International

This week will see a meeting at the European Parliament organised by two Italians in the name of their group, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), at which they will propose a solution to the financial and economic crisis: the establishment of tax-free zones in Europe, beginning with Sardinia. This fits with the neoliberal philosophy: government as small as possible and therefore taxes as low as possible. The SP knows better: big corporations evade taxes on a massive scale, while they make billion in profits. That’s why it’s completely reprehensible that fellow MEPs should come up with such an idea.

Sardinian flag. Source: Wikimedia commons

Which lobby is behind it, I don’t know, but after the European Parliament had just adopted resolution calling for tax evasion to be addressed, we had immediately to respond to a meeting calling for a move which would propagate still more tax havens. It could hardly be crazier. It is, moreover, extremely shortsighted. The Italians hope to record a swift success and perhaps it would turn out well for Sardinia in the short term should it become a tax-free zone. In the longer term, however, this sort of initiative undermines the tax base and we all suffer.

Neoliberals aren’t interested in people’s welfare. They don’t give a hoot for social safety nets and find sound public provision of no importance, whether of energy, water, public transport or social security. They’re all ‘services’ which you can in their view hand to the market. Only the police and judicial system should be tasks for the state, a well-functioning system of law. These are allowed by the neoliberals only in order that the government might facilitate the conduct of business. You can see this, for example, in the recent European Commission proposal for a ‘rule of law’ monitor: only those aspects of law which are of interest to the world of business are mentioned in the text.

We don’t want a society of that kind, a cold, dismal society characterised by high levels of unemployment, and high levels of poverty even amongst those in work, a society in which everyone is everyone else’s enemy and where competition reigns even in one’s private life. We in the SP are convinced that you need good public provision if you want a just society and one in which solidarity is the rule. That’s why you need taxation - according to ability to pay, so that those who can afford it contribute out of a feeling of solidarity. In this, there’s no room for tax havens or tax-free zones. Big corporations which would profit from such are precisely those who could most easily contribute, rather than stashing their billions in profits in speculative financial products as they do now. If I go to the meeting it will be with banners on which we call for solidarity, though perhaps it would be better simply to leave the gathering to the right.