ZCommunications | End Financial Control of European Governance by Susan George | ZNet Article
►http://www.zcommunications.org/contents/179948
What do you think the consequences of these policies will be?
European policies so far are disastrous! They are the same so-called “remedies” that were forced on developing countries in the 1980s, now better known as the “lost decade for development”. The austerity programmes being imposed on Greece, Ireland or Portugal come straight from the neoliberal handbook of Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs), from A to Z.
The result is savage contraction of those economies to an unheard-of degree. When radical privatisation, salary cuts, social spending wipe-outs and so on were imposed in really poor countries like Niger, they actually led to famine and mass deaths. In Europe, we have more leeway, some cushions, but Greece’s economy has already shrunk by more than 5% this year, unemployment has soared with no compensation, small businesses are failing in droves and everything in sight is being privatised.
It’s a criminal policy designed to push workers back into 19th century, to get rid of the social benefits people fought for over many generations. As usual, the rich will escape and international capital will have a heyday with the privatisation possibilities. Ordinary people are paying twice for the financial crisis—first to bail out the banks and now to sacrifice and bring about the ruin of their own countries and livelihoods.