General Strikes and Demonstrations Against Austerity Tomorrow

Across Europe tomorrow (November 14) there will strikes and demonstrations against the austerity measures being driven by national governments, the European Commission, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank. Below is the call issued by the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) Executive Committee on October 17 calling the mobilisations.

Declaration adopted by the ETUC Executive Committee at their meeting on 17 October 2012

1. The ETUC Executive Committee meeting on 17 October 2012 call for a day of action and solidarity on 14 November 2012, including strikes, demonstrations, rallies and other actions, mobilising the European trade union Movement behind ETUC policies as set down in the Social Compact for Europe. 
2. They express their strong opposition to the austerity measures that are dragging Europe into economic stagnation, indeed recession, as well as the continuing dismantling of the European social model. These measures, far from reestablishing confidence, only serve to worsen imbalances and foster injustice.
3. While supporting the objective of sound accounts, the Executive Committee consider that the recession can only be stopped if budgetary constraints are loosened and imbalances eliminated, with a view to achieving sustainable economic growth, and social cohesion, and respecting the values enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights. 
4. Fiscal consolidation had a sharper effect than originally estimated by Institutions, including the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Indeed the IMF now admits that they grossly miscalculated the impact austerity measures have on growth. This miscalculation has an unmeasurable impact on the daily life of workers and citizens the ETUC represents, and brings into question the whole basis of austerity policies advanced by the Fiscal Treaty and imposed by the Troika. 
5. The Executive Committee note mounting opposition among citizens and workers in the countries concerned and reaffirm their support for affiliated unions fighting for decent working and living conditions. This situation results from the lack of coordination of economic policies and the absence of minimum social standards throughout Europe. In the context of free movement of capital, this gave free rein to competition between states, in particular in the field of taxation, labour costs and social conditions. 
6. They reiterate that social dialogue and collective bargaining are central to the European Social Model. They strongly oppose the frontal attacks on these rights, at national and European level. The ETUC Executive Committee urgently calls for immediate adoption and transposition of the European social partners agreements currently before Council. 
7. They recall that the Union is treaty-bound to “work for the sustainable development of Europe based on balanced economic growth and price stability, a highly competitive social market economy, aiming at full employment and social progress, and a high level of protection and improvement of the quality of the environment”. They further recall that the ETUC’s support for the Lisbon Treaty was mainly predicated on the full application of those objectives. 
8. They note that discussions are currently under way among Institutions and governments about the desirability of further treaty changes. A change of direction is necessary and priority should be given to resolving the crisis in line with the three pillars of our proposed Social Compact for Europe, which is gathering increasing support. This is articulated around social dialogue & collective bargaining, economic governance for sustainable growth & employment, and economic, tax & social justice. 
9. They insist that active solidarity, social progress and democratic accountability must be an integral part of the European project. They consider as essential that a social progress protocol to be included as an integral and operative part of any new treaty. The ETUC will evaluate any new step in European integration on this basis.
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Europe: Facing the “crisis of our time”

Henri Wilno
International Viewpoint
August 2012

During the 1930s, US president Herbert Hoover liked to say that recovery was “just around the corner”. During the current crisis and most especially in Europe it would be difficult to count the number of statements by leaders (Nicolas Sarkozy was a specialist at this) periodically announcing either the end of the crisis, or more prudently, for example after a European summit, that we are now on the right road.

The situation in June and July 2012 shows, if it were necessary, that nothing of the sort is true. After so many European summits presented as decisive, the Spanish bank crisis combined with the situation in Greece marks a new stage of the financial crisis in Europe.

At almost any time, there could be an acceleration of events in the Euro zone leading to a serious undermining of the single currency and a banking crisis. In this context, it is especially interesting to consider the possible trajectories of European construction.

The economic crisis cannot be reduced to the European crisis
An erroneous vision of the situation tends to be advanced by some economists and journalists: the current phase of the crisis would be linked to the financial difficulties of the Euro zone and this latter would imperil the whole of the world economy. Some leaders, notably those in the United Kingdom and US President Barack Obama, find it useful to project onto Europe the responsibility for the bad conjuncture in their countries. Thus the British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne told the “Sunday Telegraph” on June 10: “our recovery – already facing powerful headwinds from high oil prices and the debt burden left behind by the boom years – is being killed off by the crisis on our doorstep.”
There is no doubt that the situation in the Euro zone amplifies the crisis but the latter is far from being summed up thus. In fact, as Alex Callinicos puts it in an article entitled “The crisis of our times” [1], there are three dimensions to the current situation:

• the weakness of US and European growth, showing that the initial causes of the crisis have not been surmounted: the accumulated weight of debt, uncertainties about the bank balance sheets, compression of wage demand;
• the paralysis of the main dominant classes of the Western countries torn by their divisions: ultra neoliberal Republicans vs. Democrats in the USA, divisions between countries in Europe;
• the end of the illusion that the emergent economies and notably China could come to the aid of the OECD economies.
  

