face, including language classes, courses and training to help find employment, assistance in getting the right information on entitlements and access to healthcare, etc.

Protect the human and civil rights with regards to religion or belief

Every individual has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, as long as it does not restrict or violate the rights and freedoms of others. Religious discrimination is an unjustified act against an individual on the basis of their religion or belief. Such an act can be a direct form of violence or harassment, or indirect, where policies and practises place certain populations at a disadvantage. Despite a diverse European society, discrimination on these grounds still persists. For example, two in every five European Muslims experience discrimination in their workplace, housing, and when accessing social services. One third claim verbal abuse.51 Bolt believes that religion is a free choice and should be respected by others. Discrimination on the
grounds of religion or belief includes the absence of a religion or belief, such as atheism.

Bolt also believes in a secular state and will work to ensure that such principles are
respected across the European Union.

In the law

• Promote and revise legislation that addresses persistent discrimination against certain groups. While legislation is in place to tackle discrimination, it is essential to increase its visibility and revise it where necessary.
• Ensure that adequate deterrents, such as fines and criminal penalties, are in place and applied when acts of violence (hate crimes) or discrimination take place due to someone’s religious beliefs and practices.
• Immediately remove any exceptions which permit discrimination on these grounds.
• Strengthen law enforcement systems in order to end police violence, harassment, and profiling and to ensure that the police fulfils their duty to protect society. Conduct training for the police on hate crimes against minorities.
• Guarantee freedom of expression and religion, as long as it does not prevent others from exercising and enjoying their rights and human rights are respected. Balance national security concerns and personal freedoms, only restricting the latter when strictly necessary.

In the public sector

• Ensure that countries lead by example and apply inclusive and equal policies to actively contribute towards real equality. Comprehensive strategies are needed to address the issues, with a broad range of measures, such as training, overcoming stereotypes, etc.
  1. Implement comprehensive programmes to encourage minorities to get into politics and support them once there, through training courses, mentoring, public campaigns, and other means. + Educate the public about the benefits of diversity in political decision-making.
• Train judges, magistrates, and other civil servants to recognise and address implicit biases towards minorities. The justice system is vital to ensure that disputes are resolved in an orderly manner and that victims are protected. Through training and other methods, Bolt wants to reinstate confidence in the justice system and ensure that biases towards minorities are maintained at a minimum, if not eliminated, through training and other methods.

In the workplace

Require all mid-sized to large companies to have confidential channels and hotlines, separate from general employee relations, to report inappropriate and discriminatory behaviour, violence, and/or sexual harassment. Bolt will require employers to put such reporting channels in place and have them managed by an external company or by a separate human resources team.

Ensure that no discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief takes place in the workplace. Workplace policies in both the private and public sectors should not restrict religious rights. This includes the right to wear religious symbols and clothing, for example, the right of a woman to cover her hair, and other practices. Bolt believes that no employer should have the right to tell individuals not to wear religious symbols, 53 unless necessary for health and safety reasons (hereby countering the recent Court of Justice of the European Union judgement).

• Guarantee freedom of expression, including the right to practise one’s religion, as long as it does not deprive others from exercising and enjoying their rights and human rights are respected.
• Ensure that during application processes for employment, candidates are not discriminated against because of their religion. This includes ensuring that job descriptions do not use discriminatory language and avoiding references to personal characteristics. During the recruitment process, individuals should not be required to disclose their religion. Mechanisms should be in place to ensure that individuals can make a complaint if discrimination occurs during the recruitment process.

In the education system

• Bolt will advocate for a European educational standard where public school funding is not used for religious classes or activities and that students from all religious (or non-religious) backgrounds can attend.
• Ideally, schools should be a religion-neutral environment that allows students and teachers to express their own religion. Promote learning experiences:
  1. In the event that schools provide civics classes in which religion is discussed, ensure that they include all (or the highest possible number of) religions, not only the dominant one. This policy does not include theological faculties in higher education.
  2. Foster cross-cultural exchanges, with workshops and visits to religious sites, and more practical pedagogical tools.
• Educate students about the advantages and importance of having a discrimination-free society and workforce. Teachers should present diversity as a positive element of human life.
• Allow children to wear religious symbols as long as they are doing so of their own free will.

