Brussels, 20/03/2008 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 18 March in Brussels, John Monks, General Secretary of the ETUC declared in a reaction to the collapse of the US financial system and its economy that, “The right response to prevent the European economy from following the US economy down the hill is to intervene on exchange markets to stabilize the euro, to cut interest rates and boost public investments in order to strengthen domestic demand. It is not to using the economic crisis as an alibi to push through fake structural reforms”.
In a press release, the ETUC warns that such a collapse will have repercussions on the Euro and Euro-zone and points out that we are already witnessing an excessive rise in the exchange rate of the Euro, which could prove dear on the jobs front in Europe. Reacting to the policy messages from a joint Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) - International Monetary Fund (IMF) conference on structural reforms held on Monday 17 Marrch in Paris, the ETUC stressed that, “problems should be addressed by the appropriate policy instruments. Demand side problems need to be solved primarily by demand side policies”. It also pointed out that “casino capitalism” had gone out of control and should be addressed by financial market re-regulation. The ETUC added that abusing the crisis to push through an unwarranted deregulation of labour markets and worker rights would add more insecurity and simply make matters even worse. (G.B.)