An Anti-Social Document Prepared in Secret by the European Commission

By Henry Crapo, Truthout

The Secret Pact: its complete text, here presented as obtained by the European Deputy Patrick Le Hyaric.

"Improved Coordination of Economic Policies in the Euro Zone" [1]

Danger! It contains the program of social regression that the states of the Euro Zone intend to implement in order to satisfy the voracious appetites of the financial markets.

Introduction by the journalist of l’Humanité

This document, dated 25 February and prepared by the president of the Commission, José-Manuel Barroso and the Council president Herman Van Rompuy, is the most recent avatar of a series of texts aiming to make the people pay for the debts contracted by the states in relation to the financial markets, ... debts contracted in order to save those markets. This test was presented last week to the countries of the Euro Zone, in order to prepare the extraordinary summit meeting on Friday.

At the end of that meeting the heads of state and of governments announced the dawn of a new era, that of coordination of the economic policies of the member states.

In fact, this is a headlong rush to implement ineffective policies.

As proof, the financial rating of Greek debt was lowered on Monday. As a result, Athens had to borrow money yesterday at an interest rate higher than that of a month ago. For the moment, the response of the European Union has been to create a European Fund for Financial Stability [2]. This fund borrows on the financial markets, with guarantee of payment by the states of the Euro Zone. The money thus raised is then loaned at 5 to 5.5% to states strangled by the markets. Up to now, Greece and Ireland have benefited from this type of arrangement.

But to provide for a continuing existence of such loans, Germany demands of its partners an iron-clad budgetary discipline, and an application of recipes it has prepared: moderation of salaries, increasing of the age of retirement, etc.

On 12 January, in a communication, the Commission made propositions in this sense. They were recycled and worked over the beginning of February, in the form of a "Pact for Competition" [3] agreed to by the German chancellor Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy.

This is the most recent draft, which we present to you. It was concocted without consulting either the European Parliament or the national assemblies. This secret text is worse that the Treaty of Lisbon, in that it intervenes in domains heretofore of national competence, such as training of workers and systems for retirement.

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