The uncertainties about world growth have been confirmed by the new projections of the IMF published in mid July, 2012 which note that the recovery of the world economy is showing new signs of weakness.

The economic crisis cannot then be reduced to the European crisis. However, Europe certainly appears as the weak link in the current configuration of capitalism. The Euro zone is indeed experiencing the most calamitous growth of all the big economic zones (-0.3% in 2012, +0.7% in 2013 according to the IMF projections) and its recession in 2012, through the slowing up of its imports, weakens world trade and thus the activity of other countries. It could be added that its financial crisis (the situation of the banks, public debt) increases world uncertainty.

A structural crisis of the Euro zone
Michel Husson’s study "Political economy of the Euro system” analyses the current crisis of the Euro zone with regard to its structural contradictions. At the risk of being schematic, his reasoning can be summed up in three points:

1. The countries of Southern Europe have lost competitiveness because of high inflation of a structural nature. The latter stems from the process of catch-up (more rapid growth), the mode of training of employees in services and what he characterises in his text as a “distribution conflict” linked to income inequality.
2. The early years of the Euro allowed the countries of Southern Europe to benefit from lower real interest rates (that is, taking inflation into account) than the countries of the North and the possibility of “risk free” trade deficits. The situation changed with:
• the policy of wage squeeze in Germany introduced by the Schroeder government (with the Hartz reforms) which improved German competitiveness and thus strongly reduced that of its partners.
• the crisis and the policies implemented to deal with it, which have increased public deficits and the rate of indebtedness of states and seen the reappearance of external constraints through the interest rates the states have to pay to refinance themselves.
3. Resolving the debt problem would not deal with the structural difficulties resulting from the heterogeneity of the countries of the zone and the absence of sufficiently serious resources for a convergence policy (weakness of the community budget and so on).

These three elements are especially pertinent. We see now the consequences of the neoliberal turn of European construction. The European Union has always been in its very conception a project of capitalist integration but its development has involved a passage from “Keynesian” economic policies to a neoliberal mode of economic regulation. We can date this turn from the Single European Act, signed in 1986 and entering into force in 1987.

What potential trajectory?
There is however room for discussion around the conclusions that Husson draws from this analysis and concerning the potential trajectory of the EU. One senses some hesitations in reading the text. Husson specifies in his first paragraph that “there are only two responses adapted to the structural nature of the European crisis: either the breakup of the Euro system, or its radical refoundation. The others confine themselves to staggering the contradictions over time or programming a socially unacceptable regression”. At the end of the text he specifies: “the only coherent road is that of cooperative harmonisation. This would rest on a European budget based on a unified tax on capital incomes which would finance the necessary transfers (a harmonisation fund) and socially and ecologically useful investment”. He recalls correctly that the “sweet” variant of the dominant policies (in the manner of Hollande) prolongs the current situation and leads to decades of adjustment imposed on the peoples of Europe. And finally puts forward a variant based on a national but non-nationalist rupture with neoliberal capitalism (with a reference to the programme advanced by Syriza during the Greek elections of 2012).

The debate here goes back to those of nearly a century ago. Leon Trotsky examined thus the possible outcomes of the First World War: “ In the case of an “undecided” issue of the war, Liszt thinks the indispensability of an economic and military understanding of the European Great Powers would come to the fore against weak and backward peoples, but above all, of course, against their own working masses. We pointed out above the colossal hindrances that lie in the way of realizing this program. The even partial overcoming of these hindrances would mean the establishment of an imperialist Trust of European States, a predatory share-holding association. The proletariat will in this case have to fight not for the return to “autonomous” national states, but for the conversion of the imperialist state trust into a Republican European Federation.” [2]

We can discuss the concrete relevance of Trotsky’s analyses of the time. But the concerns which underlie them remain pertinent. Certainly, as has been said above, the European Union is a capitalist project, and that has been strengthened with the Single Act and the Euro. But this does not reduce the illusory, indeed dangerous character of national inflections.

