On the 10th anniversary of the European Central Bank, Sahra Wagenknecht, member of the European Parliament and of the executive of the party THE LEFT, declared:

The European Central Bank, whose 10thanniversary is celebrated today, is a neoliberal failure. Although the policies of the European Central Bank are very important for the life of the people in Europe, it is not subject to any democratic control. Following its statute, the European Central Bank is independent and beholden solely to the goal of price stability. Yet, what else does this much-vaunted “independence“ of the ECB mean but the complete dependence of European currency and fiscal policy on the interests of European finance capital? Where politics may not co-determine anything, the financial markets or respectively the large European big banks, companies and investments funds after all will rule directly. This explains, why the representatives of the ECB regularly appeal to the trade unions please not to react to price increases and shameless profits by business with equivalent wage demands. This also explains why the European Central Bank still has not taken any initiative for the regulation of European financial markets. Even though the financial crisis spreads further and further, there is continued reliance on the “self-regulation“ of the financial markets. Although experience shows that this is equivalent to an invitation to self-service. Because while people like to pocket the profits from highly speculative affairs, if there is an emergency, the risks and failures of the big banks tend to be taken over by the public authorities, that means saddled onto the taxpayers.

The macroeconomic regime of the EU, moreover, is based on yet one more misconstruction. While responsibility for currency policy has been transferred to the ECB, member states alone continue to be in charge of tax policy. The result is an exacerbated tax competition that favours mainly big business and the rich, while employees and consumers have to bear an ever larger share of the remaining tax burden. By way of this neoliberal misconstruction, the revenue basis of public budgets is destroyed, which in turn draws unsocial savings and privatisation programmes in its wake.

Instead of pronouncung superficial eulogies of the Euro, its tenth anniversary should be used for a critical appraisal. After all it's clear: Without a fundamental revision of currency and fiscal policy, there won't be any social Europe! The current financial crisis should therefore be used as a chance to subject important institutions such as the ECB to democratic control – in the interests of the employees, the unemployed, as well as the consumers in Europe.

Sahra Wagenknecht, MEP
Brussels, 2 June, 2008