International

It’s been a bad week for social Europe. Not only did the European Parliament vote in favour of the main points in the plans for European economic governance, but the heads of member state governments reached an agreement in principle on yet another loan to the banks (via Greece). Both decisions are quite the reverse of what the majority of Dutch citizens want, yet the streets remain almost empty. On 21st June the European trade union movement demonstrated in Luxembourg, but few turned up from the Netherlands. How is it that while most Dutch people are extremely critical of these EU decisions, they’re not taking action?

The widespread idea that ‘Europe has nothing to do with me’ is misguided. Setbacks to the national budget resulting from loans to Greece will lead, directly or indirectly, to still more spending cuts, cuts which will affect us all. And European Economic Governance could, in the nest few years, put Dutch wages and pensions under pressure. Not exactly matters which are far from the concerns of the Dutch public.

The problem above all is that the conceptualisation of this kind of decision is somewhat abstract and not easily accessible to the general public, while it is often not easy to predict what consequences EU decisions will have for the situation in the Netherlands itself.

Yesterday the SP’s ‘Party Council’ met. Consisting in the main of branch chairs, with a few ex-officio members, the Party Council is the SP’s highest decision-making body other than the Congress, which meets irregularly when it is felt to be necessary, for example before election campaigns. Yesterday’s Party Council gave a great deal of attention to Europe, including premiering short films on the development of the EU and on the work of the team in Brussels. During the question-and-answer session numerous members called for action. There is every reason why they should, yet once people are seen to take action, as even the trade union movement has failed to do, and other political parties, including to my astonishment the PvdA (Labour Party), declare themselves in the European Parliament perfectly happy with the new proposals for economic governance and proceed to vote in favour. This is an enormous challenge, but certainly not an impossible one.

Taking action on European issues is best done, in my view, from the bottom up, For example, it is a simple matter to pair an action against spending cuts with an action against the spending which Prime Minister Rutte in effect does in Brussels. The Champion of Austerity in The Hague is a big spender when he’s in Brussels, agreeing unhesitatingly to a new round of loans to Greece, despite the opinion of every economist that this is throwing good money after bad, and accepting at the same time an increase in the EU budget. When it comes to the interests of speculators and major corporations, Rutte always has enough money; but as for the interests of vulnerable people in the Netherlands, such as disabled people or those in need of psychiatric care, then all of a sudden Rutte is broke.