International

Everything comes to an end, including the existence of the European Parliament Crisis Committee. The results were disappointing, the draft final report being not much better than the interim report. This week I intend to propose another pile of amendments, but I fear that the majority will simply follow the line that the costs of the crisis must be paid by ordinary people, while the speculators must for the most part be left undisturbed. So – a missed chance.

The Crisis Committee has been meeting for two years. There have been interesting moments, such as the visits we paid to the bankers in in Basel, and to the European Central Bank. What you sensed in general in these financial institutions was the closed atmosphere. This is indeed an old boys’ network.

What’s worse is the fact that this network has such enormous influence. Entirely because the financial markets have made it too expensive for them to borrow money, Portugal’s interim government has been forced to seek help from the EU’s emergency fund. And for no other reason than that German and French financial institutions own large amounts of Greek, Irish and Portuguese bonds, taxpayers’ money – yours and mine – has to be used to get the three ailing countries back on their feet. It’s always all about the interests of the speculators, but will they help pay for the crisis? No fear. It’s time there was a partial debt forgiveness for the weaker Eurozone countries, which would mean that at last the speculators would have to chip in and the affected governments would not be forced to impose antisocial and irresponsible spending cuts.

But the financial institutions’ lobby does not extend only to government leaders. Euro-MPs are exposed to such lobbing day and night, which is why the Crisis Committee’s report also calls for austerity and contains no recommendations which would involve speculators paying up. The financial markets have far more influence on the European Parliament than do the voters.

Because this has grown so much and so crooked – there is even a permanent forum where the speculators meet regularly with interested MEPs – I have together with a number of other concerned members, participated in setting up a new organisation to deal with it. FinanceWatch will in the future act as a counter-lobby, cutting through all the nonsense talked by the speculators and coming forward with proposals to ensure democratic decision-making in the EP, where not speculators but ordinary men and women will be in control. Perhaps then we will be able to expect decent reports from bodies such as the Crisis Committee.