Protect human and civil rights of the Jewish people (Antisemitism)

• A clear voice against all kinds of antisemitism, at all times, both to the outside world and within Bolt. Based on the Working Definition of Antisemitism from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.
• Supporting organisations that fight all forms of hatred (including racism, ableism, homophobia, and transphobia), but especially antisemitism.
• Promoting active participation in learning and teaching about the rich history of Jewish life in Europe, as well as establishing a positive image of Europe as a welcoming place for people of all faiths and ethnicities.
• Development of conceptual security measures, in cooperation with Jewish institutions and the security organs, e.g. year-round support of security detail around Jewish institutions with special attention to high risk situations, including, cooperation with local law enforcement to coordinate security measures according to the actual threat level.
• Fixed establishment of Antisemitism representatives, both at the European and national levels * an exemplary best practice for this would be the designation of such a commissioner for Germany.
• Cooperation and extensive expansion of the various reporting offices for antisemitic incidents and crimes.
• When future European armed forces are established, extend Jewish military pastoral care, as is already the case for other religions in several armies.
• Recognising Yiddish and Ladino as official EU minority languages, as is already the case in several EU member states (France, Sweden and Romania).

Alleviate Poverty

In 2017, there were 112.8 million people in the EU-28 who lived in households at risk of poverty or social exclusion (AROPE), equivalent to 22.4% of the entire population. The EU is the second largest economy in the world in 2019 with a cumulated GDP of more than $18.7 billion, and as such, the EU has the necessary resources to significantly reduce poverty and poverty risk in order to eventually eradicate it.

Overall issues linked to Poverty

With almost 1 out of every 4 Europeans 59 facing poverty or social exclusion, and with climate change poised to have an increasingly negative effect on people’s well-being, there is a pressing need to meet the goals set out by the European short-term strategy that aims to have at least “20 million fewer people in – or at risk of – poverty and social exclusion”. 60 The Strategy further aims to drop the number of Europeans in poverty and at risk of poverty or social exclusion to less than 100 million in the mid-term and to less than 50 million in the long term. Social benefits are essential and should be designed to help the most vulnerable. However, they do not represent a long-term solution for alleviating poverty. Therefore, the main focus of Bolt’s policy consists of equipping everyone with the tools they need in order to have access to equal opportunities and
fully participate in society.

Social benefits and healthcare

• Ensure that social benefits guarantee a basic standard of life (taking into account housing, food, clothing, healthcare, professional programmes, etc. in a given region) and cover a broad set of measures. Use social benefits as a transitory measure, aiming to support people to get back on their feet and provide for themselves.
• Introduce a monthly child benefits scheme and send young parents a welcome box for their newborn child. In Finland, such a measure contributed to one of the lowest infant mortality rates in history (e.g., new parents get to send a starter kit of clothes, sheets, and toys, and the box of the package can even be used as a crib). The maternity package is not to be commercially available, but available solely as a benefit offered.
• Ensure universal coverage and access to healthcare across Europe.

In-work poverty

• Guarantee a minimum income above absolute poverty levels. Bolt envisions universal social protection and an adequate income to become core pillars of EU policy making.63 In-work poverty continues to be a burden for many workers throughout Europe. In 2016, 9.6% of EU citizens aged 18 and older who are currently employed faced an in-work poverty risk. 64 In other words, people are not remunerated sufficiently for their work, which represents a deeply unfair situation.
• Venture into unconditional income: support large-scale experiments with unconditional basic income (UBI), to provide a solid knowledge basis to decide on the merits of this novel approach to social protection.

Support for adapting and responding to climate change

Bolt stands for full implementation of state of the art and equitable climate resilience
policies and strategies at all levels across the EU. This package of policies should:

• Protect all people from extreme weather events through effective and prepared disaster response agencies,
• Reward Member States, local governments, and communities for equitable actions,
• Re-think urban areas to strengthen their resilience to heatwaves and floods, such as by expanding the retrofitting of housing to withstand better hot weather and the use of building materials that do not contribute to urban heat,
• Expand effective fire hazard measures and agencies
• Expand publicly backed insurance and support services for those hit by extreme weather events,
• Push for creating and maintaining good working conditions for those working in industries most vulnerable to climate change, such as agriculture and construction,
• Support small scale farmers to adapt better to climate change,
• Recognise the principle of solidarity for climatic impacts that affect parts of the European population, which includes a climate solidarity transfer mechanism to transfer resources from areas least hit to areas worst hit.

Social and Community Housing

In the last few years, house prices have been growing faster than income in most Member States, with inequality and housing exclusion being mutually reinforcing. In addition to that, the presence of online booking portals (such as Airbnb) in major cities has affected accommodation availability and provoked a rise in rental prices. At the same time, economic inequality has been growing in European societies and a large share of the population experiences periods of unemployment.
Furthermore, job market flexibility has resulted in a widespread decrease in the security and social
protection of workers in atypical forms of employment, with significant implications for access to mortgages, rental contracts, and affordable housing prices. Hence, ensuring access to housing with affordable rental prices is undoubtedly an urgent priority, and Bolt intends to tirelessly work to realise it.

