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A rising star in the German Left Party (DIE LINKE), MP Sahra Wagenknecht charges hat Europe is using the blackmail potential of markets to force fiscal policy and political change on countries
"The results of the EU summit have become obsolete after less than one week. When it comes to failure this German government really is in the lead. These negative achievements endanger the euro and democracy", comments Sahra Wagenknecht the euro crisis that is becoming ever more dramatic. The spokesperson on economic issues of the LEFT parliamentary group in the Bundestag continues:
Die-hard Marxists and others raised in formerly Communist east Germany feel Europe's sovereign debt crisis has vindicated their once-ridiculed warnings about the perils of unbridled capitalism.
The euro crisis is not just a crisis of the public finances of individual Member States; it is also a crisis of the monetary union and of the entire European integration project. After decades of cooperation, we are now at a stage where there are fears that the EU could disintegrate. The condemnation from some media camps of “the lazy southerners” diverts attention away from those who caused and have benefited from the crisis. It prepares the ground for dispossessing the majority of the European population through austerity programmes and cuts in welfare spending. This is accompanied by steadily growing nationalistic sentiments in many Member States. Right-wing populist parties and neo-fascist parties are achieving considerable election success with anti-EU and xenophobic campaigns. The calls for Greece to leave the euro area make neither political nor economic sense and represent what is, for the moment, the sad culmination of these developments.
Germany´s government are the last people who have a moral justification to dictate how things should go now, says a leading politician from the left.
The German Bundestag calls on the Federal Government 1) to introduce measures at national, EU and international level to stop agricultural commodities speculation and to limit commodity futures trading to what is needed for the purposes of price hedging.
Next week, the EU’s financial assistance for Ireland is set to be finalised, following intense wrangling about how to proceed in this case. The aim is clear: the Irish state is to receive support to allow it to bail out the Irish banks, which bet the farm during the property bubble. At stake are, above all, the profits of other European financial groups – with German companies ranking alongside those from the UK as having significant exposure to Ireland, reportedly amounting to up to 150 billion euros. It was unclear how a bailout of this kind was to be executed, however. After all, the EU financial stabilisation package was primarily designed to rescue states, not financial institutions, from bankruptcy. Yet Ireland is not currently insolvent. The crisis has only even come to a head in this way primarily because the rate of interest has shot up following Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel’s talk of insolvency, to an extent which has made loans ever more expensive for struggling states such as Ireland. And so the EU, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund have for days been trying to force Ireland to agree to the rescue package – and to agree on conditions.
II. The German Bundestag calls on the Federal Government to reject the measures to preserve financial stability adopted in the framework of the EU's euro rescue package. In particular, all measures restricting budgetary sovereignty, and parliamentary rights to scrutinise national budgets in the EU Member States must be rejected. Instead, the Federal Government must take the following measures:
Anyone who wants to defend democracy against the financial markets must effectively curtail speculation. Credit default swaps (CDS) and short selling must be prohibited immediately, and the financial transaction tax and a levy on banks and insurance companies must now be introduced at German and international level. Measures must be taken that end the practice, which was responsible for the crisis, whereby EU Member States compete to attract businesses by offering the lowest salaries, taxes and social standards.
The LEFT parliamentary group today voted unanimously against a prolongation of the German army mission in Afghanistan and a further build-up of German troops. Before the vote a scandal took place in the Parliament: Bundestag President Norbert Lammert threw the entire parliamentary group out of the hemicycle after they, in silent protest, had held up posters bearing names of Afghans who had fallen victim to the NATO bombardment of two gasoline trucks in Kunduz.
Quelle: www.vermoegensteuerjetzt.de
