[E-rundbrief] Info 1146 - EuroMemo Group: Solidarity against Austerity

[Matthias Reichl]

E-Rundbrief - Info 1146 - Declaration of Solidarity of the EuroMemo 
Group: Solidarity against Austerity.

Bad Ischl, 30.9.2012

Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit

www.begegnungszentrum.at

================================================

Declaration of Solidarity of the EuroMemo Group

Dear colleagues and friends,

This resolution of solidarity with the peoples of Greece, Spain and 
Portugal, mobilizing against the austerity policies imposed upon them, 
has been passed by the EuroMemo Group for an alternative economic 
strategy, at its Poznan conference, on September 29th, 2012.
_________________________________________________________________________________________

Solidarity against Austerity

The EuroMemo Group declares its solidarity with the peoples of Greece, 
Spain and Portugal mobilizing against a so-called European policy 
imposed against their own elementary interests

We support your mobilization in protest against the policies currently 
imposed on your countries! What a coalition of the international 
financial communities with a group of European countries led by 
Germany has been imposing upon you is no aid, but blatant attempts to 
shore up the banking system at your expense. This pushes your 
countries ever more deeply into a vicious cycle of austerity and 
recession.

We are being told that your countries “aren’t doing enough”. In 
reality, the combined forces of Northern European and of global 
‘governance’ are imposing new ‘aid plans’ on your countries which 
pretend to ‘save you’ by abolishing workers’ rights, pushing the poor 
into extreme misery, and weakening the middle classes.
Yet we do know that these programmes will fail like the Structural 
Adjustment Programmes which have been imposed on countries of the 
Global South; and they will certainly be as harmful as the programmes 
based on the “Washington Consensus” which had devastating effects on 
the peoples of Middle and Eastern Europe in the 1990s.

The goal of these policies is not to “save” your countries. The idea, 
instead, is to gain time so as to save the creditors and shareholders, 
while pushing your countries to ever more austerity which may only be 
brought to an end by a default – with all its destructive consequences 
which will have the side-effect of reinforcing existing polarization 
and hierarchies in Europe. With the collusion of their political and 
economic elites, your countries are being turned into the experimental 
subject of a new kind of social and political change that will then be 
exported and applied to the rest of Europe.

For this neo-liberal offensive to achieve its goals, however, a regime 
must be set in place which will set aside most elementary democratic 
rights. Parliamentary regimes reverse directions, and the “people’s 
representatives” hand over power supposedly invested in them to 
‘experts’ and bankers: nothing less than a coup d’État carried out in 
parliament.

All the measures taken to date have done nothing but undermine the 
sovereign debt of your countries, and as a result over the past years, 
that debt has exploded, instead of being reduced. The coercive, 
artificial deepening of the problem of sovereign debt has been used as 
a weapon with which to assault and seize your entire societies.

The model applied to Southern Europe in recent months is intended for 
all Europe, and even beyond, wherever conditions can be made similar. 
This is what is at stake in this situation, and this is why defending 
the people of Southern Europe cannot be reduced to an abstract gesture 
of solidarity: the future of democracy and the future of the peoples 
of Europe hang in the balance. Everywhere, the “commanding necessity” 
of a “painful but necessary” austerity will be presented to all of us 
as the way to escape the fate of the Southern Europeans — whereas in 
fact this austerity will lead us there directly.

Alternatives are really possible, and they are at hand: A restructured 
EU founded on solidarity, democracy and sustainability is still 
possible – and it will be in the interests of the peoples of all of 
Europe – South and North, both of them in similar ways.

Organized by European Anti-Poverty Network (EAPN)
http://www.euromemo.eu/calendar/event_19917.html

-- 

Matthias Reichl, Pressesprecher/ press speaker,
Begegnungszentrum fuer aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
Center for Encounter and active Non-Violence
Wolfgangerstr. 26, A-4820 Bad Ischl, Austria,
fon: +43 6132 24590, Informationen/ informations,
Impressum in: http://www.begegnungszentrum.at
Spenden-Konto Nr. 0600-970305 (Blz. 20314) Sparkasse Salzkammergut,
Geschäftsstelle Pfandl
IBAN: AT922031400600970305 BIC: SKBIAT21XXX

--

Ausgezeichnet mit dem (österr.) "Journalismus-Preis von unten 2010"

Honoured by the (Austrian) "Journalism-Award from below 2010"