Why now

Basic income has been discussed for at least fifty years. The useful question is not whether it is a good idea in the abstract, but why the debate has just moved out of the seminar room and into the European institutions.

Something changed on 7 July 2026

On that day the European Commission registered a European Citizens' Initiative titled «Introduction of Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) throughout the EU». It is the 132nd initiative the Commission has registered.

The organisers' stated reasoning is explicit: with the rapid development of artificial intelligence and robotics there is, they write, an urgent need to decouple our livelihoods from the ability to sell our labour, because soon there will not be enough jobs to go round.

Be careful about what this means and what it does not. The Commission has approved nothing and committed to nothing: it declared the initiative admissible — formally in order. From there, the organisers have six months to open a signature collection that runs for twelve months and must reach one million signatures from at least seven member states.

Why this is not a procedural footnote

A citizens' initiative that reaches the threshold obliges the Commission to respond publicly and with reasons. Not to legislate: to respond. In a Union where the question of how people live when work changes has spent years confined to conferences, that is the difference between a discussion and an act.

An earlier attempt had already been made. The collection that closed in June 2022 fell far short of the threshold. It is worth asking what has changed since, and the honest answer is that the technology arrived earlier than expected in occupations that were assumed to be safe.

What you will find here

The arguments, sorted by type: economic, social, ethical. The evidence — what actually happened where basic income has been tried, including the inconvenient parts. The objections, set out in full and with the best answers we know of, where answers exist. And a series of articles that take one point at a time.

You will not find promises of paradise. A basic income is a tool, with real costs and real limits. The claim of this site is that it is the least bad tool for getting through the next twenty years.