In fact, the question is: how can Europe, and more particularly the Euro zone, survive the crisis? This crisis is a “big crisis”, “the crisis of our time” as Callinicos puts it. We could specify the different potential trajectories as follows, trying not to mix the possible with the desirable:

• the realist scenario today implemented in the “German” manner is that of an adjustment based on “social savagery” and Hollande’s scenario is only a variant of it
• these hard line scenarios have a rationality (contrary to what many critical economist think) and they can succeed;
• but they can also founder on national and/or social contradictions and end up with a redrawing or complete breakup of the Euro zone.
• the capitalist “cooperative and European" scenario is unlikely;
• the most probable progressive scenarios are seemingly national ones, but they are not without risk.

The dominant scenario risks break-up
Economists of a progressive Keynesian inspiration tend to stress the limits and illusions of the austerity remedies summed up today by the macro-economic policies advocated by the European Union, for which the Troika (ECB, European Commission, IMF) now constitutes the strong arm. It is indeed perfectly correct that austerity weighs down on activity and public income and thus makes deficit reduction more difficult. But leaving it at this would be a superficial analysis. The economist Costas Lapavitsas has tried to shed light on the rational core of the German policy: “By insisting that everyone must “become German” they [the German leaders] are basically saying that countries with deficits should accept permanent austerity while applying permanent pressure on their workers. They are probably hoping that this would lead to a new equilibrium at a lower level of income across Europe, and perhaps after several years there might be renewed conditions for general growth, somehow”. [3]

In fact, as Yves Salesse has pointed out, the EU is without any doubt a capitalist Europe but it is not “the Europe of capital” in the sense that the big European companies are not the motor force of its construction. Big European capital, financial but also industrial, is globalising and alliances between firms are based on this logic. Rapprochements sometimes take place between European firms, not seeking to constitute “European champions” but above all with regard to the state of the world market. Generally, the links of these firms with national territories grow more distant. A significant part of their profits are realised on non-European markets and their nationality only becomes important in periods of crisis: to obtain aid; to have their interests supported in international trade negotiations; to see their sales facilitated by a President or Prime Minster transformed into a commercial traveller. The recent decision by Airbus to set up an assembly site in the USA (in Mobile, Alabama) is emblematic in this respect. It is about limiting the risks of losses linked to variations in the exchange rate of the dollar, and easier access to Pentagon contracts thanks to the jobs created. Also, Alabama is a state where trade union organisation is rendered difficult by local legislation [4]. Yet initially Airbus was a typical case of a European project initiated in 1969 by the French and German governments (after the British withdrawal).
From this viewpoint, the idea of imposing a budgetary straitjacket on the peoples of Europe and the challenge to their social model is rational. A first experience has been had in Germany with the Hartz reforms mentioned above which have strongly improved industrial competitiveness at the price of significant social costs and increased inequality.

As Lapavitsas says, this scenario could well lead to a break-up of the Euro zone, even if the German bourgeoisie profits from its existence. If we make an analogy with the USA, at the end of the Second World War, the latter spent significant sums (through the Marshall Plan) building an international architecture which politically, militarily and economically suited them. One could imagine the bourgeoisie and the German state making a similar choice in Europe. That would suppose a little less austerity and more flexible rules for the functioning of the ECB and more so-called “stability” funds. That would limit, but not suppress (for the structural reasons given by Michel Husson), the risks of a redrawing or a break-up of the zone.

No European New Deal
The configuration of this possible rupture of the Euro zone would depend fundamentally on social resistance in the countries subject to enforced austerity policies. It is impossible to specify the modalities of this and the consequences which could be devastating for the zone as a whole. But for now, in line with the wishes of the dominant sectors of industry and finance, it is the hard line which prevails.

A European progressive “New Deal” which Michel Husson characterises as “cooperative harmonisation” appears to say the least improbable, as he says himself. There is for now no essential sector of the bourgeoisie which supports it and there is no effective pressure from the European labour movement in this direction. Certainly for the first time the European Trade Union Confederation has opposed a European treaty, rejecting the budgetary Treaty, characterised as a “permanent austerity treaty”. After the European summit of June 28-29, 2012, its general secretary Bernadette Ségol said: “The banks will perhaps be saved, but we see nothing which will save wage earners. The pact for growth envisages nothing new”. but there is a gap between such statements, more radical than in the past, and the preparation of movements of European employees as a whole. Movements which would go beyond days of action or demonstration tending to substitute for strikes and faced with which the governments are not ready to make the slightest concession (as has been shown in Spain and Portugal).

