Home / Presentation of the German Presidency, so far only slogans to hide mistakes of the past
Germany holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union under the slogan “Together for Europe’s recovery”. For now this is just a motto and an attempt to hide the past decades of bad politics, while we are still paying the social and economic cost those bad choices.
We wanted to hear slogan directed to all working people, especially to those workers who have suffered the most because of the lack of necessary measures to ensure their safety and health, end especially to women and to those in most devalued and underpaid jobs, who kept our society functioning at the risk of their the lives without an adequate remuneration for that.
To the present date, Merkel still represent a vision of the economy and social problems from a past perspective – says Bierbaum – but it won’t be possible to implement a recovery plan able to encompass ecological requirements and social needs without a break with the past.
The EU needs new policies. We must leave behind all those instruments used to impose austerity on public spending, which today discourage solidarity and which will undermine any plan for a social Europe. We must avoid a downward competition of wages and we must overcome the differences between countries who were affected by austerity and those who were not.
‘Together for Europe’s recovery’ is just a nice slogan: we are here to unmask honey traps. Europe needs the immediate creation of a European Health Fund. The idea that market alone could help get us out of the crises has been a mantra since 2008, and today working people still pay the consequences. If we do not find the courage to change politics in Europe we will repeat the post-2008 economic mistakes.
Heinz Bierbaum,
President of the European Left