Bolt believes that it’s crucial to acknowledge that the housing market is different from other markets. Land is distinguished from other forms of capital because of its unique characteristics: it is fixed in quantity and does not depreciate. In fact, as the population grows, it tends to appreciate. 69 It should therefore be the role of the government to make sure that citizens are protected and to endow public institutions with the task of ensuring that housing policies are sufficiently elaborated, as access to safe, secure, habitable, and affordable housing is strictly interwoven with human dignity.

A living space for everyone

Bolt wants to ensure that there are enough living spaces dedicated to social housing across Europe. Governments should guarantee that there are sufficient residential stocks dedicated to social housing, while promoting innovative forms of shared living and community-led housing. Housing policies should be tackled holistically as the right to a decent life is often entwined with other sensitive issues, such as those of the peripheries, the delicate coexistence and integration between migrants and the local population, the re-urbanisation of areas at risk of abandonment, and the environmental sustainability of buildings.

• Ensure that there is sufficient social housing and that allocation is equally
  spread throughout the urban areas. In particular, Bolt intends to:
  1. Encourage public spending oriented towards investing in the construction of new state-owned dwellings dedicated to recipients of social welfare.
  2. Incentivise the inclusion of private owners (both natural and legal persons)70 into schemes that provide them the opportunity to entrust the management of their property to an association that lets it to low-income individuals for a rent price below the market price. The private owner’s revenue is guaranteed by the specifically instituted guarantee fund . This will ensure adequate state control against mismanagement of such properties.
  3. Re-convert abandoned urban buildings and refurbish existing structures through public spending and, in a complementary manner, through the intermediary action of private associations. Bolt indeed believes that the promotion of urban re-densification is a more efficient, sustainable, and environmentally friendly solution than urban sprawl.
  4. Promote the uniform distribution of social housing within urban areas by ensuring that the distribution of social dwellings is not concentrated in just a few neighbourhoods but is homogeneously spread across the city centre and the peripheral areas. Bolt also intends to promote the development of basic public services in rural and peripheral areas in order to grant a standard of living to the inhabitants.
• Promote community-led housing (CLH). CLH refers to specific types of living arrangements, such as co-housing, co-living, intergenerational housing, co-operative models, and community land trusts. 75 This will be pursued by means of:
  1. Valorisation of different models of CLH to help tackle housing shortages, increase affordability, sustainability, and social cohesion, for more resilient and secure communities.
  2. Subsidise forms of CLH. Subsidies should be offered—both to constructors and to private buyers—for buildings designed according to defined social living standards, with the aim of ensuring shared and affordable living spaces. Bolt will work to ensure that repayable funding, such as low-interest loans to buy new property or to renovate an existing property, is made available. In particular, subsidies should apply in the case of change of ownership (when not connected with a change in the CLH nature of the dwelling), to support the diffusion of the model through the market.
• Provide incentives for homeowners to offer shared social living arrangements to better integrate individuals at risk of marginalisation, such as lonely elderly people or people with intellectual disabilities. Incentives could include fiscal advantages through reduced taxation or subsidies.
• Deploy EU funds to subsidise housing policies across Europe. In particular, Bolt will work towards: Integrating social and shared housing into the EU Cohesion Policy by ensuring that sufficient EU funds are allocated to sustainable social and shared housing across Member States. 78 This can be achieved both by integrating affordable houses and shelters into the decisions for fund allocation and by providing forms of financial support for low-wage earners, including marginalised groups (i.e. migrants, Roma people, etc.) earning a low income.
• Mitigate the “Airbnb effect”. In many touristic places, it is financially more attractive for house owners to rent out to tourists rather than long-term residents. This increases accommodation scarcity and adds up to the increasing prices for housing. Bolt intends to regulate the use of Airbnb-kind of digital platforms.
  1. Establishing limitations across Europe 80 in terms of the number of days that a certain apartment can be rented out through such platforms.
  2. Imposing taxation on the revenue that online booking portals gain from the rental cost, regardless of the country of registration of such portals.

Fair and efficient access to housing policies

Bolt aims to ensure that low-wage earners and marginalised groups have access to the
housing stock to enable a life in dignity.

