On 2nd February the major European multinational corporations, united in the European Round Table of Industrialists published a statement of opinion, For a competitive Europe in 2025. For Dennis de Jong, Chair of the SP group in the European Parliament, this brought back bad memories: in 1985 the same group, then headed by Philips boss Wisse Dekker, brought out a similar report, one which led to the wave of liberalisation and privatisation which has since swept Europe. "A quarter of a century later they're still singing the same song, as if an old-fashioned gramophone record was stuck on a scratch. Once again we have first of all the dogma of the free market, despite the fact that analysts the world over have pronounced neoliberalism dead."
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