The European Union is facing an increasingly severe crisis. The EuroMemorandum 2013 critically analyses recent economic developments in Europe and emphasises the need for an alternative economic policy.
[nl] Contrary to overly optimistic proclamations in mainstream media, Europe is not coming to terms with the crisis. Rather, the austerity programmes devised by the “Troika”, i.e. European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund, do not only lead to a dramatic decrease of the living standards of major parts of the populations in the countries on which they are imposed, they also threaten to plunge large parts of the European South into a social and human disaster.
Moreover, this crisis will also cause Europe to tumble into a long lasting recession as economic outlooks published at the end of the year seem to suggest. This obviously would affect all the states, also the seemingly stable ones, which the crisis even seems to have strengthened.
Before the generally still sombre economic background a clear trend takes shape towards centralizing the decision-making processes in the European Union and organizing them in an authoritarian way. The Fiscal Pact agreed on in December 2011 by 26 out of 27 heads of government by which national budgets are put under control of the European Commission, as well as the further accumulation of power by the European Central Bank which still lacks democratic control and public accountability can only lead to an exacerbation of political contradictions, among others between a ‘core Europe’ around the most powerful economies, and a European periphery created that way. If by these policies the hoped-for ‘stabilization’ of the financial markets can be achieved must be more than doubted.
Related to that, there are further political risks: the crisis and its disastrous social consequences delegitimize the European integration in the eyes of large parts of the populations. They provoke and intensify the growth of nationalist and right-wing populist parties all across the continent. Thus, Europe finds itself at a crossroads which is also addressed in the title of this year’s Memorandum, ”The Deepening Crisis in the European Union: The Need for a Fundamental Change”.
However, 2012 has also been a year of broad resistance movements in various European countries, amongst them the first transnational strike on 14 November, initiated by big Southern European trade unions and resonating in a broad solidarity in other parts of Europe.
Like last year, transform! europe has taken on the responsibility for the production of the printed versions of EuroMemorandum in English, French, Greek and German – the latter in co-operation with the German magazine “Sozialismus”.
Thus we hope not only to provide a useful contribution to the European debate on social, economic and ecological alternatives but also to help the development of a broad political movement towards another Europe epitomized in the Alter-Summit of the European people, which will take place in Athens on 7-9 June.
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Long versions of the EuroMemorandum 2013 can be downloaded here in English, German and French, as well as summaries in further languages.
More than 350 economists and social scientists from all over Europe and beyond have declared their support for the new EuroMemorandum. Click here for the list of signatories.
www.euromemo.eu