Nice target next for campaigners
Following the successful mobilisation against the IMF and World Bank in Prague in September, the next target of anti-capitalist campaigners needs to be the European summit in Nice in December.
Both the ATTAC network and the Euromarch network in France will be making Nice a priority.
Both these forces were key the impressive turn out of nearly 100,000 demonstrators protesting against globalisation in the small French town of Millau earlier in July.
Given that, and the strength of the left in the French labour movement, together with official Trade Union backing for the mobilisation, there is a real potential for December 6 to be another major step forward in building a genuine European response to neo-liberalisism. Let us make sure that we build a serious turn out from Britain.
This appeal is currently being circulated and deserves the widest possible support from individuals and labour movement bodies:
Appeal
We the undersigned call for the biggest possible mobilisation for the demonstration called by the European Confederation of Trade Unions (ETUC) and supported by the TUC in Nice, France December 6 2000.
The Prague anti-capitalist demonstrations effectively exposed the role of IMF and World Bank in bringing misery to tens of millions of people across the globe, through their austerity and structural adjustment plans.
But behind the WTO/IMF/World Bank stand the US and governments of the European Union. The EU is being used as one of the main instruments of the neo-liberal offensive against public services and living standards in Europe.
The Inter Governmental Conference will be deciding on a Charter of Basic Rights.
This Charter, which is designed to form the basis of an EU Constitution, "guarantees the freedom to conduct a business", but gives no guarantee of the right to collective bargaining and trade union action, including strike, at European level", in the words of ETUC General Secretary Emilio Gabaglio.
Nor are there any guarantees of the right to employment and housing, which are written into the constitutions of many EU countries.
The ETUC expects at least 50,000 demonstrators to converge from all over Europe. We call on all labour movement bodies, NGOs, and anti-capitalists to show their opposition to the direction of EU policies by mobilising with our European brothers and sisters, and calling for a fundamental change of course by European governments.
Meeting to build for Nice
Monday October 30, 7.30
Diorama Centre, Osnaburgh St London NW1 (nr Great Portland St tube), includes report back from planning meeting in Paris on Oct 21.