• Establish a Public Housing Regulatory Framework. Bolt aims to introduce a strategic public housing regulatory framework (PHRF). The PHRF must specify a set of principles and conditions to guide the role of public authorities in managing public housing policy, as well as public, private, and non-profit entities that manage housing stocks. The goal is to ensure that disadvantaged groups are granted fair and efficient access to social housing. Such principles are the following:
  1. Observation of the principles of good administration, transparency, equity, and efficiency by public, private, or public-private entities at any government level;
  2. Assigning the right to access public housing to single beneficiaries. Such a right can not be inherited by relatives of the beneficiary. Once the claimant loses the requirement to live in public housing accommodation, the space ought to be assigned to a new claimant;
  3. Define a share of the housing stock to be accessible only to individuals with special needs, such as disabled citizens or families in which a member is disabled (e.g. psychological trauma and disturbances, degrees of inability);
  4. Enhance administrative control in order to prevent abuse (illegal possession of the accommodation, illegal inheritance of the accommodation by members of the claimant’s family, circumvention of the allocation rules, and illicit circulation of the existing living spaces) .
  5. Establish criteria that regulate the yearly inflation rate of the rent and utilities (e.g., heating, water, etc.) unless relevant and substantial improvements to the building are made. Similarly, establish criteria that regulate the frequency and amount of rent increases. In any case, increased rent and utility prices charged to the lessee are justified when the prices are considerably lower than similar apartments (e.g., size, condition) in the same area.
  6. In the event that local institutions don’t possess the capacity to fulfil the demands for public housing, higher government levels should be endowed with subsidiary competences.
• Digitalise housing services, regardless of the public or private nature of the entity or provider managing the housing stock. Bolt believes that digitalisation can provide an opportunity to enhance the accessibility of the allocation system to the recipients of housing services and can provide them with real-time information over the exact period of queuing, if any. This appears necessary in order to face the further urbanisation of European cities and the consequent difficulties in accessing affordable accommodation.
  1. Bolt intends to promote the adoption, by municipalities, of a digital platform system which grants the users (recipients of the housing policies) the possibility to choose among cheaper or rather more expensive solutions for public housing. The system is based on accumulated points in accordance with the waiting days.
  2. In order to improve mobility, Bolt encourages the adoption of a system that does not limit the choice to a single municipality.

Homelessness

Homelessness levels have been on the rise across Europe in recent years. The EU’s 2020 Poverty Target 87 and Social Investment Funds were supposed to tackle poverty and homelessness. However, European governments, with the exception of Finland, have fallen behind in addressing the issue. Bolt will work tirelessly to ensure that no one is left behind and to help those who are deemed the most vulnerable. Adequate social policies must be put in place to tackle homelessness and rough-sleeping in Europe. In an economically developed continent, there is no justification for people to live on the street; therefore, every member of society must be given a chance to recover from hardship. Such a strategy is not only compassionate and fair; it is also a path to greater economic prosperity and social inclusion, through providing the means for homeless people to become active members of their communities. Homelessness needs to be tackled holistically; therefore, the following is not an exhaustive list, and other policies detailed throughout the document will all contribute towards its eradication, including, but not limited to: social benefits; accessible and appropriate health care; a decrease in unemployment; and reduced in-work poverty.

• Invest in sustainable and affordable public housing to bring down the cost of rent and allocate high-quality housing for those in need. 89 Work with local governments to set targets for investment in social housing. Bolt will push for a “housing first” approach to ending homelessness, providing homeless people with social housing before other rehabilitation steps.
• Provide support for community-based social enterprise and rehabilitation initiatives. To do so, work with civil society organisations to expand initiatives focusing on preventing homelessness as well as providing solutions to help those who are already on the street. Such initiatives can focus on a variety of projects, such as providing homeless people with a place to live and work, as well as lifelong learning through vocational and entrepreneurial programs, particularly in the context of cooperative businesses in which they can participate and co-own.
• Combat indebtedness in vulnerable households, which can be a cause of homelessness among vulnerable groups.
  1. Invest in awareness campaigns against exploitative practises.
  2. Invest in community-based access to finance, particularly micro-finance schemes for entrepreneurship, through community cooperatives in areas at risk.
• Provide a mixture of services to meet needs related to age, gender, and special needs. Addressing the needs of specific groups of vulnerable individuals is fundamental to ensure that they feel comfortable and safe and to implement measures to prevent the prolonging of their “homelessness journeys.”
  1. Provide treatment for drug use (often a cause and/or result of homelessness) and treat addiction as a medical condition rather than a crime.
  2. Provide mental health support and social services to those who have experienced homelessness or social exclusion in order to tackle conditions that may lead to further alienation and worsening of the situation.
  3. Increase the provision of preventative services, such as family mediation and short-term respite accommodation, so that in cases where homelessness can be prevented, families are supported to work through conflict.
  4. Tackle gender-based violence and related gendered causes of women’s homelessness, including indebtedness and a lack of access to public services, and address underlying gendered aspects of poverty and homelessness.
• Support existing European and national strategies to end homelessness and alleviate poverty. Bolt will push for an EU strategy to end homelessness, as well as national strategies in every member state, and reinforce anti-poverty strategies. When the European Commission reviews national policies, known as the European semester, 94 it must provide a social focus aimed at ending poverty, homelessness, and exclusion.
• Shorten the time period until the final asylum decision is taken, allowing asylum seekers to work from day one, and support and provide access to vocational training. 95 Work with civil society to match people in need with housing and public services, as seen in Utrecht’s Urban Innovative Action.
• Encourage businesses to take on long-term unemployed and/or homeless people by providing tax breaks and offering government subsidies.

