The dismissal of a thousand of workers from the Nokia Salo site is yet another example of how the bill for errors committed by the management of a big company is being presented to its blue and white collar employees. The workers - who over the years have produced huge profits and stock options for Nokia's owners and managers - are callously sacrificed because of the desire of Microsoft and of major international investors for greater profits.

Nokia has for some time been downsizing the manufacturing of mobile phones in Finland and moved thousands of jobs to cheap labor countries. Nokia Siemens Networks has announced thousands of redundancies in Finland and Germany. Industrial activities are being transferred out of Europe, mainly towards Asia. This may also lead to Nokia's product development being moved slowly away from Finland.

Nokia's success has been built to a large extent on the basis of the Finnish educational system, on state aid and workers' know-how. Now Nokia cruelly exploits the fact that in Finland, compared with many other European countries, it is relatively easy and cheap to sack people. Profits and stock prices are more important than the long-term development of production, than responsibility for employees and developing the national economy.

The challenge of "new Nokias"

The CPF Central Committee demands from government and from the trade union movement’s leadership to take measures to stop the mass dismissals and to improve the protection against dismissal. In Germany, Nokia was forced to pay over EUR 200 million in compensation for closing the plant in Bochum. In Finland too, dismissals must be made more expensive for large companies imposing on them heavy severance payments and requiring them to pay back the State and municipal aids that they received.

The mass lay-offs by Nokia and other companies underline the responsibility of the government in creating new jobs. Rather than cutting jobs, central and local government must develop new public industrial activities, expand municipal services and invest in product development in new areas. For example, the sector of environmental technology can give birth to "new Nokias".

The Communist Party of Finland

www.skp.fi/english/

www.skp.fi/2012-14-2/ban-on-layoffs-enough-is-enough-nokia

On the 9th of February the conservative government of Spain has announced a major workers laws reform that is a brutal attack to the rights of the workers, the worst in the last 40 years.

The main contents of the reform deals with six great aspects of the labour in its relation with entrepreneurs:

1st) to make nearly free the layoff of the workers with a minimum cost, only 20 days per year worked;

2nd) to allow breaking the entrepreneurs the agreements adopted in the collective bargaining;

3rd) to introduce a new type of labour contract for young people that makes very cheap and easy to sack them after one year;

4th) to introduce a new type of redundant worker who will keep the subsidy but working at the social matters, creating in this way a kind of battle between employed and unemployed workers;

5th) to make possible mass dismissal in the public sector services with a coverage of 20 days per year worked;

6th) the private employment agencies will be allowed to act as public agencies with all the inconveniencies attached to them.

Under the excuse of creating new jobs in fact unemployment is going to rise even more. One has to remember that now we are suffering in Spain a rate of unemployment of the 23% of the working population.

While the entrepreneurs organizations feel very satisfied with the reform the main trade unions, CCOO (Workers Commissions)and UGT (General Union of Workers) are very dissatisfied and they speak about having a course of increased mobilizations in order to announce a general strike. In fact on the 19th of February, Sunday, there will be huge manifestations in all the main cities of the country.

The main Spanish left parties, United Left (Izquierda Unida) with the Spanish Communist Party and the Socialist Party (PSOE) have expressed their concern and accuse the government of declaring the war against the workers and going back to the social climate of the beginning of XIXth century. Cayo Lara (IU) and José Luis Centella (PCE) think that trade unions have the main reasons to protest by this unprecedented attack and that with this labour reform the right wing government is applying the same measures adopted in Greece and Italy, against the welfare of the society.

Thanks to those mobilisations, the initial plan has been withdrawn and Raed Arafat is back in his position. But the access to emergency treatment, and generally, access to quality treatments for all, remains threatened because a new text is in preparation.

This reform is scandalous and endangers health of Romanian citizens who are living with many more difficulties since the austerity plans were implemented in 2010 as a compensation of 20 billion Euro “aid” by the IMF and EU. The vast majority of Romanian people will be obliged to give up treatments if this reform is adopted.

Everywhere in Europe, health services are attacked, damaged and privatised by ultraliberal governments who literally implement the policies of destruction of public services which are promoted by the EU and the IMF. It is the heart of the European social model which is jeopardised by these attacks.

