ISSN 0951-8657. Published by Aurora Ltd., PO Box 1109, London N4 2UU. 1996. All rights reserved. Printed by Eastway Offset. TWO key political meetings take place in Florence next week One will hit the press headlines. The EU's IGC, Inter-Governmental Conference, will attempt to map out the steps for implementing the Maastricht treaty and moving towards a single European currency with or without John Major's 'cooperation'.
The other meeting will be out of the limelight, but potentially vital for the Eurodean workers' movement. Trades unionists and employed activists will discuss an ambitious series of marches against unemdloyment from canitals and bia cities. converging in Amsterdam in June 1997. Striking Liverpool dockers and British unemployed Centres will be at the meeting.
The conferences will discuss the same problem, but with opposing arguments.
Governments across the EU are cutting public spending savagely in order to reduce state deficits to below the maximum allowed by the Maastricht accords. Few EU countries can get below the limit of three per cent of each country's Gross National Product Trades unions opposing cuts in pensons benette Duble cartor ions health and welfare service have given an angry response to the cutbacks.
The German government aim to cut their deficit from 3.8 per cent to three per cent with £20 billion in cuts. German unions have organised protest actions which promise further action to come.
The resistance is best developed in France Maastricht-driven cuts forced sustained public sector cuts last Autumn. More cuts are now being planned.
Spain's new rightwing government har also moved swiftly towards cuts in education and new charges for health care They aim to trim the deficit from 4.4 per cent to three per cent.
Britain's deficit runs at five per cent. The Maastricht target implies cuts totalling £10 billion. That is the equivalent of the NHS hospitals budget or all education spending. The need to cut poses sharp difficulties for the Conservative government and any future Labour party government The plans for a single currency has openly split the Conservative party in half. Major's "beef war' aims to heal the rift Most of the European ruling class now thinks that Labour leaders Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are more likely to deliver monetary union.
A 'New' Labour government would be a tool for European capitalism. It could not reverse the 17 years of asset stripping by the Conservative government. Instead Labour will have to cut deeply into the welfare state with new 'Maastricht' cuts.
The Maastricht restrictions prevent governments from reducing the official EU total of 20 million unemployed. Existing welfare rights are attacked while 50 million live in poverty.
The European march is proposed for next Spring when the British general election campaign may be under way. The timing gives socialists and trades unionists throughout the EU an opportunity to challenge the capitalist logic of monetary union with the politics of solidarity and The proposal was made in April by Italian, Spanish and German militants at meeting in Turin organised by the city's unemployed branch of the CGIL union federation. The activists called for wider discussion of possible European initiatives danst Unemo oyment.
A European conference, or common initiatives in every European city, are also possible.
The appeal was endorsed in France by AC!, Act together against Unemployment, which organised five successful marches across France in 1994 which converged in a 20,000-strong march through Paris AC! has drawn up plans to deal with technical and organisational problems and extract the maximum advantages of a similar series of marches across the EU. A full-time staff would co-ordinate the campaigns. A Europe-wide leadership team would travel throughout the EU to address planning meetings and campaign malllec.
The political gains of the marches would repay campaigners who build up resources and practical support along the routes. The marches will highlight the need for full employment and the work of the internationalist opposition to the Maastricht process. They will give the best conditions to unite trades unions, working-class parties and campaigns.