Statement on G20 by We Will Not Pay For Their Crisis Collective

For the organizations joined together in the collective “We Will Not Pay for Their Crisis”, the G20, as was dreaded, does not bring any response to the total crisis which strikes the whole of planet. The meeting of G20 in London this Thursday April 2 was confined, as we feared it would be, to symbolic actions that go against the totally new dynamics desired by the world’s public opinion.

The Heads of States and governments of the 20 countries considered as most powerful chose through their final declaration, to re-legitimise a system that is in structural crisis and to reinforce the role of its most disputed institutions. By making 1100 Billion available to the IMF, World Bank, WTO and Forum of financial stability; the G20 chose to structure its response to the crisis around 4 institutions whose policies have long been denounced by civil society for their negative impact on the development and the access to rights of the people of the world.

While granting to the IMF and the World Bank the responsibility to ensure the operations of credit in the countries significantly affected by the crisis (including increasing the IMF’s resources by 750 billion dollars), the G20 gives responsibility to two institutions largely discredited by the failures of their policies, and which - less than one year ago - were the focus of the criticisms of the entire international community. This rehabilitation occurs without any satisfactory attempt to reform the institutions or with the change their policy, nor is there an attempt to integrate the IMF and World Bank into the United Nations institutional and legal framework.

International trade is presented like the first source for creating wealth and economic revival in spite of the obvious dead end that resulted from the liberalization of the exchanges and the unrestrained globalisation of the markets. The G20’s resolution does not call into the question the extent that Free Trade Agreements were responsible for financial deregulation and the growth of speculative practices.

The G20 offers no approach to that would put an end to the dictatorship financial markets that can only occur via public control and drastic regulation. The G20 makes it clear that it intends to save the financial banks and establishments by any means, at the price of the public financing, without any counterpart guarantee to the public (credit, banking services…) and without any suggestion of nationalising these institutions. There was no consideration of measures to prohibit speculation on the raw materials.

The establishment of a black list of territories that are not cooperating on the banking and tax level does not fulfil the popular demands to halt the transfer and harbouring of their savings via tax havens.

The general watchwords on the need for increased monitoring and better regulations for the banking institutions and financial actors will undoubtedly remain dead letter. One remembers that with the end of the Asian crisis at the end of the Nineties, the protective measures that these countries had introduced to protect their domestic markets were briskly dismantled under the pressure of the European States and the United States, this occurred particularly within the framework of regional and bilateral trade negotiations.

The G20 raised no specific proposals relating to the fight against the social inequalities, the creation of jobs and the durable protection of the ecosystems. They are only discussed in marginal paragraphs: neither new instruments of redistribution, nor massive investments in sustainable development and the defence and creation of employment with decent pay. The G20 does not bring any proposal to create new instruments with the service of another ecological and interdependent world, such as taxation of ecological destruction and of financial transactions. The G20 is silent on the recognition and promotion of public goods at a global level such as health, water, education and the knowledge, essential to rebuild globalisation on new bases.

As organizations of international solidarity, trade unions, associations of environmental protection and defence of rights, we know that the same policies implemented by the same actors will lead to the same effects: increasing inequalities and the precarity for the “not-rich person”, the systematic decline of natural resources and the degradation of ecological balances, the degradation of solidarity and social protections while wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of multinationals and global elite who are determined to protect their interests.

The world of solidarity, peace and social justice wanted by our collective, gathered under the banner “We Will Not Pay For Their Crises”, was not outlined in London on April 2, 2009. The London cosmetic operation tries on the contrary to give a little gloss to an unjust and discredited system. Our organizations will remain mobilized to inform the citizens, to publicise our analyses and our proposals and to join the broader movement of resistance and solidarity which will be spread in France, Europe and globally.

Associations and trade unions signatories of the call of the collective
Agir ensemble contre le chomâge - AC !, Aitec/Ipam, AlterEkolo, Les Amis de la Terre France, Association pour l’emploi, l’information et la solidarité - APEIS, Attac France, CCIPPP, Cedetim, Confédération générale des SCOP – CGSCOP, Confédération paysanne, CGT Finances, Convergence pour les services publics, Centre de recherche et d’information pour le développement, CRID, Droit au Logement - DAL, Fédération Artisans du Monde, Fondation Copernic, France Amérique Latine, Fédération syndicale unitaire - FSU, Habitat international coalition - HIC, Marches européennes, Mémoire des luttes, Mouvement de la Paix, Mouvement contre le racisme et pour l’amitié entre les peuples - MRAP, No Vox, Peuples Solidaires, Réseau féministe Ruptures, Survie Paris, Syndicat national de l’enseignement supérieur - SNESUP, Syndicat nationale unifié des impôts – SNUI, SUD PTT, Terre des Hommes France, Union syndicale Solidaires

Political organizations in support
Les Alternatifs, La Fédération, Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste, Parti de Gauche, Les Verts, Parti Communiste Français, PCOF

Original text available at Union sydicale Solidaires