ISSN 0957-8657. PUBLISHED BY AURORA LTD. © 1996 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PRINTED BY EASTWAY OFFSET LTD. (TU ALL DEPTS). THERE ARE Twenty million registered unemployed in the European Union today, and fifty million people living below the poverty line.
Rather than trying to address the real social problems underlying these statistics, governments across Europe are uniting to adopt policies which will deepen the crisis, pushing up unemployment and increasing poverty.
They are engaged in a process of discussion, probably reaching a climax at the Intergovernmental Conference in Amsterdam next June. on the next stage to be taken on the road to monetary convergence.
Estimates suggest that ten million more unemployed will be created by their plans. For the governments of Europe, unemployment is a weapon to help control working people, not a problem. Welfare spending is an obstacle to profit, not a response to the needs of society.
Their proposals are about protecting the interests of capital at the expense of our living conditions.
Across Europe opposition to this ruling class offensive is on the increase, through the wave of strikes in France last winter and the mass dem. onstrations in Italy and Germany. European activists have come together to plan a series of marches to converge on the Amsterdam Conference.
Launched in Florence this summer. the Appeal for European Marches against Unemployment took a big step forward last weekend when a hundred representatives of unions and unemployed organisations from over a dozen countries met in Paris They combined political discussion with practical proposals on routes of marches, timetables of activity etc. Delegates from a range of organisations in Britain attended, including renresentatives of maior regional trade union committees and the National Unemployed Centres Combine. Organising committees are being set up in most EU countries, with an international organising centre Paris.
There will be a major conference in Brussels at the start of February. The marches begin in mid April. and converge in a mass demonstration in Amsterdam on June 14.
Books, pamphlets and an international newspaper will be produced. Already websites are up and running.
In Britain, plans are emerging for up to three separate feeder marches across Britain, from Scotland, Wales and the North West. Irish unemployed groups are to consider whether, having marcnea across Ireland tney can then join one of the British legs.
While these plans are undoubtedly ambitious, this reflects the importance of the issues at stake.
Currently Labour and the TUC leadership remain committed to supporting the ruling class European project.
Coming, hopefully, almost immediately after the election of a Labour Government, a response to the threat posed by further integration of European capital will be crucial.
We have to force the issues of full employment and defence of welfare spending firmly onto Labour's govenmena 20enc2 British delegates to the Paris conference called a meeting in Manchester on October 26th, open to all those interested in becoming involved. where all decisions relating to a British initiative can be taken.
As Euro MP Ken Coates said in support of the project, "Next year's planned European Marches against Unemployment will make Europe's jobs crisis crystal clear for all to see.
We need maximum public support to bring off this exciting project.
The initiative in alerting public opinion to the spreading scourge of unemployment offers everyone an opportunity to participate in some way and register their visible, opposition to a Europe of mass unemployment and exclusion."
Make sure you are represented at the meeting in Manchester - Build the EuroMarch for Jobs.