Thus to the great chagrin of those who see it as the sole rational solution, there will be no New Deal at the European level, without unexpected developments. And the radical opponents of neo-liberalism and capitalism are too weak and too uncoordinated at the European level to press radical solutions. The global justice movement is no longer capable of demonstrations like that in Genoa in 2001 which brought together youth and workers (and was subject to strong police repression). The movement of the indignant has for the moment serious difficulties in accumulating enough forces to regain the offensive.

Towards national crises?
There remains then the hypothesis of “big national crises” which lead, in some states, to a situation where those who rule can no longer govern as before and those they rule can no longer bear being oppressed as before. Among the European bourgeoisies there will be winners and losers from austerity policies and globalisation: the winners in the most internationalised sectors, the losers, for example, in the small and medium enterprises, some liberal professions and the state or regional bureaucracies. The challenge to social gains, the dismantling of the right to work, will weigh on all. Greece gives of a foretaste of what such a crisis could look like.

In such a situation several camps would face each other, as in Greece today: those ready to continue to play the card of austerity in the context of the EU, nationalists and anti-capitalists (with of course at the political level many intermediary nuances). The anti-capitalists should be in a position to exert weight and rally a social and political front, both through their radicalism and their ability to provide a solution in terms of political power and the management of society. For Europe, they should make themselves the bearers, as Michel Husson puts it, of “a unilateral rupture with the actually existing Europe in the name of another project for Europe”. That would suppose unilateral measures, in contradiction with the European treaties, both to improve living conditions and set up the bases of a social and ecological development, but simultaneously with the will to aid mobilisation in other countries, broadening the process begun in one state. All this without falling to quote Trotsky’s “Programme for Peace” again, into social patriotism: “it must not be forgotten that in social patriotism there is active, besides the most vulgar reformism, a national revolutionary messianism, which regards its national state as chosen for introducing to humanity “socialism” or “democracy,” be it on the ground of its industrial or of its democratic form and revolutionary conquests”. Because it is certainly another kind of Europe that needs to be built.

* Henri Wilno is a member of the Nouveau parti anticapitaliste (NPA, France) and the Fourth International.
NOTES
[1] Which can be found on the site of the South African magazine Amandla!”: http://www.amandlapublis...
[2] 6. Leon Trotsky, “The Program for Peace” http://www.marxists.org/archive/tro...
[3] “Interview: Working people have no interest in saving the euro” http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id...
[4] “I think it’s extremely unfortunate that a company that has been as successful as Airbus with a fully unionized workforce is choosing to go to a ’right-to-work’ state to build that plant. It doesn’t make sense”, said Paul Shearon, Secretary-Treasurer of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers [[ http://www.reuters.com/article/2012...

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NPA calls for coordinated resistance across Europe

International Viewpoint
30 November 2011

The French Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA) backed the public sector strikers in Britain and called for coordinated resistance across Europe. The NPA participated in organising the Coalition of Resistance‘s Europe Against Austerity Conference last month, which was addressed by Olivier Besancenot on behalf of the NPA.

“The NPA stands in solidarity with striking public sector workers in Britain.

Trade unions have called for strike action today, November 30th. They are opposed to the pension plans of Cameron’s government.

These changes to public sector pensions are part of the destruction of social justice and austerity measures implemented by governments all over Europe.

The changes would see retirement age pushed up to 66 in 2020 and to 68 after that; they would considerably increase pension contributions from 6 to 9%, and would see pension incomes lowered by basing them on average instead of final salary.

The government’s attack on pensions is added to the job and budget cuts which are already hitting the public sector. Thousands of protests are planned and this strike will no doubt be the most significant since 1979, hence why head teachers are on strike for the first time in 114 years.

The NPA is in complete solidarity with British public sector workers.

The politics of mass destruction of welfare and social rights is implemented across the European Union, whatever the type of government in charge; across pensions, incomes, health care and the entirety of fundamental rights.

At the beck and call of the financial markets, governments are endlessly repeating the same old line: working people have to pay for the crisis and make sacrifices.

