Due to technical problems the monthly newsletter could not be sent to all usual readers. Apologies for this. In return, herewith the brief note that accompanied it.
It is just one more crisis to add to the long list of financial, economic, social, political, environmental crises we are living in.
What is happening?
On the one hand, countries that have built, fifty years ago, a political and economic union with solidarity mechanisms – however limited they were – between rich and poor countries, rich and poor regions, are now fighting in order to avoid payments to the budget of the European Union. The EU budget barely amounts to 1 % of national GDPs, but for some countries, it is too much. The US federal budget amounts to 23 % of its GDP.
How is it possible to help the Greeks, Spaniards, Portuguese and Irish if there is no money available? If the Cohesion Fund is trimmed? How can the gap between Germany, France and the UK, on the one hand, and the poorer countries of Central Europe, on the other hand, ever be closed if the solidarity mechanisms of the structural funds are being dismantled?
Of course, we all want ‘another Europe’, we criticize the EU for its austerity policies, but we too often forget that if European solidarity and if economic recovery in the EU are needed, a serious budget is absolutely necessary. Governments that are now saying that they are doing well and that other countries just need structural reforms – read: flexibilizing labour – are directly feeding a kind of resentment that all too often translates itself in a vote for populist or even extreme-rightwing parties. This is a very dangerous road to go.
And what is happening to social solidarity?
Welfare states are being dismantled, in all European countries. Sometimes directly through the influence of the ‘troika’ –European Commission, IMF and European Central Bank – sometimes because governments just want to be ‘good reformers’. Poverty and inequality are growing everywhere and workers with social rights are considered to be ‘privileged’. Trade unions and their collective bargaining mechanisms are threatened. A growing ‘precariat’ has no rights at all.
Add to this that most rich countries are cutting their budgets for development cooperation, even if, formally, they are meant to reduce poverty.
At the level of social movements, some progress has to be noted. For the first time ever, a common action day was organized on November 15th. But in Northern Europe there was not so much action to be seen.
One week before, social movements gathered in Firenze in order to discuss the ‘other Europe’ we all want. But no convergence was possible.
It is clear that neoliberalism has entered into the heads of most people. We should know there is no solution possible, at any level, if we do not work together, if we do not have a common objective and a common strategy. There is much work to be done.
Recent contributions on www.globalsocialjustice.eu concern social policies, inequality and extreme poverty, the right to water, the new middle classes an the rights of nature in Bolivia. Enjoy it.
Francine