Youth

• Allow all students free internet access, as it can help reduce poverty by providing opportunities for growth. Access and connectivity to technology and the internet is not only a matter of economic potential or consumer protection, but a social, cultural, and economic right. This is why Bolt wants to ensure that there are high-quality internet connections across Europe 98 in terms of the fastest available mobile network connections and wifi, including in rural areas and marginalised communities, as soon as possible. The economic benefits of widespread connectivity should be encouraged, while provisions must be equitable, fair, and universal as a merit or public good.
• Provide youth and students free access to participation and enjoyment of culture by showing their national ID or any other official document that indicates their age and/or confirms student status. This includes free entry to museums, monuments, concerts, art exhibitions, music lessons, municipal theatres, and cinemas.
• Reform the European Youth Card to offer reduced prices for public and private transportation (intercity and urban) all over the European Union in order to promote travel as a positive initiative that develops a pan-European identity. This card should be available for free to all young people (0-30 years old) who can prove that they face poverty in Europe. Make public transportation free for youth in vocational training and general education who are job-seeking.
• Provide young people with free access to the healthcare system. 100 Universal access to high-quality and affordable healthcare is a basic right for everyone in Europe. Bolt will set European standards for fast access to specialised healthcare and standardise preventive health care programmes for children.
• Εqualise the minimum wage for all workers above the age of 18 in order to stop the age gap in salaries. This is to discontinue the practise in some European countries in which young people (18–25 years old) are legally paid less than those over 25 years old.
• Ensure minimum child benefits all over Europe and harmonise them to minimum standards in the EU. Universal child benefits substantially reduce child poverty. Efficient family policies, such as providing adequate child benefits, lead to better chances to secure a sustainable work-life balance and to protect children from social exclusion.

Education

• Provide free and daily school meals to all students to break the cycle of hunger and child poverty. Access to free meals has nutritional and health benefits and supports productivity and educational success.
• Improve the quality and accessibility of childcare services and promote early learning programmes for children to ensure early education services and enhance children’s learning skills. These should be available to all children under 6 years of age for free.
• Encourage skill-training (eg., woodworking, culinary, sewing, foreign languages, rhetoric, business management) while at school, aiming to develop skills that enhance human capital and lead to long-term gains in employment and standard of living.
• Ensure that students have access to career guidance. Such guidance will include opportunities available for students, including higher education and career options. Counselling will also provide an opportunity to learn about the job market.
• Perform temporary positive discrimination to speed up economic, social, and cultural integration (i.e., special practises aimed at fostering equality: “supporting groups of people who face, or have faced, entrenched discrimination so they can have similar access to opportunities as others in the community.”) Include special tracks and exams that reward merit among students from disadvantaged backgrounds to increase their access to good schools and universities.
• Ensure the necessary funding goes through all levels of education (including tertiary and vocational education), including through low or no-interest loans for students and/or their families, subsidised by governments.
• Reduce the stigma attached to homelessness through educational policies and by running awareness-raising campaigns, particularly targeted at youth.

Include everyone in society

Seniors

Intergenerational engagement

• Introduce intergenerational/multigenerational houses to revive the idea of interaction and mutual support between young and old. The subsidy programme for multigenerational living, run by the German Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, and Youth (BMFSFJ), is a model that other countries should investigate. It is implemented with EU, federal, and local funding in the form of a co-financing mode.
• Introduce state-sponsored mentoring programmes that connect retirees with young people. Such intergenerational programmes are beneficial for both parties 108. Young people gain attention and the mentoring they often lack. Therefore, it could be part of the solution to tackle expensive childcare systems. Seniors benefit from learning new skills (e.g. technology), having company, and a sense of purpose, which further tackles the loneliness of seniors.

Infrastructures

• Ensure the capillarity of services for seniors, including in remote locations and rural areas. This could, for example, help elderly people who wish to remain in their homes, but live outside areas of high service density.
• Support programmes and centres for the elderly by providing seniors with geriatric healthcare services and supporting them in activities such as trips, lifelong learning, and other programmes as such. Ensure that seniors have access to goods and services, including the web. Bolt will work to increase the focus on digital technological literacy education for all ages.
• Ensure transport is accessible and affordable for seniors.
  1. Ensure that seniors can travel at a reduced cost on local public transportation.
  2. Provide discounts and concessions on train tickets. This would also apply to privately-owned train companies.
  3. Adapt public transportation so that seniors who are less mobile can freely use it. This includes requiring public transportation (e.g. buses, trams) to have wheelchair lifts and requiring every train to have at least one wheelchair-accessible railcar.

