Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-12-15-Speech-2-307"
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"en.20091215.18.2-307"2
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"Mr President, I expected Commissioner Almunia and indeed Mr Verhofstadt to perhaps offer us an explanation, and an analysis, for the reasons behind the disaster which has befallen most countries in Central and Eastern Europe in the economic arena. Twenty years ago, we had an heroic movement of working people in those countries which brought down the Stalinist monolith. Unfortunately, instead of replacing that monolith by going on to genuine democratic socialism, it was the restoration of capitalism which followed. But that was what was prescribed by the entire political European capitalist establishment: the EU, the big business media all promised that capitalism would herald a bright new era for the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe.
The market was to be God; competition was to be king. So we have the imposition of the neoliberal agenda so beloved of the European Commissioner: the wholesale privatisation of public property – the robbery of public property, in fact – and putting the economies of these countries at the mercy of the sharks on the international financial markets. We even set up a special bank to oversee this process, and it has been an unmitigated disaster. The Baltic States are in freefall: Latvia 18% down in the third quarter, unemployment at 20%.
What do the EU Commission and Mr Verhofstadt offer? The prescription of the International Monetary Fund and of the western European banks. Slash and burn the living standards of working people; slash and burn public services. Therefore, we have in Latvia the threat that half the hospitals will be closed by the end of this year.
The policies of the EU establishment mean a nightmare for the ordinary people of these countries – the threat of barbaric conditions for the ordinary people. So I would commend the people of Central and Eastern Europe to reject this fatal prescription of the European Union establishment, nationalise their banks, put them under democratic control so that they invest for people and for jobs, nationalise or renationalise the major sectors of the economy, but this time under the control of working people so that they can plan their economy for people and not have themselves at the mercy of the sharks, of corporate Europe and financial Europe, which has brought about this dreadful disaster for the peoples of this region. You may laugh, Commissioner, but I await your response."@en1
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