The countries most affected by the crisis, such as Greece, Spain and Portugal, have already seen plenty of strikes and protests.

It is vital that the fightback is coordinated so we can act together at the same time across Europe.

This is a matter of absolute urgency.”

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A European strategy for the left?

Michel Husson
International Viewpoint
January 2011

Michel Husson offers a contribution to the debate on how the European left should respond to the economic crisis and argues that leaving the euro is not currently an option for countries which use it.

The global effects of the crisis have been made even worse by what is happening in Europe. For thirty years the contradictions of capitalism have been overcome with the help of an enormous accumulation of phantom rights to surplus value. The crisis has threatened to destroy them. The bourgeois governments have decided to preserve them claiming that we have to save the banks. They have taken on the banks’ debts and asked for virtually nothing in return. Yet it would have been possible to make this rescue conditional on some assurances. They could have banned speculative financial instruments and closed the tax loopholes. They could even have insisted that they take responsibility for some of the public debt that this rescue increased so dramatically.


We are now in the second phase. Having shifted the debt from the private sector to the public the working class has to be made to pay. This shock therapy is delivered through austerity plans which are all broadly similar – a cut in socially useful spending and hiking up the most unfair taxes. There is no alternative to this form of social violence other than making the shareholders and creditors pay. That is clear and everyone understands it.

The collapse of a ruling class plan

But the European working class is also being asked to pay for the collapse of the ruling class project for Europe. The ruling class thought that it had found a good system with the single currency, the budgetary stability pact (“Stability and Growth Pact”), and the total deregulation of finance and the movement of capital . By creating a competition between social models and wage earners squeezing wages became the only means of regulating inter-capitalist competition and intensifying the inequalities that benefitted only a very narrow stratum of people in society.

However this model put the cart before the horse and wasn’t viable. It presupposed that the European economies were more homogeneous than they actually are. Differences between countries increased due to their place in the global market and their sensitivity to the euro exchange rate. Inflation rates didn’t converge and interest rates favoured property bubbles and so on. All the contradictions of a curtailed programme of European integration which the Euro liberals are discovering today existed before the crisis. But these are blowing apart under speculative attacks against the sovereign debts of the most exposed countries.

Underneath the abstract concept of “financial markets” there are mainly European financial institutions which speculate using capital which states lend to them at very low interest rates. This speculation is only possible due to the states’ policy of non-intervention and we should understand it as a pressure applied to consenting governments to stabilise budgets on the back of the people of Europe and to defend the banks’ interests.

Two immediate tasks

From the point of view of the working class it’s obvious what has to be done: we have to resist the austerity offensive and refuse to pay the debt which is nothing but the debt from the banking crisis. The alternative plan on which this resistance must be based demands another way of sharing society’s wealth. This is a coherent demand. It is in fact against the squeezing of wages, in other words the appropriation of an increasing portion of surplus value by capital.

The alternative requires a real fiscal reform which takes back the gifts which for years have been given to businesses and the rich. It also implies the cancellation of the debt. The debt and the interests of the majority of the population are completely incompatible. There can be no progressive outcome to the crisis which does not put the debt in question, either by defaulting on it or restructuring it. In any case some countries will probably default and it’s therefore important to anticipate this situation and say how it should be managed.

Leaving the euro?

The offensive, which the peoples of Europe are facing, is undeniably made worse by the European straightjacket. For example the European Central Bank, unlike the Federal Reserve in the United States, cannot monetise public debt by buying treasury bonds. Would leaving the euro allow the straightjacket to be loosened? That is what some on the left like Costas Lapavitsas and his colleagues are suggesting for Greece as an immediate step. He proposes that it is done immediately without waiting for the left to unite to change the euro zone, something he thinks is impossible.

This idea is put forward elsewhere in Europe and is met with an immediate objection that even though Britain is not part of the euro zone it has not been protected from the climate of austerity. It is also easy to understand why the far right, such as the Front National in France wants to leave the euro. By contrast it is hard to see what could be the merits of such a slogan for the radical left. If a liberal government were forced to take such a measure by the pressure of events it is clear that it would be the pretext for an even more severe austerity than the one we have experienced up to now. Moreover it would not allow us to establish a new balance of forces, which is more favourable to the working class. That is the lesson that one can draw for all the past experiences.