Work

• Provide incentives for individuals to continue to be engaged at work, in accordance with their ability and skills.
• Fight discrimination based on age in everyday life, in the workplace, and in seeking employment.
• Encourage lifelong learning to enable people to adapt to changes in the labour market and in society. 111 Bolt supports a strategy to move “From an Unemployment to an Employment Insurance”, with a reorientation towards a preventive scheme focused on maintaining employability, including for the elderly.

People with Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND)

People with SEND shall be treated with decency and shall always have access to (basic) services. They should have access to equal opportunities in society. People with SEND are people first, with their own lives, ambitions, and hopes.

Education

Education should aim to promote the academic, practical, social, and emotional learning of all learners. Disabled children and children with special educational needs are entitled to an education that pushes them to reach their full potential.

• Ensure that educator qualifications include special education needs and disability training and, where practical, placement experience in a setting caring for children with additional needs. 114
  1. Ensure educational institutions approach teaching as a learning activity, where teachers take responsibility for their lifelong learning.
  2. Promote learner differences as an asset to education.
  3. Promote anti-bullying campaigns to promote inclusion and understanding.
• Create and enforce an inclusion requirement for educational facilities, which will consist of producing information on admissions policies and making reasonable adjustments to admit children with additional needs. This requirement should be supported by clear arrangements with local authorities to provide the necessary support.
• Ensure that families of children with SEND have access to affordable, suitable, and high-quality childcare. 118 In order to do this:
  1. Identify where financial support must be improved to meet the extra costs of childcare for disabled children and remove barriers to access.
  2. Introduce a requirement for local authorities to publish clear information on access to childcare, including support for parents and providers.
  3. Ensure inclusivity is supported in mainstream schools so that children with SEND can be part of one inclusive system. This excludes cases where children would benefit more from specialised institutions.
• Ensure data (including statistical and research data) is collected in a holistic manner to enable states to formulate appropriate policies, while complying with legal safeguards and international norms to protect human rights in the collection and use of statistics.

Health and Wellbeing

• Destigmatise mental health by:
  1. Easing access to mental health care.
  2. Openly discussing mental illness in education and at work.
  3. Incentivising schools and companies to provide mental health support.
• Ensure that people with SEND, their next of kin and carers explore and understand their rights and how to navigate the healthcare system. This could include face-to-face training, online modules, and online resources. Provide criteria for quality (a set of non-mandatory standards for delivering health services) so that healthcare providers can assess how their provisions meet the needs and preferences of people with SEND.
• Draft and enforce minimum standards for psychiatric hospitals, rehabilitation centres, and other hospitals with longer-term patients, which should include but not be limited to:
  1. Providing support to people with SEND.
  2. Systematically involving people with SEND in planning and managing their own healthcare, when possible.
  3. Ensuring health professionals have training on how to communicate with people with learning difficulties and communication impairments.

Into Adulthood

• Ensure services facilitate the successful transition of young people with complex health needs from childhood to adulthood.Transitional care should be commissioned collaboratively by child and adult services.
• Support mid-sized to large companies to make work experience schemes fully inclusive, so that people with special education needs and disabilities have opportunities to join the workforce and are supported to take up these opportunities.

Participation

• Ensure the accessibility of public transportation everywhere and support barrier-free transport (e.g., barrier-free underground and metro services, regular transportation in rural areas, etc). People with SEND should be involved in planning decisions about local and accessible public transport, so that transport issues do not become a barrier to people’s participation.
• Set minimum quotas across the private and public sector (mid-sized to large companies) to ensure that people with SEND are given the chance to work. If quotas are not met, companies should provide and contribute to vocational programmes to integrate people with disabilities. Give benefits to companies that employ people with disabilities and tax breaks to companies focusing on technological innovation for those in need.
• Promote the supported employment model, which is an individualised model to ensure people with SEND secure and retain employment. Using a collaborative strategy, the model allows people with SEND to sustain employment and businesses to employ valuable workers.
• Ensure that people with SEND are included in political decision-making processes. Provide clear guidance on how to involve people with SEND in strategic decision making, which should include indicators to measure the performance of the development of inclusive participation opportunities.

Social Care

• Establish a new statutory right to a period of ‘adjustment leave’ to enable parents to cope with the onset of a disability in a child and put care arrangements in place. Provide support to families from the time of diagnosis that their child has a learning disability. 127 This could include a key worker to support the family, and it is particularly important if the parent or carer has SEND needs themselves.

Holistic approach

• Provide guidance and funding to ensure provisions such as leisure centres, after-school clubs, and holiday play schemes can accommodate people with special educational needs and disabilities. This includes training staff, ensuring buildings are accessible, and ensuring activities are differentiated.
• Ensure coordination and cooperation among services (such as social care services, education, hospitals, transportation, etc.) to ensure a holistic approach and good communication between the key stakeholders.

