Crisis & EU Governance: The Left Response

THE former Finance Ministers of Germany and Greece were among the speakers during a day of debate on March 30th organised in Brussels by the GUE/NGL group in the European Parliament on the Left response to the economic crisis.
The conference ‘Crisis & EU Governance: The Left Response’ heard from German former Finance Minister Oscar Lafontaine and his Greek former counterpart, Yannis Dragasakis.
Both called for bold and far-reaching reforms to EU economic policy and sought strict financial market supervision with economic democracy at the core of an alternative economic plan.
European Trade Union Confederation President John Monks set out his organisation’s alternatives for a social Europe in light of recent trade union protests against austerity across Europe.
Since 2010, almost every EU member state has launched harsh austerity policies, including severe cuts in public spending and investment, the dismantling of social protection and the welfare state, increased privatisation of public services, curbs on wages and increased VAT rates and retirement ages in the context of an EU crisis exit strategy which emphasises austerity as key to recovery.
Representatives of the French ‘Économistes Atterrés’ (Appalled Economists) network summarised the key points of their 22 measures to drive the debate on economics in Europe “out of the current dead end”.
Their manifesto includes an outline of the ten ‘pseudo facts’ currently driving a failed European policy and can be downloaded at www.atterres.org .
GUE/NGL President Lothar Bisky called plans to beef up sanctions on countries with large deficits “unworkable in the past and unworkable in the future” and called for a fundamental reform of the Stability and Growth Pact as well as the introduction of a financial transaction tax.
The GUE/NGL group is working for socio-economic governance for high quality employment and sustainable development across Europe.