For a left government leaving the euro would be a major strategic error. The new currency would be devalued as that is, after all, the desired objective. But that would immediately open up a space, which the financial markets would immediately use to begin a speculative offensive. It would trigger a cycle of devaluation, inflation and austerity. On top of that, the debt, which until that point had been denominated in euros or in dollars would suddenly increase as a result of this devaluation. Every left government which decided to take measures in favour of the working class would certainly be put under enormous pressure by international capitalism. But from a tactical point of view it would be better in this test of strength to use membership in the euro zone as a source of conflict.

It is basically true that the European project based on the single currency is not coherent and is incomplete. It removes a variable of adjustment, the exchange rate, from the set of different prices and salaries inside the euro zone. The countries in the periphery thus have the choice between the German path of freezing wages or suffering a reduction in competitivity and loss of markets. This situation leads to a sort of impasse and there are no solutions that can be applied straight away: going backwards would throw Europe in a crisis which would hit the most fragile countries hardest.; and beginning a new European project seems out of reach at the moment.

If the euro zone explodes the most fragile economies would be destabilised by speculative attacks. Not even Germany would have anything to gain because its currency would appreciate in value uncontrollably and the country would undergo what the Unites States is today trying to impose on several countries with its monetary policy.[ii]

Other solutions exist which need a complete recasting of the European Union: a budget which is financed by a common tax on capital and which finances harmonisation funds and investments which are both socially and ecologically useful and richer countries help poorer ones with their public debt. But again this outcome is not possible in the short term, not through lack of alternative plans but because implementing them requires a radical change in the balance of forces at the European level.

What should we do at a very difficult moment like this? The struggle against the austerity plans and refusing to pay the debt are the launch pad for a counter offensive. We then have to make sure that the resistance is strengthened by arguing for an alternative project and work out a programme which offers both “practical” answers as well as a general explanation of the class content of the crisis.[iii]

The specific task of the radical, internationalist left is to link the social struggles happening in each country with arguing for a different kind of Europe. What are the ruling classes doing? They are facing up to the policies they have to follow because they are defending interests which are still largely nationally based and contradictory. Yet as soon as they have to impose austerity measures on their own working classes they present a solid united front.

There are better things to do than emphasise the very real differences that exist between the countries. What’s at stake is having an internationalist point of view on the crisis in Europe. The only way of really opposing the rise of the far right is by suggesting other targets than the usual scapegoats. We can affirm a real international solidarity with the peoples who are suffering most due to the crisis by demanding that the debts are shared equally across Europe. Thus we have to oppose an alternative project for Europe to that of the European bourgeoisie which is dragging every country backwards socially. How is it possible not to understand that our mobilisations, which are faced with coordination of the ruling class at a European level, need to be based on a coordinated project of our own? While it is true that struggles happen in a national framework they would be strengthened by a perspective like this instead of being weakened or led down nationalist dead ends. The students who demonstrated in London chanting “all in this together, all in this together” are a symbol of this living hope.

For a European Strategy

The task is as difficult as the period which the crisis has opened. However the radical left must not get locked into the impossible choice and start the risky adventure of leaving the euro and a utopian idea of currency harmonisation. We could easily work on some intermediate targets which challenge the European institutions. For example:
 

• The states of the European Union should borrow directly from the European Central Bank (ECB) at very low rates of interest and private sector banks should be obliged to take over a a certain proportion of the public debt. 
• A default mechanism should be put in place, which allows public sector debt to be written off in proportion to tax breaks for the rich and money spent on bank bailouts.
• Budgetary stabilisation has to be reformed by a fiscal reform which taxes movements of capital, financial transactions, dividends, large fortunes, high salaries and incomes from capital at a standard rate across Europe.

We have to understand that these objectives are neither further or closer away than an “exit from the euro” which would be beneficial to working people. It would definitely be absurd to wait for a simultaneous and co-ordinated exit by every European country. The only strategic hypothesis that one can then conceive of must take as its starting point the experience of a social transformation which starts in one country. The government of the country in questions takes measures, for example imposing a tax on capital. If it is thinking clearly it will anticipate the retaliation for which it will be the target and will impose controls on capital. By taking this fiscal reform measure it is openly in conflict with the rules of the European game. It has no interest in unilaterally leaving the euro. This would be an enormous strategic mistake since the new currency would immediately come under attack with the aim of pulling down the economy of the “rebel” country.