Child in care

Every child deserves a home and an opportunity to live a happy life. Institutions, or orphanages, across Europe are proving to be insufficient to accommodate and address the needs of children who have been placed under the care of the state. Deinstitutionalisation is the process of replacing institutional care for children with care in a family or family-like environment. The main focus should therefore be placed on supporting adoption policies and reforming the current institutional system. Poverty and social exclusion among families is a driving force of children’s institutionalisation * many children placed in orphanages have parents * therefore our children’s care policy goes hand in hand with our policy on the alleviation of poverty.

• Give the opportunity to adopt a child to every adult—regardless of their gender identity, sexual orientation, or marital status—based on the same criteria as those imposed on heterosexual couples, according to local law.
• Enable children to have more than two legal parents if it is in the best interest of the child. Typical examples of this include a child raised by both their biological parents and by a third person who equally cares for the child, who could be a step-parent or a person who is also considered by the child to be a parent.
• Reform existing institutional care systems to improve the quality of care, including re-training and training staff, supporting independent living skills and personalised transition plans, and strengthening existing services. Increase public spending to strengthen such institutions and ensure they are of the highest quality.
• Transition from institutional care to family and community care (deinstitutionalisation), with a focus on the integration of children into communities and wider society to avoid segregation and social exclusion.

Ending Human Trafficking

Ensure the implementation of a European strategy to end human trafficking that includes:

• A human-rights-based approach that places the victim at the centre of any action related to the prevention and response to human trafficking.
• The local dimension: To ensure that the human rights and dignity of the trafficked persons are protected, local authorities should undergo special training on how to recognise, help, and protect victims.
• A gender and child-sensitive approach.
• Cybersecurity: The internet has provided grounds for new forms of exploitation, which must be acknowledged and assessed.
• International cooperation: Ensure that the multidirectional information flow between police forces and agencies such as Europol and Interpol Cooperation is extended to include local institutions, civil society organisations, and NGOs, as they are the actors closest to the victims and potential victims.

Own your body

Sex Work

Legalize sex work, while heavily regulating the profession.

• Legalise sex work, and ensure that safe working places exist; such as brothels.
• Ensure that sex workers get insurance, healthcare, and other standard protections.
• Address violence and trafficking, and ensure access to legal services.

Ending life with dignity

Ending life is a profound existential process that cannot be reduced to a mere medical
procedure. Bolt believes that every person has the right to determine how to end their life with
dignity, as long as no other person’s life is harmed. A wide range of support should be available and accessible for those people seeking help, in addition to medical attention, e.g., palliative medicine to alleviate pain, hospices to offer psychological or spiritual support, or flexible work-time to allow family members to care for dying relatives. In extreme cases of “constant and unbearable physical or mental suffering that cannot be alleviated,” a person may seek assistance to end their life and deserves to be supported in doing so with dignity.
We distinguish three forms of terminating life upon request:

• Passive Euthanasia: Passive euthanasia occurs when the person dies because the medical professionals either don’t do the necessary to keep the person alive, or they stop doing something that is keeping the person alive, such as switching off life-support machines, disconnecting a feeding tube, not carrying out a life-extending operation, or not giving life-extending drugs. Assisted Suicide: A person makes the request out of their free will, without coercion or pressure by other people, and with full conviction to take their life, and seeks professional (typically a doctor’s) assistance. Before undertaking assisted suicide, the person should first be given the opportunity to explore other life and death options available. At the very end, the person stays in full control of the process and is solely responsible for their death. The physician’s role is to supply, but not to administer, the lethal drug. Active Euthanasia : Active euthanasia occurs when a doctor, or another person, intentionally administers a fatal dose of a medication to cause the patient’s death at the patient’s request and with full, informed consent. The main difference between assisted suicide and active euthanasia is that active euthanasia is entirely physician-mediated, including the administration of the lethal dose, whereas people committing assisted suicide administer the lethal dose to themselves.

Bolt stands for the following policies:

Legalise assisted suicide for competent adults who suffer from “constant and unbearable physical or mental suffering that cannot be alleviated”. Ensure that the following criteria are met before allowing assisted suicide:
1. The person is a competent adult who suffers from “constant and unbearable physical or mental suffering that cannot be alleviated.”
2. The person undergoes an ex-ante evaluation with at least two independent doctors and one psychiatrist. They need to confirm that the person is a competent adult who suffers from “constant and unbearable physical or mental suffering that cannot be alleviated,” and that the person is making the request out of their own free will, not coerced or pressured by other people.
3. The person’s request must be made earnestly and with full conviction, as determined during the ex-ante evaluation.
4. If the person is a minor, we only allow assisted suicide in exceptional circumstances, with the consent of parents if they are younger than years old, and with the parents at least informed if they are under 18, and a confirmation by at least two independent doctors and one psychiatrist that the minor is competent to make such a decision.

