Fair trade and ethical finance: the possible synergy

The present work aims at helping promote, especially at the European level, Fair Trade as a strategic movement in building an economy of justice, through the support of organisations that operate in Ethical Finance.

After outlining the relevance of both Fair Trade and Ethical Finance in Europe, their relationship is analysed, in order to understand how to better realize a synergy to pursue their common objectives, aimed at promoting the role of those who are marginalized in today’s economic system (starting from small producers), as well as giving a perspective to many citizens increasingly aware of their power as consumers/savers and of their role in the political construction of the European Union.

In order to definitively realize this synergy, we will need to start from what has been achieved in recent years, promoting good practices, but also reviewing and overcoming limitations and weaknesses, as well as adapting to current economic and social relationships that can express a lot of new potential. Through this synergy, as a matter of fact, the Ethical Finance and the Fair Trade movements will bring forth the proposals of the many people whom they ideally represent in front of those institutions that have been deft to the requests for a fair and just economy, and have therefore lost a significant part of their democratic legitimacy. Such legitimacy can be recovered by taking into account the Fair Trade and Ethical Finance proposals, realizing those reforms which are capable of directing finance and the market to respect human rights and the environment.