For the EL, those political choices are unworthy and irresponsible. Tools exist, in Europe, to treat everyone as needed. The solution is to attack the power of banks and financial markets to reshape money in the direction of social development. This is the rationale the EL gives to its initiative that aspires to collect 1 million signatures for the creation of a solidarity and social development fund.

Party of European Left

20 January 2012

In order to read the french version of this text, please click on the following link.

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With the current leaders of the European Union, we are heading for disaster.

For years now they have been conceding more and more power to high finance. The outcome is catastrophic. The environment has been sacrificed and unemployment has literally exploded. Wage earners are being pressurized and impoverished. The real economy has become hostage to the banks.

And now, pretexting the crises that they themselves have created, European governments intend to pursue and tighten austerity measures. Under pressure from Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy, they have decided to concoct a new treaty which will deny the European people their right to freely decide their budgets and impose tighter regulations throughout Europe. Not one of them plans on asking the people for their opinion on such a fundamental text. This is a headlong rush into a Europe of austerity. Since Europe cannot exist without or against the will of the people, we therefore demand that a referendum be called throughout our different countries concerning this future treaty

Sarkozy and Merkel want to extend the disastrous 2010 programme, a programme which has severely deteriorated the situation of German workers, to all of Europe. Their aim is to heighten competition between European wage earners and to level down the rights which have made Europe one of the world’s most socially advanced regions. This strategy deliberately pits European citizens against each other. In fact, Sarkozy and Merkel have not hesitated an instant in fanning the flames of nationalism and xenophobia, at the risk of reopening old wounds. Merkel's entourage speaks of forcing the Greeks to sell their islands. Sarkozy speaks of the new arrivals in the euro zone as poisoned pills. These provocative remarks are aimed at diverting the anger of the people away from the real culprits, the banks, high finance and the political leaders who have relinquished their power to them We call upon you to resist with all your might against the decline of our European civilisation.

We urge you not to fall into this trap, a trap that threatens peace across Europe. Together, let us preserve the friendship between our two peoples, the Germans and the French, because sustaining peace throughout Europe depends on it.

How can we guarantee peace in Europe? Peace cannot be decreed. It is cultivated through cooperation between peoples, its purpose is to serve all. It is incompatible with the domination of two arrogant heads of government over the rest. It must rely on politics that serve the general European interest. The time has come to take control in order to meet the needs and aspirations of the great mass of the population and therefore of the workers of Europe: the sharing of wealth, the protection and enlargement of the right to a decent retirement, the recovery of public services, the eradication of insecurity, the relentless struggle against poverty and inequality, and ecological transition.

We urge the European workers not to give up! Finance can do nothing against a determined people. True wealth is the fruit of human labour. By their mobilization, European workers can  put an end to the financial orgies. And start building, at last, a world which is finally human.

This address is also available in French, German (soon), Spanish, Portuguese Italian and Greek.

The NATO as the armed tool of the aggressive western powers has revealed its real nature after eight months of brutal bombing in Libya through the most sophisticated death mechanisms, aerial attacks and launching of missiles. The NATO has showed that its main purpose as armed organization is the domain and control all over the world and to crush any possibility of threatening the  capitalist order. The purpose of the NATO is to exert its control in more and more geographical zones of the world considered as vital to the interests of the finances oligarchies and transnational enterprises.

The main purpose of this war is now very clear. It looked at the beginning like a kind of humanitarian intervention to protect human lives within the unequal civil war with the “no fly zone” helping the pro-western allied National Transition Council (NTC). But the reality has shown the NATO as being the guiding force of the war against Khadafy. In fact the aim of the NATO has been not only to keep a close control on the natural resources of the country, like oil or gas, and to have a military base in order to exert an influence on the region, but also to give an authoritarian message to the societies of the region that try to conquer  democracy in Tunisia or in Egypt. The real intention is to say that there will be no possibility of transforming by the uprising of these societies, the “Arabic spring” into a process of more social justice, democracy and independence from the western countries. In this region the society as a whole has suffered and suffers a lack of democracy with oppressive regimes that were behaving always with the consent of western countries, with its complicity. Never has imperialism give democracy and social progress to the any society. Whenever they have intervened the western powers have brought death, poverty, division, and religious or ethnical conflicts. In the case of Egypt it is now rather clear that military elite in power tries to refrain the willingness of democracy of the society by increasing the repression with the consent of western countries. 

