Brussels, 10/05/2012 (Agence Europe) - Around 50 people took part in a demonstration outside the Council of the EU in Brussels on Thursday 11 May, after the 11th European Meeting of People Experiencing Poverty. In placing red cards (which indicate sending-off or disqualification in a number of sports) on the fence around the building, they sought to protest against what they see as the double-speak of European leaders and governments: current austerity measures do not chime with the objectives of the EUROPE 2020 strategy.
The demonstrators came from a dozen member states. Shouting their slogans on the need for the right to housing for all (“We don't want the moon, just a house”) or the need for more assistance for people living on the streets, they wanted to draw attention to the commitment made by the EU to take 20 million people out of poverty and exclusion by 2020. Currently, almost one European in four faces the risk of poverty (Eurostat, 2010). For Letizia Cesarini Sforza, interviewed by EUROPE on the sidelines of the demonstration, the Council “no longer believes in the 2020 targets” because everything is being done to move in the opposite direction and the crisis only serves to worsen the insecurity of those who already find themselves in great difficulty. She wanted to stress that, despite this being the eleventh time a “European Meeting” had been organised, it was the first time participants had wanted to take to the streets in Brussels to demonstrate. At the meeting, Employment and Social Affairs Commissioner Laszlo Andor had said that such a desire was understandable, Sforza pointed out. (JK/transl.rt)