International

Yesterday Geert Wilders, leader of the hard right PVV, pointed to the European Union when he withdrew his support for the government’s planned round of further spending cuts. And today centre-left leader Francois Hollande came out on top in the first round of the French Presidential elections. One of his themes was that he would if elected reject Merkel’s Budgetary Pact, the treaty which further tightens the budgetary rules for Eurozone countries, as it is not a measure which would promote growth. National elections and European themes are thus becoming intertwined, which is of course logical, because through ‘economic governance’ Brussels is exercising ever more influence on national policy.

The SP has never been a supporter of the economic governance that the government leaders have forced through. The European Parliament also played a role in this, by the way, because the so-called ‘six-pack’, the six laws which together introduced economic governance even before Merkel pushed for her Budgetary Pact, was also negotiated by the EP, and adopted with the support, amongst others, of our own Dutch Labour Party.

In the Netherlands and France we can see where that has led, to the forcing of deep spending cuts which are destroying the economy. The maximum 3% budgetary deficit is perhaps fine in the long term, but you must nevertheless be able to govern, and that means making appraisals and taking good note of the effects of your actions. Sometimes spending cuts can be too rapid, sometimes the results may be that poverty and unemployment increase, and often it’s necessary to act intelligently and cut rather less in the short term in order in the long term to return to equilibrium.

Not only the Budgetary Pact but the six-pack too must be revised. Instead of absolute rules on budgetary deficits and sovereign debt, these instruments must allow space for sound economic policy. No extravagance, but a careful budgetary plan that avoids destroying the economy through spending cuts and leaves room for a new beginning, while taking into account the position of people who did not cause the crisis, but who have been presented with the bill for it. Whether Hollande and the Dutch Labour Party will follow through is the question. It is an important test for the social democrats. Fortunately the real left has also done well, with the polls giving Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the Euro-MP who is the presidential candidate of the Front de Gauche 12% of the votes. In the Netherlands, the SP with according to the polls thirty seats is on its way to the top. Mélenchon in France and the SP in the Netherlands are more badly needed than ever, in order to keep the social democrats on the right path and put an end to the austerity diktats from Brussels.