Brussels, 23/09/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 23 September, the Workers' Group of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) adopted a declaration on “restoring confidence in the integration project of the European Union”.
The EESC calls on the European institutions and the governments of the member states to take the full measure of the concern and suffering of the citizens. It speaks out against any propaganda aiming to take advantage of the situation to set people against each other and jeopardise what the Union has achieved. The Workers reject the austerity measures taken by the government of the EU, “impoverishing citizens and causing a spiral of recession at the very moment when we must carry out an ambitious policy of investment, growth, employment support and inclusion”.
The EESC demand that any measure taken “respects the European social model”, including social dialogue, collective negotiations and collective agreements that derive from it. It also calls for the European programme of food aid for the very poorest people in the EU to continue.
Additionally, the Workers' Group of the European Economic and Social Committee: - calls for effective regulation of the financial markets and effective measures to combat speculation, including the establishment of a European fiscal policy and taxation of financial transactions; - reiterates its confidence in the euro as a political venture that is vital to the future of the European Union, and gives its full support to the European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism, which must be granted enough resources to guarantee its efficiency, as well as solidarity at European level; - calls for the introduction of euro-bonds, as an effective instrument to stimulate the real economy in the EU and contribute to solving the problem of sovereign debt in the member states; - insists that economic, social and political cohesion be strengthened, as a fundamental pillar of European integration.
The EESC Workers' Group takes the view that the citizens “bear no responsibility for the crisis and it is unfair that innocent people have to pay for the excesses of speculators and the irresponsibility or incompetence of certain politicians”. (LC/transl.fl)