We have to give up on the idea that there are “technical” shortcuts, assume that conflict is inevitable and build a favourable balance of forces of which the European dimension is a part. One point of support for that is the ability to damage capitalist interests. The country, which starts, could restructure the debt, nationalise foreign capital etc, or threaten to do it. The “left” governments of Papandreou in Greece or Zapatero in Spain have not even dreamed of doing this.

The main point of support comes from taking the measures cooperatively. This is completely different from classic protectionism, which basically always tries to gain ground by nibbling at parts of the global market. Every progressive measure on the other hand is effective to the extent that it is shared across a number of countries. We should therefore be talking about a strategy, which is based on the following idea: we are willing to tax capital and we will take the necessary steps to protect ourselves. But we are also hoping for these measures, which we propose, to be implemented across Europe.

We can sum up by saying that rather than seeing them in opposition to each other we have to think hard about the link between breaking the neoliberal European project and our project of creating a new Europe.

[ii] Michael Hudson, “US Quantitative Easing Is Fracturing the Global Economy”, http://gesd.free.fr/hudsonqi.pdf [iii] Bloco de Esquerda (Left Bloc) Portugal: “On the crisis and how to overcome it”, May 23rd 2010, http://gesd.free.fr/bloco510.pdf

-Michel Husson is an economist, in charge of employment at the Institut de recherches economiques et sociales (IRES) in Paris. He is member of the Fondation Copernic, a left-wing think tank, and of the Scientific Council of ATTAC. He has just published Un pur capitalisme, Lausanne 2008, Éditions Page Deux. You can consult his writings on http://hussonet.free.fr.

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Austerity-mongers rattled by huge protest in Brussels

Derek Kotz
Morning Star
September 29 2010

The halls of EU power in Brussels trembled to the footsteps of more than 100,000 workers on Wednesday as they converged from across Europe to reject crippling austerity cuts.


Trade unions and activists representing 24 countries brought the city to a standstill as they snaked their way through the streets with a thunderous march that ended in a rally at the Esplanade du Cinquantenaire park.

As Spanish workers staged a general strike and Greek rail staff walked out over privatisation, the common call in a multitude of languages was for co-ordinated action against the biggest attack on Europe's working class since the 1930s.

A sea of banners proclaimed that workers would not be forced to pay with their jobs and services for a crisis caused by the unmitigated greed of bankers.

Banners and flags from RMT, PCS, NUT, TSSA, CWU, Napo, Unite and Usdaw were prominent among a noisy British contingent.

Brussels police were out in force, barricading the entrance of every bank in the city as well as the European Commission headquarters. But the massive event passed peacefully.

As the day of action - called by trade union umbrella organisation ETUC - took place outside, the EU Commission announced a package of proposals to crack down on hard-pressed member states, threatening them with huge fines if they failed to run their economies "efficiently."

Speaking to the Star from the rally, RMT leader Bob Crow condemned dangerous EU moves to impose centralised caps on public-sector pay and sanctions against member states deemed not to be cutting deep or fast enough.

"Workers across Europe face the same threat to jobs, public services and pensions, and that threat originates from exactly the same source - the centralised banks and the political elite who do their bidding," he explained.

Twinings Usdaw convenor Pete Millward emphasised the importance of public and private sector workers struggling together against the cuts, warning that the British government's plans to cut 600,000 public sector jobs would also mean "700,000 private sector job losses."

And he rubbished government claims that there was no alternative.

Unison youth delegate Gerry Cowell, a musician outreach worker from Colchester, was proud to be on the march alongside other workers and pensioners.

"It is important for us all to unite to oppose cuts wherever and to make our protest locally, nationally and across Europe," she told the Star.

FBU national officer Dave Green hailed the "fantastic turnout" saying that it showed "the enormous level of resistance to austerity measures that governments will face."

He added: "Economies across Europe have been brought to the verge of collapse by the out-of-control greed of bankers."

Portuguese union UGT international officer Wanda Guimaraes made the point that workers "draw their strength from unity.

"Today's demonstration shows the trade union movement is a huge family that is united against cuts and poverty and against non-inclusive societies."

She stressed that unions had a responsibility to lead the fight to save services and jobs across the continent.

Organised pensioners across the continent also joined the march, with Dot Gibson of the British-based National Pensioners Convention stressing: "It is important for pensioners to link up with the union movement in opposing the cuts and attacks on workers pensions."

