Technology: General Doctrine
Technological development is not synonymous with human progress, and should be judged by its effects on autonomy, family, community and work.
Positions
This catalogue answers a narrow question: what does Restore Europe hold on this issue? It does not replace the manifesto. The manifesto sets out the worldview; this sets out searchable, topic-by-topic positions.
Where Catholic moral teaching is clear, Restore Europe generally adopts it as the moral baseline, and states civil-law implementation separately. One departure is recorded explicitly: on capital punishment Restore Europe takes the older traditional allowance for exceptional cases rather than the contemporary abolitionist position.
The catalogue distinguishes the constitutional order Restore Europe seeks from European law as it currently stands. Several positions — on nationality, on deprivation of citizenship, on speech, on the public standing of religion and on capital punishment — would require constitutional or treaty change before they could be enacted in particular European states. Where that is so, the entry says it.
Version 0.2 settles the questions version 0.1 had left open: the European institutional relationship, asylum, deportation, wages, taxation, pensions, housing, labour representation, digital identity and currency, biometric surveillance, genetic engineering, sentencing, the energy mix and every standing question of foreign policy. Where a v0.2 formulation revised an earlier entry, the newer text governs.
Every question in this catalogue carries a position. Entries marked Derived follow the direction of the manifesto without their implementation being fixed, and several name the legal or treaty change they would require. Positions are revised as the movement decides; the version and date above say which text you are reading.
18 of 89 positions match.
V
What may be built, what should be deployed, and what must remain within reach.
Technological development is not synonymous with human progress, and should be judged by its effects on autonomy, family, community and work.
AI may be used as a tool but should not displace human judgment merely because automation is technically possible or economically efficient.
Automation may remove genuinely degrading labour, but removing human participation from productive activity is not an unquestioned good.
Citizens should retain meaningful access to physical money and to face-to-face public services.
Citizens should retain meaningful access to repairable products, against unnecessary disposability and technological lock-in.
Citizens should retain meaningful private spaces free from permanent surveillance, with the detailed rules not yet settled.
Children should receive strong legal protection from social-media systems designed to maximize compulsive attention and psychological dependence.
Digital identification may exist as an optional convenience, but ordinary civic participation must not require compulsory digital-only identity.
A CBDC must not replace physical cash or become a compulsory, programmable system of transaction surveillance.
Lawful cryptocurrency ownership and transfer should remain permitted, while fraud, theft and abusive centralized custody remain regulated.
Permanent or indiscriminate facial-recognition surveillance of the general population should be prohibited.
Indiscriminate permanent retention of the communications metadata of the entire population should be rejected.
Therapeutic genetic medicine may be legitimate, while heritable enhancement and the instrumentalization of embryonic human life face a strong prohibition.
Medicine may heal and restore, but human beings should not be treated as raw material for technological optimization or replacement.
IX
Stewardship of an inheritance that was not made by us.
Energy policy should be judged by reliability, strategic resilience, affordability, environmental stewardship and long-term human welfare rather than loyalty to one technology.
X
Strategic independence, and a standing presumption against unnecessary war.
Restore Europe is sceptical of permanent dependence on NATO and favours greater national and European strategic independence.
Constructive cooperation with the United States without political, military, technological or cultural dependency.
Pragmatic relations with China combined with strong protection against strategic dependence and control of critical infrastructure.