Europe polarising around austerity and racism
By Nicky Dempsey
Europe is increasingly polarised. The decisive issues in the latest European elections were austerity and racism, with parties implementing austerity continuing to lose votes.
European Politics
Cancel the debt!
By Nicky Dempsey
The campaign to cancel government debt is gathering some momentum in European Union countries.
In Greece, Alexis Tsipras, leader of SYRIZA consistently calls for a cancellation of at least some part of the Greek debt.
EU strikes on 14 November
By Nicky Dempsey
Unions in a number of European countries have called a mass one-day strike for November 14. It is the first time since the crisis began that co-ordinated industrial action has been organised in a number of different countries. It represents an important step forward in the growing collaboration between the workers’ organisations in a number of countries and poses the question of a European-wide action programme to deal with the crisis.
Europe’s place in the international class struggle
By Jane West
After the elections in Western Europe in the first half of this year it is a good moment to take stock of the overall state of the class struggle in the region.
Making the working class pay for the EU Crisis
By Nicky Dempsey
The latest European Union summit highlighted the divisions among the national political leaders. But they are unified on one point – the working class and the oppressed of Europe will pay for the crisis.
The latest phase of the Euro crisis
By Tom O’Donnell
The foolish vanity that the current crisis in the European economy and financial markets was confined to the so-called ‘peripheral’ economies of the Euro Zone has been exposed as complacent self-delusion. Among the recent development the large Belgian-French-Luxembourg bank Dexia is threatened with bankruptcy despite already having been bailed out by the governments. Crucially, yields on French and Belgian government debt have climbed to reflect the increased risk of taxpayer funds being used for further bank bailouts. Their yield premia over Germany is now equivalent to the premium paid by Irish and Greek governments as the crisis began to unfold. The crisis has migrated from the ‘periphery’ to the ‘core’.