According to the published list of cabinet members, Socialist Evangelos Venizelos remains Minister of Finance and Vice Prime Minister. Former EU-Commissioner for the Environment, Stavros Dimas from the Conservatives, becomes the new Minister of Foreign Affairs. His party colleague Dimitris Avramopoulos takes over the ministry of defence. He will be assisted by a vice-minister of the extreme Right.

The most prominent LAOS-representative in the government is Makis Voridis, heading the Ministry for Infrastructure and Traffic. He was the founder of the youth organisation of the Junta of the Colonels and the chairperson of the “Hellenic Front”, which was dissolved in 2005 and hit the headlines for their hunts of migrants in the inner city of Athens. Internationally, the man drew attention by his joint public appearances with the right extremist French Front National of Jean-Marie Le Pen and the Belgian Vlaams Block.

Voridis’ party colleague Adonis Georgiadis, co-editor of an anti-Semitic pamphlet among others, is the new Deputy Minister for Development and Shipping.

The Central Council of Jews in Germany has sharply criticised this appointment. Politicians of the LAOS-group, “have repeatedly attracted attention by their anti-Semitic comments”, President of the Central Council, Dieter Graumann, said to the media. “That now ministers of this party are allowed to become members of a new cabinet is really very sad”.

Under these circumstances, 17 November, the anniversary of the rebellion of the Greek students of the Athens Polytechnic, which led to a popular uprising, is charged with a double symbolic meaning: on the one hand, as a day of remembrance of the victims in the struggle for democracy and on the other hand as a day of resistance against the dictate of the troika, that is, the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission. 

In many European capitals people will gather in front of the Greek embassies to express their vigilance and their solidarity.

2011-11-11

To view versions of the article in French and German please klick on the following links: DE | FR

They have understood nothing, given that they seem to believe that social rage will be reduced if there is a governmental coalition and a bigger parliamentary majority to ratify their measures.

The new government is merely the desperate last effort of the “ancien regime” to pretend that it does not hear the popular will, as it  was expressed in the recent huge demonstrations in 19-20 and 28 October.

For them, democracy is a menace for the “common national benefit” and the elections a very risky procedure. That’s why they appointed a government  that, without any popular legitimacy, is called upon to  take fundamental decisions that will bind the Greek society for the forthcoming 20 years.

For us, this government is nothing else than the guarantor of unemployment, authoritarianism and suppression, namely of the same policy that is being followed exactly in the same way in more and more countries of the Eurozone. At first it was Greece, Ireland and Portugal; afterwards it was Italy and Spain and  now France is ready to follow. It is the policy that tries to transfer the burdens of the crisis to the workers, leaving the capital intact, and always through a national discourse.

All of them are the same people who are afraid of the popular verdict, who do dare to use any kind of undemocratic means to suppress popular struggles, so as they can implement every aspect of the Memorandum.

However, the initiators of this “omertà” between the bankers and the bipartisan system make a mistake; they ignore History. They forget that, whenever governments ignored the people, they were overthrown by the people.

The time has come to give the final blow to a system which is collapsing. No matter which is the choice of the "Memorandum party", the response of the society must be a total smashing of their blackmailing and their policies. The struggle for the overthrow of their policy is the only solution.

We call upon workers, the unemployed, the youth, to hit the streets, in order to defend their rights and overthrow the new government.

No tolerance to the Memorandum and its political exponents. Now it's time for the people to decide!

Neolaia Synaspismou - The Youth of Synaspismos (external link)

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The huge mobilizations all around the world proved wrong those people who have been saying that this movement was going to disappear very quickly. The massive participation showed the level of anger and rebellion of citizens who are fed up with austerity measures, cuts, evictions and unemployment.