• Ensure that during the procedure;
  1. The person stays in full control of the process. Indeed, the physician’s role is to supply, but not to administer, the lethal drug.
  2. If the patient chooses so, family and friends are allowed to be present.
• Put in place an ex-post committee to review all cases of assisted suicide, comprised of at least a medical expert, an ethicist, and a legal expert. Every instance of assisted suicide must be reported.
• Make publicly available the names of doctors willing to assist. Ensure that no doctor is forced to take part in such a procedure.
• Strictly oppose active euthanasia, with one exception:
  1. Allow active euthanasia only when a person fulfils all the conditions for assisted suicide (see provisions above) but is physically handicapped in such a way that makes it impossible for the person to administer the legal dose themself. Ensure that the doctor’s intervention is as limited as possible.
  2. Bolt opposes the legalisation of active euthanasia, as it is a highly controversial issue that raises ethical and legal issues, in particular the fact that another party performs the act of taking the life of a person.

Reproductive rights

The right to health includes women’s sexual and reproductive rights, which states have an obligation to respect, protect, and guarantee. Women are entitled to reproductive health care services, goods, and facilities that are (a) available in adequate amounts; (b) accessible physically and economically; (c) accessible without discrimination; and (d) of good quality. Access to health services is a human right. However, women are often either denied this right or have limited access to it, especially when it comes to abortion or contraception.

Abortion

• Make abortion accessible in law and practice, and free for all women, at least until the end of the first trimester.
  1. Ensure that abortions are not only legal, but also accessible. This means that health centres and hospitals should offer the procedures across regions, and that there should be no unreasonably long waiting lists.
  2. Ensure that women have knowledge of, and access to, all possible types of abortion.
• Make abortions accessible at a later stage as well, when a continued pregnancy would endanger the health of the mother or when the fetus is not viable.
• Remove undue burdens on women, such as “cooling off periods”, parental consent, spousal or partner consent, multiple appointments necessitating multiple days off, etc.
  1. For women under the age of 16, no parental consent is necessary, but an adult needs to be present.
  2. Abortions need to be provided by enough doctors, hospitals, clinics, and others to make it not only legal but easily accessible.

Contraception

• Ensure that women have access to the morning after pill without a prescription from a doctor, that pharmacies are required to sell them, and that it is reimbursed by public healthcare.
• Ensure that women have access to doctors to be prescribed contraceptive methods. Require pharmacies to sell the various contraceptive methods and for those to be reimbursed by public healthcare.
• Reform the healthcare system so that all contraception is reimbursed by providers of healthcare and services upon request, without any need to report patient age.

Education

• Introduce accurate, mandatory classes on sexual reproductive health and rights in schools. Bolt will advocate for a European educational standard for the curricula and ensure that schools comply with it.
• Ensure that hospitals offer free educational information and/or programmes on sexual reproductive health and rights and that women are informed about their rights, contraception, and protection against sexually transmitted diseases.

Surrogacy

Surrogacy is a method of assisted reproduction. There are two types of surrogacy arrangements: gestational surrogacy, where the embryo is created via in vitro fertilisation (IVF) using the eggs and sperm of the intended parents or donors, and traditional surrogacy, where the surrogate mother uses her own egg and is artificially inseminated using sperm from the intended father or a donor. A surrogacy agreement can be altruistic or commercial. Surrogacy is already legal in some European countries, including the UK, Denmark, Ireland, Belgium, Greece, and the Netherlands, given that
the surrogate does not receive any financial benefit.

• Legalise surrogacy agreements when they are altruistic (not counting reimbursement of expenses)
• Research potential ways to legalise commercial surrogacy agreements while ensuring that it does not increase the power of black markets.

Conversion Therapy

Conversion therapy refers to any form of treatment or psychotherapy that aims to change a person’s sexual orientation or to suppress a person’s gender identity. The basic assumption behind such therapy is that being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender is a disease, mental illness, deficiency, or disability that can be ‘cured’. Conversion therapy is a delusory and harmful act that can lead to depression, anxiety, drug use, homelessness, and suicide, with minors being the most vulnerable to such practice.

• Ban the practice of conversion therapy across Europe and the pathologisation of trans identities. Ensure that no person will be allowed to advertise, offer, or force a person to undergo such therapy. Further, no person can be forcibly removed from a member state for the purposes of undergoing conversion therapy.
• Encourage social acceptance and psychological support for anyone undergoing gender transition or identity exploration and development, including interventions that are sexual orientation-neutral.