Dimitrios Papadimoulis

Dimitrios Papadimoulis - Latvian Presidency & Greek Elections

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• published: 16 Jan 2015
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Dimitrios Papadimoulis - Latvian Presidency & Greek Elections GUE Reading the goals of the Latvian Presidency, the first comment one can give is: business as usual. While the Eurozone in December had for the first time deflation, while the overall economy of the European Union is plagued by stagnation, rising unemployment, increased social and regional inequalities, increase of the phenomena of poverty and social exclusion, the Latvian Presidency in its priorities wants to break stereotypes, but as an example it states the European Union's relations with Russia. If we begin with a comment on what the Latvian Presidency must not do, is that it should not further fund the flames of the relations between European Union and Russia. On the contrary, the European Union should develop good neighborhood policy with all countries, including Russia, seeking through political and diplomatic way compromises, understanding on the basis of mutual interest, building relations. This is necessary for economic, political and geopolitical reasons. Instead, one would expect the Latvian Presidency to try and break the stereotypes where the practiced policy has failed, with the unilateral, dogmatic adherence to one-sided austerity. There is one more reason to expect this from the Latvian Presidency, because Latvia and the people of Latvia were the victim of a cruel neoliberal recipe with unilateral austerity as well, because of which Latvians suffered for many years. What is needed? In the priorities of our political group, there is a need for a major shift in investment that will bring development, abandoning absolute austerity. Nowadays investments in the Eurozone and the European Union are 15% below from 2009. What is required is huge intervention with fresh money and public resources as well as involvement of the EU Member-States. It is not enough for the EU Council and the Member-States to just say “yes” to the inadequate Juncker investment plan, which estimates that it will reach 315 billion euros in investments the next three years, but with 1:15 leverage. Such miracles have only been achieved by Jesus Christ, thousands of years ago by multiplying the loaves and the fish. But Mr. Jean-Claude Juncker is not Jesus Christ. We are opposed to the Stability Pact and the “straitjacket” that it imposes, but still, at least the investment costs could be put on the table as a target, to be excluded from the calculation of the deficit of the Member States. And finally, the European Central Bank should act as a bank for all euro area Member States, ensuring a quantitative easing, because inflation was already below zero in December, while the goals of the Treaties are talking about 2%. The ECB should not operate under the pressure of the Germans, with blackmails by the German side and by Bundesbank, who want the ECB to act as a kind of annex to the Bundesbank. These will be mentioned during the debate in the plenary which starts shortly. Lastly, what I want to say, is that the need to abandon this disastrous, unilateral, unjust, impasse austerity is being understood by more and more people and citizens across the European Union and I believe that in a few days my country Greece will provide a starting point for this necessary shift, which will be positive for all of Europe and all European people, with a victory of SYRIZA on January 25th.