In Rome more than 200.000 people were in the streets protesting and the police violently stopped the manifestation. In Spain, five months after the beginning of the 15-M movement several thousands of people were in Madrid’s square “Puerta del Sol” and in the streets of other 80 cities demanding “no more attacks to our human rights”, “no to the robbery of our retirements” and “make the cuts to the banking system and the church”. In Brussels shoes were thrown towards the stock market building while crying out “your money or your life”. In Switzerland, Great Britain, Finland, Germany, all around Europe and around the world a huge crowd of “indignados” are ready to face the crisis and fight for public services, public health system, public education system, decent jobs, decent housing, and better and just world acting in solidarity.

Today we can say that this movement is a reality. We are conscious of the diversity and heterogeneity of this movement, with all its contradictions which make its authenticity, and today it becomes visible all around the world as a movement that fights against the consequences of the crisis.

This movement is not the solution for all the problems the societies are facing, but a tool with a great potential to deal with the wrongdoings of neoliberal politics and the politicians that caused the crisis. At the same time this movement demands a “real democracy now”, and that governments should serve the needs of the society and of the people as well as an end to the neoliberal economic powers and the capitalist system.

The Party of the European Left participates actively to this movement and learns from its experiences and achievements, and will continue to give its support for a social, democratic and ecologic orientation of Europe.

The organization that adopted the mission of serving the society trough the representation of the public interest in the reform of financial regulations elected yesterday its first board and secretary general at a General Meeting in Brussels.

The newly designated secretary-general, Thierry Philipponat, alleged that Finance Watch wants to aid creating legislation on stricter capital rules and regulation of failing banks in Europe.

On a last year directive about IMF, MEPs complained about suffering a big pressure from private sector and having 190 meetings about hedge funds and private interests but none about financial regulation or the public sector, thus they’ve made a public appeal for offsetting voices that could represent the views of customers and ordinary citizens.

Finance Watch budget will come from members, foundations and the public, and the secretary general advanced that half of it could come from the European Commission.

Finance Watch members’ include European Consumers’ Organisation (BEUC), the Fédération Européenne des Epargnants (EuroInvestors), the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), the Centre for Banking, Finance and Sustainable Development at the University of Southampton, the Nordic Financial Unions, Transparency International, Oxfam, Friends of the Earth, and some individual members such as GUE/NGL Economic Committee MEP’s Miguel Portas and Jurgen Klute.

The meeting, that gathered several specialists, patients and patient associations from several countries and a group of Members of the Parliament, was hosted by Left bloc MEP Marisa Matias, who has highlighted the special context of these initiatives: "These meetings are launched in times of crisis in which, for the very first time, the 27 Member States have reduced all their health budgets. Thus, more than ever, it is necessary to keep the healthcare issues in the front line of policy, either national or European.

For the Left Bloc Member "in the HIV/AIDS case there are huge inequalities, both in prevention, treatment and health care. HIV/AIDS is transverse to the whole population and we should find different ways of speaking, as this only increases the discrimination and stigma and does not respond to the needs of prevention ".

"This disease cannot just be left within the medical world. Inequality will not be resolved only by throwing money into the problem, because there is also discrimination and various inequalities", considered Michael Huebel's, from the European Commission Health Directorate-General. In the West the disease begins to become chronic, but "the treatment is not always easy to stand financially, and social inequalities in HIV, increase the vulnerability", he has defended.

Michael Cashman, English MEP, recalled the stigma of the "gay community" in the 80’s. "At the time, it was considered pointless to protect these people who were sick by their own fault; a whole generation has been abandoned". He has still warned that, "we have to be careful with the free trade treaties, we cannot allow that the treatment depend on cheap drugs". But all the answers do not lay on medicine, "we can live with HIV without having our life affected, but this is not really true because it will still be a stigma".

An estimated 6.6 million people in low- and middle-income countries were receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) for HIV/AIDS at the end of 2010, according to the WHO. Of this, an estimated 420 000–460 000 were children. This progress represents the largest ever annual increase in the number of people accessing HIV treatment–1.4 million more than a year ago, but the majority are still in need.

On the day that the Greek Parliament approved a new package of austerity measures in exchange of a new bailout from the EU and the IMF to overcome the country's debt, the GUE/NGL Group discussed, in the European Parliament, how to pass from a neoliberal Europe to a social Europe.    

