International

This week saw the results published of the most recent opinion poll of 26,000 citizens of the EU member states. Just as in the last survey, conducted in April-May 2011, poverty turns out to be the number one priority for around half of those interviewed. Second in the list comes a more coordinated economic policy, named by more than one in three respondents. Add these two stats together, and it isn’t hard to see that the existing agreements between the heads of government won’t wash. These are aimed exclusively at cutting spending and do nothing at all to combat poverty. A poverty test, assessing the effects of new proposals on low income individuals and households, is badly needed. Confidence in the European Parliament amongst the European public is weak, the survey also showed. If the EP wants to do something about that, then it’s time it presented a more social face. In the next few weeks we will be looking at whether, despite the right-wing majority in the EP, sufficient support can nevertheless be found for the imposition of such a poverty test when it comes to the implementation of the agreements on economic governance.

For the people who participated in the survey in the Netherlands, the figures are even clearer: in April 2011 38% gave the fight against poverty as one of the four most important subjects. By November this had risen to 47%. A coordinated economic policy (which means of course nothing other than diktats from Brussels) is now supported by 51%, as opposed to only 31% last April. Traditional concerns such as environmental policy and immigration are now given as priorities far less often. What this shows is that the extremely harsh austerity policies of the present government are creating concern. I also, however, see a reaction to the numerous European Council summits in the anxiety which they have created by never really solving anything but rather serving only to give Angela Merkel the feeling that the whole of Europe is now being led around on a leash by Germany and that all that will work is austerity. Of the promotion of employment and the fight against poverty you hear nothing from these leaders. And if they do talk about social policy, what they mean by the term is lower wages, less space for negotiated collective labour agreements, more temporary work and the destruction of workers’ rights on dismissal. Yet none of this is what people mean by combatting poverty. They want to see, also from Brussels, clear agreements on a social safety net, including a minimum wage on which it is possible to live, rather than starvation wages that only help create more poverty.

At the same time it appears that people have, more commonly than was the case in the previous survey, heard about what goes on at the EP. In the Netherlands those wanting the Parliament to be given more power have risen from 49% to 53%, although those who have a good impression of the EP have fallen from 31% to 26%. Although the survey doesn’t explain this, it would not astonish me to learn that many people who blame the EP for not doing enough on social policy would find this important. Moreover, in their agreements on the euro the heads of government have repeatedly ignored the EP. Given the large number of people who want to see a more powerful EP, there is every occasion for a strong social message to come from the Parliament. In my view it would be a good thing if, just as happened yesterday in the joint meeting in Nijmegen between the SP, Labour Party and Green Left, the social forces were to seek each other out in Brussels. Efforts could then be made to pressure the Commission and Council to require that a test be carried out on all measures related to economic governance to ascertain the consequences for poverty in Europe. This would increase the EP’s credibility and enable us to put an end to budget fetishism. In the coming weeks I’ll be working hard on this, strengthened by the knowledge that it is what a large majority of the European public also wants.