She said she was looking forward to a meeting next week with French, Italian and Spanish pensioners' organisations held in Paris to discuss their united response to the cuts.

Cedric Mahu of France's CGT union, which had 10,000 delegates on the march, said he would be on strike again on October 12 in his country's national strike against attempts by the Sarkozy government to take the hatchet to French workers' pensions.

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European Workers Mobilìse for Jobs and Against Unemployment

Lisbeth Latham

Hundreds of thousands of workers answered the call of the European Trade Union Confederation’s calls for protests in Madrid, Brussels, Prague and Berlin on May to 16. The protests were in support of the ETUC’s “Fight the Crisis: Put People First” campaign and its efforts to win the adoption to win a “New Social Deal in Europe”.

The mobilisations, which were put at 20, 000 in Prague; 50, 000 in Brussels; 100, 000 in Berlin and 150, 000 in Madrid come as new projections indicate that the number of unemployed in Europe will rise by 8.5 million over the next two years. In response to the impact of the crisis the ETUC and its national affiliates are calling for greater action to protect workers and the unemployment through the adoption of a New Social Plan for Europe which would include:

• An expanded recovery programme to provide more and better jobs, to protect employment in key industries, to invest in new, sustainable technologies, and to maintain vital public services;
• Better pay and pensions, stronger welfare states, higher benefits to protect the purchasing power and effective participation rights needed to boost economies;
• An end to the recent decisions of the European Court of Justice favouring market freedoms over our fundamental rights and collective agreements by confirming the social objectives of the internal market, and guaranteeing equal treatment and equal pay for ‘posted’ migrant workers;
• Effective regulation of financial markets, a fair distribution of wealth, and no return to casino capitalism or to the ‘business as usual’ of the past 20 years in financial markets;
• A European Central Bank committed to growth and full employment, not just price stability.
  

The adoption of these policies would be a positive step forward for millions of workers in Europe. It would provide protection for purchasing power and job security. Significantly the plan is aimed at social inclusion and the protecting the rights of workers regardless of their country of origin as a mechanism to protect wages and conditions.

If adopted the policies would make it more difficult for capital and the European governments to use the present crisis to drive down wages and conditions in order to return profitability – if capitalism survives the current crisis then it will do so by restoring profitability and allowing capital accumulation to continue.

The proposals by the ETUC reflect the attempts by sections of the global labour movement to present an alternative response to the current capitalist crisis that attempts to put workers rights ahead of profits. However there are currently no governing parties or potential parties of government in the advanced capitalist countries that have indicated that they would implement such policies these policies. Indeed the policies which are being proposed by the ETUC, which are mild and do not challenge directly the dominance of capital, are too extreme for European social democratic parties to consider.

An example of this was the developments in the Czech Republic and Hungary earlier this year. Unpopular right-wing governments have been brought down through mobilisations generated by the anger at the failure of these governments’ policies. In both of these countries the social democratic, who had been in opposition, have not sought to hold elections, elections that would most likely see them take government. Instead the social democratic parties have been willing to allow the instalment of technocratic governments dominated by former bankers.

This action reflects a number of factors. First is the reticence in accepting the poisoned chalice of government at the present time – where they will be blamed for the crisis. Secondly the social democrats do not desire to be under the pressure to enact changes to help workers, the unemployed and pensioners, at the same time they cannot afford to be seen to be pushing through the same anti-worker policies that have brought down the right-wing governments as this would result in greater space for either the far-left or far-right parties in their countries.

While the proposals of the ETUC could be a postive step forward, it provides no clear strategy to achieve its adoptions. It does imply two tactics for winning these objectives, the first was participation in its May Days of Protest (at this point no other mobilisations are planned) and the second is voting for a Social Europe in the June 4 European Parliamentary elections. The ETUC has developed a broader manifesto for the legislative changes it wants to achieve in the European parliament, however its material goes not give any indication how to win these objectives, or even which parties (or parliamentary groups) have indicated they support its policy.

Faced with this opposition to the policies that they are pushing, the unions and the broader progressive movement need examine how they can bring sufficient pressure to bare to force the implementation of their program. In France, the radical Solidaires union confederation and the New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA) have argued that victory in the struggle will require a campaign of escalating actions building up to an ongoing general strike similar to those conducted in the French colonies of Guadalupe, Martinique and Reunion earlier this year.

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