"We live today in a neo-liberal Europe that prevents a social Europe, because all the possible social changes are confronted with the EU. If we want to control the movement of capital, the treaties impose its unconstitutionality ", defended the economist Michel Husson. 

Introducing the theory of exit the euro as an ineffective solution to regain competitiveness through the currency devaluation, the economist supports the "rupture with the neoliberal, rethinking the role of the EU": " exit the Euro, particularly in the case of Greece, is an erroneous solution that would only bring the duplication of the debt and the repetition of inflationary cycles." There must be, on the other hand, a "redistribution of wealth through a tax reform that ends with the privileges granted to companies to the rich," said M. Husson adding that "Papandreou did not play a revolutionary card for the game, declaring that the Greek people would not pay the crisis, on the contrary, he yields to the EU and the IMF demands."

"We live today in a non cooperative Europe, instead we must adopt cooperative policies, bet on different power relations and create real solidarity with the more fragile countries: the States of the European Union should be able to directly obtain a loan from the European Central Bank (ECB) with very low interest rates and private banks should be forced to take responsibility for a certain proportion of the public debt", concluded the French economist.

"We cannot go on with a Europe that when a country is in crisis, has no mechanisms to help it without being victim of speculation", said Greek MEP Nikos Chountis.

Speaking of the imposed austerity measures  and economic governance package, recently approved on first reading by the EP, the Deputy of the GUE/NGL argued that "these proposals represent the end of a Social Europe, which moves away from itself, from its founding values and from the workers". The question of refounding a Social Europe does not go through coordination of policies, but through its orientation.

According to Heiz Bierbaum, from Info-Institut, "the budgetary consolidation, in such a technocrat way, offers no room for Member States manoeuvre and does not allow parliamentary participation. Unlike what happens today, the financing of the debt must be separated from markets through public incentives and loans by the ECB with low interest rates, and forbidding speculative financial transactions ", reaffirmed H. Bierbaum.

“We cannot perpetuate the limitation of human rights and the democratic deficit that we had been living in. The resistance of the Left is urgent and necessary to build the struggle for the Social Europe ", reaffirmed the President of the GUE/NGL Lothar Bisky.

This is seen as the most important moment - the peak after 34 days - of the mobilisations of the people against the vote of even harsher austerity measures.

Thousands of people, the Trade Unions, the "indignados" and of course, the political forces of the Left are going to proceed with a two-day blockade of the Parliament in order to prevent the vote of the Midterm Fiscal Program.

At the same time, the parties of the Left are also making this fight within the Parliament and asked, amongst other things, for the vote to be nominal. Some PASOK MPs have been saying that they do not intend to vote in favour of the Fiscal Program. The government will need its slim majority to get the package through and to get the fifth installment of an international bailout by the European Union and International Monetary Fund.

 The Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou has told MPs that his government’s austerity plan is the only chance for the country to get back on its feet.

“You cannot terrorise your MPs by referring to patriotism because if there is something we should be proud of today it’s that Greeks have risen up from their indifference and are defending, as is their duty, patriotism by the presence in the streets,” said Alexis Tsipras, leader of Synaspismos.

Opinion polls suggest that three quarters of Greeks are in opposition to the tax rises, spending cuts and privatisations.

Although the accusation should now be proved at trial, the prosecutor said that the evidence submitted was sufficient to set up because there were "reasonable grounds to believe" that those three were guilty of murder and the persecution of civilians, or "crimes against humanity," and that they should be arrested.

Judge Monageng said, on behalf of a three-judge panel in The Hague today, that since February 15, when demonstrations first began, and continuing until at least February 28, , Libya's security and military forces killed or imprisoned hundreds of alleged dissidents in Tripoli, Misurata and Benghazi, alongside with a number of other cities. “Those forces followed a consistent modus operandi ... an attack against the civilian population," she said, adding that “Gaddafi had absolute and unquestioned control over the Libyan state apparatus of power," whilst Saif al-Islam - his second-oldest son and "unspoken successor" – acts as a "de factor prime minister" and controlled the state's finances and logistics. Moreover, Abdullah Senussi, "exercised his role as the national head of military intelligence, one of the most powerful and efficient organs of repression and had personally commanded regime forces and ordered them to attack civilians during the fighting in Benghazi (...) “Senussi and some of his men were reportedly allowed to escape after negotiating with troops who had defected to the protesters' side.," Monageng affirmed.

