International

During the SP’s regional conferences in Bergen op Zoom and Arnhem on the last two Saturdays I was asked to introduce the discussion on the economic crisis. The central theme was the same: we are being taken for fools by the government of Mark Rutte – over the alleged need for spending cuts, over the consequences of these cuts for people on low or average incomes, and over the powers the government is transferring to Brussels. As far as this last is concerned, a little over a week ago Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager voted to approve the indicators with which Brussels will be putting the member states to the test. Amongst them will be matters such as wages and house prices. In the next few weeks European Finance Ministers will further elaborate these plans, but the main points have already been determined. The European Commission will gain the power to make ‘recommendations’ which the member states will be obliged to follow, for example if the Commission believes wages are rising too much or too quickly, or that the housing market is unstable.

So Premier Rutte might be a smooth speaker, but his words have little to do with the truth. Despite the fact that the Netherlands’ Central Planning Bureau has calculated that the Netherlands would remain inside EU debt and deficit limits without imposing austerity policies, the government is pursuing an ideological battle to downsize the state. It is becoming increasingly clear that this government is simply using the crisis to frighten people in the hope that they will accept a reduction in student numbers, large numbers of people will lose their jobs in social workplaces, and civil servants will be threatened with redundancy, to take just a few examples. The government is forced to postpone ever more measures, because people aren’t stupid. Let Rutte first demonstrate that the Central Planning Bureau is wrong and state spending is rocketing. He won’t do that, because it can’t be done. The drastic spending cuts proposed by Rutte are totally unnecessary. In fact, I’d go further: they’ll lead to lower economic growth and to people losing their jobs.

In addition to imposing spending cuts, the government is also trying to mislead us: nobody will suffer, they say, while in reality the bill for the crisis will be placed on the shoulders of the 75% of the population on the lowest incomes, while the highest-earning 25% will even enjoy an improvement.

The government lies to us also when it comes to Europe. While Rutte continues to assert that nothing will in reality change for the Netherlands, Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager gives his agreement to one proposal after another which will transfer control. Having voted recently for the Commission’s legislative package offering a framework for Brussels to interfere in matters concerning wages, pensions and state spending in general, he is keen to fill in the details with his EU colleagues. The agreement on indicators is an important step on the way, and the next will be to provide each indicator with a measurable target. If you don’t reach this target, you’ll be punished by Brussels, and the punishment will take the form of fines which could run into billions. And so, European economic government is introduced, step by step.

SP members attending the regional conferences were in militant mood, looking to expose all of these government lies. The party’s branches want material on the crisis and the response to it from Rutte and from Brussels, as well as on the SP’s alternatives. This will be provided, of course, but more important still, ever more branches are aware that Brussels isn’t some distant thing irrelevant to our lives, and that in the framework of the new SP campaign ‘Europe’s Talons’ we have to make people aware that their wages and pensions are involved in this, as well as their public services. As SP activists we will expose Rutte’s lies, whether they concern his policies at home, or the results of his actions in Brussels.