The European Left candidate to succeed Jean-Claude Juncker told Euronews "we have to change the system" in order to fight global warming.
ADVERTISEMENTSlovenia's Violeta Tomic, the European Left candidate for the role of European Commission President, told Euronews that "neo-liberal capitalism" makes the fight against climate change impossible.
"With neo-liberal capitalism you cannot really change the climate goals because it follows unlimited growth on a planet which has some limits so we have to establish a new system ," Tomic said.
She made the comments on Raw Questions as part of a series of live interviews Euronews is running in the build-up to next month’s European elections.
Tomic is one of the candidates hoping to succeed Jean-Claude Juncker as European Commission President after May's EU parliamentary election. You can learn more about her by clicking here.
Green New Deal
Tomic said a new system putting people first, and "not the profit, not money, not banks" needs to be established to derail rising temperatures.
She also called for Europe to introduce its own "Green New Deal" to "green the economy and invest in green infrastructure" as well as fund research into "green technology."
She argued such a plan "will prevent another possible financial crisis in Europe" and that it will provide "a lot of jobs for young, educated people."
No to NATO
For the European Left candidate, EU nations should leave the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), whose purpose is to protect its members from external threat, arguing it has led to an increase in terrorist activities.
"We Europeans are also responsible with NATO to occupy and destroy Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan. What were our troops doing there?" she argued.
"Nothing justifies the actions [of terror groups] but it is always the cause and consequence. If we will have peaceful politics then we will have friends all around the world because I came from previous Yugoslavia and we were the members of non-aligned movement and still I'm thinking that Europe has to be non-aligned," she went on.
Previously on Raw Questions...
Last week we interviewed two other people in the running to be the next president of the European Commission.
They were Green MEP Ska Keller and social democrat Frans Timmermans.
Read more
- 'Far-right rising because people fed up with financial sector's behaviour,' says Timmermans
- 'Climate issue totally connected to social issue,' says EC president hopeful Ska Keller
Next up is...
Guy Verhofstadt, representing the Liberals takes part on May 13 at 16h CEST and Jan Zahradil from the Conservatives will follow on May 14 at 21h CEST.
The sessions, in partnership with Facebook, will take place at the European Parliament in Brussels.
Most of the major political groups in the European parliament are nominating their preferred candidates to become Commission president. EU heads of state will formally nominate one, after taking into consideration which groups won the most votes in the bloc-wide elections that conclude on May 26. Then the new parliament needs to ratify that candidate.