Gaddafi has refused until now insistent calls to give up power and it is supposed to still be inside the country.

It is the second time in nine years that the ICC issues an arrest warrant for a head of state in office. The first case was relative to the Sudanese president, Omar al-Bashir, in 2009, although he was not yet arrested.

"The economic governance package is the wrong answer to the economic crisis, while at the same time it signals a definite end to the European Union, as we know it. The 'European Semester' has only one objective: the abolition of collective agreements, the dismantling of public retirement systems and further privatizations," said warned Nikos Chountis (Greece).

" The model that has been adopted is one that will prevent growth in the EU because it is based on a strict control of debts and deficits at member state level whereas these should be put on a par with other issues such as job creation and sustainable economic and environmental growth. The aims of economic policy should be to solve peoples' not bankers' problems", MEP Miguel Portas (Portugal) affirmed.

This package has nothing to do with democracy and much less with a social and sustainable Europe; what the EU needs is an economic government that fights gaping economic and social imbalances," concluded German MEP Jürgen Klute.

Europe finds itself at the crossroads — its legitimacy is receding.

The social and political conflict is very tough. Difficulties are continually worsening for wage earners and pensioners, for those in insecure employment, young people migrants and the poorest people, or those being reduced to poverty. Everywhere women are the worst affected. We welcome as most encouraging the movements of “the indignant ones” in many European countries for “a real democracy”.

Convergent demands that mobilise We have observed that a number of struggles go in the same direction by bearing the demand for a harmonisation of rights towards the high levels and that, in an atmosphere of indignation there are many convergences between social and civic movements, trade unionists as well as social and political activists.

· European public services must be preserved and developed so as to encourage the principle of equality, solidarity and education for all; research projects needed their societies and the emergence of a new mode of social and ecological development. This is a fundamental objective to ensure that social activities remain in the public area and cannot be transferred as unpaid domestic activity by women or underpaid wage groups.

· Democracy is in retreat in Europe, it must be defended and become more real as is being demanded by citizens all over Europe.

· 19 June: a Day of Action in Spain on the initiative of the “indignant ones” of the Puerta del sol and solidarity initiatives in other countries.

· 15 October an international action launched by the 15 May Movement (Porta del Sol)

Several paths are still being discussed:

Some questions remained open in the discussion, particularly a proposal put forward by the Greek participants: should we try to develop a “common front of trade unions, movements, political forces” whose aims converge? Or the path of a “citizens’ pact” to rebuild Europe.

The 2010 GDP had a variation from 43% to 283% of the EU27 average across the Member States, with Luxembourg recording the highest level.

In Spain, Italy and Cyprus, GDP per capita was around the EU27 average, while in France it was around 5% above the average. Germany, Belgium, Finland and the United Kingdom were between 10% and 20% above the average, while Denmark, Ireland, Austria and Sweden were all around 25% above the average. The Netherlands was about one third above the average.

Greece, Slovenia, Malta, Portugal and the Czech Republic were between 10% and 20% lower than the EU27 average, while Slovakia was around 25% below. Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Lithuania and Latvia were between 35% and 50% lower, while Romania and Bulgaria were around 55% below the EU27 average.

Despite the big differences between parties, they’ve finally managed to build a common program, to which Left alliance contributed with important social reforms. The solution has been widely welcomed by trade unions, and the program, qualified as socialist "manifesto" by media, has been criticized by the Finnish Industries Confederation and financial representatives.

The new political program includes: an increase of 100 Euros of unemployment benefits, 25 Euros more for basic security, increases in housing benefits and rent control by the state (The Housing Finance and Development Centre of Finland that produces social housing will have cuts on part of these rents). In addition, there will be a deduction of tax income for those who have low and middle incomes - to finance this, the capital income tax is increased to 30% or 32% for surplus of 50,000 Euros per year, against today’s 28%. The fee for large inheritances is increased (to 16% instead of 13%) and a new tax to nuclear energy is created, but no more nuclear plants will be built.

