Translation: Language Department of the German Bundestag

The Bundestag is requested to adopt the following motion:

I. The German Bundestag notes:

The eurozone crisis was triggered by the lack of regulation of the international financial markets and the fact that those responsible for the crisis and the beneficiaries have not been held accountable. In addition, the architecture of the eurozone is wholly geared towards the interests of European banking capital and the German export-based economy.

The measures currently being decided or planned at European and German level do not address the causes of the crisis, but only the symptoms: in agreement with the InternationalMonetary Fund (IMF), the assistance has been made conditional on radical savings measures in the affectedMember States.

Yet this will exacerbate the economic crisis, increase the likelihood of state bankruptcy and shift the burden of paying for the economic and financial crisis to the majority of the population in the European Union (EU). Neither sovereign debt nor the fault lines within the monetary union can be tackled in this way. The root cause of the budgetary risks in theMember States remains the unchecked redistribution of wealth and income from the bottom to the top. By agreeing to the EU decisions on measures to preserve financial stability on 10 May 2010, the Federal Government has neglected the obligation it has to keep the Bundestag informed, comprehensively and at the earliest possible time, and to allow it the opportunity to state its position in advance. In this way, the Federal Government has infringed Article 23 (2) of the Basic Law and the Act on Cooperation between the Federal Government and the German Bundestag in Matters concerning the European Union (EUZBBG).

On 12 May 2010, the European Commission presented proposals on tougher sanctions within the Stability and Growth Pact and on advance scrutiny of national budgets. This would not only restrict the basic democratic right of national parliaments to take decisions on budgets in an inadmissible fashion. It would also call into question the very fundament of the European Union as a union of sovereign states. It would infringe the principle of democracy anchored in the Basic Law, and contradict the ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court on the Lisbon Treaty.

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:

1. Immediate measures at national level:
a. Prevention of speculative attacks on the eurozone through immediate and long-term bans on Credit Default Swaps (CDS), short selling, bank loans to hedge funds and OTC
derivates trading.
b. Introduction of a financial transaction tax, initially at the level of 0.01%on all securities, derivatives and currency trading.
c. Introduction of a levy on banks and insurance companies, based on the US model, with exemptions for the savings banks [Sparkassen] and cooperative banks
[Genossenschaftsbanken].
d. Reduction of Germany's export surpluses. To this end, domestic demand must be boosted, and German wage and tax dumping ended. The first steps which must be
taken are the introduction of a general statutory minimum wage of ten euros per hour and the implementation of a programme for the future, with additional public
investments of 100bn euros per year. Additionally, fair taxation policy must be introduced to finance the measures to stabilise the economy, involving, amongst other things, the introduction of a millionaires' tax of 5% on assets exceeding one million euros.
2. Demand for immediate measures at EU level:
a. Introduction in all EU Member States of the abovementioned measures to prevent speculation, along with the bank levy.
b. Introduction within the EU of a financial transaction tax of at least 0.05%on all securities, derivatives and currency trading.
c. Implementation of a coordinated economic recovery plan at European level comprising 2% of EU Member States' GDP.
d. A fundamental reworking of the Lisbon Treaty. To this end, a Convention and an Intergovernmental Conferencemust be established.
3. Demand for and introduction of a reform of the EU and the eurozone:
a. Commitment by the EUMember States to maintain an external equilibrium.
b. Replacement of the Stability and Growth Pact by a pact on sustainable development, full employment, social security and environmental protection.
c. Anchoring within the EU of a coordinated economic, monetary, wage and finance policy. To this end, a European economic governmentmust be formed, in order to
overcome economic nationalism. This would also entail adequate harmonisation of corporate and income tax.
d. Establishment of a public Europe-wide ratings agency.
e. Direct granting of low-interest loans up to a certain level by the European Central Bank (ECB), rather than following the less direct route of loans by private banks. To this end, the Treaty on the Functioning of the EuropeanUnion (TFEU)
must be amended.
f. Effectively tackling the crisis in the long term is not conceivable without at least partial debt relief for the eurozone states.

Berlin, 20 May 2010
Dr Gregor Gysi and parliamentary group