No to permanent austerity! Reject the fiscal pact!

Today thousands are expected at a national demonstration in Paris against the EU Fiscal Compact AKA Permanent Austerity Treaty.

Below is a joint statement signed by campaigners, unions and radical left political parties who will be participating in the protests.

‘The President wants to ratify the” fiscal compact “, as it was signed by Nicolas Sarkozy last March 25. (…) It requires the “structural deficit “of a government to be less than 0.5% forcing drastic cuts in public spending. (…) Instead we need to develop and renovate public services and social protection to reduce social inequalities and achieve equality between women and men.

‘We need public investment to finance a transition to more sustainable energies, reduce pollution, provide retraining in ecological ways of producing and consuming, creating millions of jobs. ( …) Today purchasing power is stagnating or regressing, businesses and local communities are reducing their investments: in this context, cutting public spending will only worsen unemployment. According to an IMF study, reducing the deficit of France to the target of 3% of GDP by 2013, will automatically create 300,000 more unemployed.

‘Economically stupid, the fiscal pact is also socially unsustainable because the ‘structural adjustment programs’ imposed today on countries in difficulty reduce [welfare] protections, increase inequalities and hit the most vulnerable sections of the population the hardest.

‘Finally, the fiscal compact is a denial of democracy: providing quasi-automatic sanctions for non-compliance and marginalizing national and European parliaments, it gives the unelected Commission and the European Court of Justice the powers to control national budgets. (…)

‘The social, ecological and financial crises are extremely dangerous as the rising xenophobic and nationalist extreme right shows. They require a European mobilization  based on solidarity and democracy and that releases us from the influence of financial markets.

The refusal of France to ratify the treaty would send a strong signal to other European nations enabling an open the debate on building a new Europe. We ask that a broad democratic debate takes place to make the President of the French Republic, the Government and parliamentarians accountable.

Signatories :

Act Up Paris, Aitec-Ipam, AC !, Anecr, Attac, À gauche par l’exemple, Cadac, CADTM, Cedetim-Ipam, Convergence services publics, CFF (Spuce CFDT), CGT cheminots, CGT finances, CGT Éduc’action, CGT équipement-environnement, CGT Livre (Filpac), CGT personnels des organismes sociaux, CGT-FSA, CGT-UGFF, Urif-CGT, CNDF, Démocratie réelle maintenant ! Paris, DIDF, Collectif des associations citoyennes, Les Économistes atterrés, Fédération Droit au logement, Fondation Copernic, Front de gauche, Parti communiste français, Parti de gauche, Gauche unitaire, Fase, République et Socialisme, Pcof, Convergences et Alternative, Gauche anticapitaliste, Femmes Égalité, FSU Île-de-France, EPA-FSU, Snac-FSU, Snasub-FSU, Snesup-FSU, Snetap-FSU, Snuas-FP-FSU, SNU Pôle emploi FSU, Snuitam-FSU, Snutefi-FSU, Snuclias-FSU, EE (École émancipée)-FSU, Jeunes Communistes, Les Alternatifs, Les efFRONTé-e-s, Marche mondiale des femmes France, Mémoire des luttes, M’PEP, Marches européennes, NPA, Osez le féminisme, Parti fédéraliste européen, Parti pour la décroissance, Réseau Éducation populaire, Résistance sociale, Solidaires finances publiques,
Solidaires douanes, SUD BPCE, Transform !, Union syndicale de la psychiatrie, union syndicale Solidaires, Ufal, Utopia.