The government is committed not to increase either the VAT or the retirement age. Education it is still free, despite previous governments started a process to change it structurally towards a non-free system. Finland will also push a European financial transaction tax and multilateral tax cooperation to close tax havens. Finally, the country is freezing its participation in NATO, withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan and focusing on assistance to civilians.
Unfortunately, and due to the hard economical situation, there are also some bad arrangements that were very difficult to be accepted by the Left as right parties have imposed a decrease in higher education funding, less development assistance and that they will not allow Finland to stop neoliberal solutions and speak clearly on IMF policy and financial mechanisms in Europe.

“This is the biggest extended hand to the very poorest that has happened in my lifetime. I am very proud of these achievements”, said Left Alliance chairman Paavo Arhinmäki.

It was said that the public services is some kind of “DNA” that identifies the true model of the social Europe that we seek, which is the only way to promote and respond to the business environment reality driven by ultra-liberal Europe.
 
The discussion reiterated the need to understand public services cuts as an attack against democracy and against the possibility of living happily in a structured society, free of xenophobia and free of the fascism threats.
 
EL noted that the most attacked sectors are those of education, health, and welfare, the three pillars of the welfare state which are now experiencing an unprecedented dismantling and being further accelerated by privatizations.

The EL calls on the union of the workers of these three sectors and other citizens for a common defence of our common well being.

Collecting millions of signatures throughout the year 2012 to support the European Citizens' Initiative, which aims to create a European Social Fund, will be a decisive step to this fight and to face the capitalist enemy.

Read the conclusions on EL Public services seminar here

The wave of demonstrations that began on May 15 was first and foremost focused on Spain's high unemployment rate and on the government's economic austerity measures. Spain currently suffers from 21 percent unemployment, with more than 40 percent unemployment among those less than 25 years old.

In Paris seven hundred people stand up and marched against pension reforms and public sector. Also in Berlin, Brussels and Lisbon protesters came out in solidarity with their Greek and Spanish neighbours.

If it is a fact that the “indignados movement” progressively became international and protests and camping spots multiplied in several different cities, Sunday protests showed an even wider indignant feeling with a definitely anti-Brussels character, with people anger directed at measures backed by the European Commission and the northern members of the euro-zone.

In Greece, Portugal, Ireland and Spain, controversial austerity measures have been already implemented to fulfill the euro stability pact requirements, an agreement between euro-zone politicians seen as to stimulate competitiveness and to avoid the deepen of the debt crisis, but that has revealed to be ineffective despite all the efforts demanded to the populations trough the frozen of pensions, the increase of retirement age and easier legislation for companies to lay people off.

Also during the weekend, eurozone governments failed to agree the release of a €12bn bail-out payment for Greece has fed into the uncertainty surrounding the bloc’s fiscal crisis and the details of the new rescue deal. The final decision was postponed until early July. This means the money will only be granted if the Greek parliament agrees over a new round of deeply unpopular austerity cutbacks.

In Athens, tens of thousands of protestors have been gathering for weeks, showing their anger at Greece's politicians and the imposed spending cuts and tax rises. Even though Papandreou has appointed a new finance minister last week, Evangelos Venizelos, European ministers are not convinced in reaching agreement on the debt crisis, and people, on the other side, are not positive at all about better times to come.

Berlusconi's government is the big looser of the consultation process against the expression of people’s will that expressed their vote by large majorities. However, he seems to be inclined to try to hold on the power for some more time. Even if fifty-seven percent of voters went to the ballots - which means, the first time in 15 years that a referendum reaches the necessary quorum of 50 percent – the Italian prime minister is devaluating the binding result.

Although the clear growing dissatisfaction with Berlusconi, new elections are not expected for the next instants, but it is quite unlikely that he manages to hold the discontent feelings until 2013. Newspapers are now speaking about the lively Italian Spring, like it is happening in Arab world.

The era of Prime Minister Berlusconi seems to be coming to an end. For almost 20 years, the capitalist entrepreneur has dominated Italian politics, but now the generality of population doesn’t trust in him anymore, and evidently doesn’t want the same kind of policies and his undemocratic and distorted leading method.