The seminar started
with a modest protest of 2 trade union leaders of VOST Ukraine. They
held up the flag of Ukraine between them together with protest signs
asking for European help and sanctions. After Herman van Rompuy,
President of the European Council, had held his opening speech, they
asked him what Europe is planning to do with Ukraine?
Van Rompuy expressed
his disappointment that the president of Ukrainian Janoekovitsj did
not sign the historical document on cooperation with the EU during
the 2 days meeting in Vilnius, Lithuania in December last month.
During that meeting it was the President himself who declared that he
could not sign because of pressures from Moscow. The president did
not have the clear political will to come to an agreement with the
EU. However, Van Rompuy confirmed that the door is still open for cooperation
between the EU and Ukraine. In the mean time the EU
will put maximum pressures to the Government of Ukraine not to use
violence. Violence is not the answer to the prostests but political
reforms. He doubts the effectiveness of EU sanctions on the Ukraine,
it did not work in the case of Belorus. The EU will look for the best
way to help Ukraine. During the visit of President Putin to Brussels,
the EU will also speak to him about Ukraine.
From right to left. Herman van Rompuy, President of the European Council (Mr. Europe) speaking. Jaap Smit, President of the 5th Social Week and Cardinal Peter Turkson. |
The seminar was
organized by ACW, the Umbrella of Christian Workers Organizations in
Belgium, together with the European Centre for Workers Questions
(EZA) and others, financially supported by the European Commission.
The guiding slogan of the seminar was “Europe the age of
responsibility”.
The participants,
coming from all corners of Europe, were welcomed by Jaap Smit,
Chairman of the initiative Committee of the 5th European Social week
and until the 1st of January President of the Dutch trade union
confederation CNV. His message was critical on Europe. Europeans are
living in difficult times. “Nowadays 25% of young people in the EU
are unemployed...The number of men and women living below the poverty
line, is growing (from 20 to 24 million). European responses have
thus far proved to be insufficient.”
Cardinal Peter Turkson
stressed during his opening speech the importance of the Christian
social ethics as guidelines for the current European and global
challenges. According to the Cardinal the Compendium of Social
Teachings of the Catholic Church is a source of wisdom, inspiration
and guidance. The starting point is the goodness of God's creation
which leads to 4 pillars: human dignity, common good, solidarity and
subsidiarity (participation) complemented by reconciliation. We are
all equal in dignity but we are not all the same. Solidarity means
making history with others based on participation (no exclusion). The
biblical question “where is your brother” is a radical challenge,
an option for the poor. Fraternity is a global challenge. We share
the same house (earth). Charity makes it possible to create a part of
heaven on earth.
Fritz Neugebauer,
President of the Austrian trade union of Public Servants (GÖD) and
second President of the Autrian Parliament, went back to the ancient
commandments that everybody knows, as the basis for business ethics,
entrepreneurship and social dialogue: you shall not kill, you shall
not steal (do not be corrupt, do not bribe people), you shall not lie
(do not falsify money, no money laundering, do not authorize false
audits etc.) and you shall not sexually abuse anybody. The principle
of reciprocity must lead us: do not do to another what you do not
want to be done to you.
Herman van Rompuy, also called
Mr. Europe, is Europe's little Obama. Van Rompuy is not elected by
European voters like Obama is elected by American voters. He is
chosen by European leaders who indeed have been elected by their
national voters. Van Rompuy is also not chief of the army like Obama
but the European leaders who choose him, have armies like for example
France and Great Britain but also smaller nations as Belgium and the
Netherlands. The US and the European armies are cooperating in the
NATO, a kind of Euro-American army that is operating world wide like
for example these days in some African countries. So his words may
not have the political weight like those of Obama but they are also important. Compared to the US, Europa is a soft world power, but
still a power.
By his visit to the
seminar, Van Rompuy showed his democratic attitude. He stressed that
measures taken by the EU to restore financial stability, were aimed
to create employment. The downfall of the EURO, which was at a
certain moment not far away, would have destroyed the greatest
political project of the 19th century, the creation of the EU.
According to him there is no alternative for this European project of
peace, progress and democracy.
Indeed big mistakes
have been made: bad financial risk management by banks and other
institutions, not enough supervision by the national banks and
excessive indebtedness stimulated by low interests. The economic
recession was the consequence of artificially economic growth based
on easy credits and loans, for governments and private enterprise.
But already before the economic crisis, Europe had serious problems
with finding answers on the global challenge of China and other fast
growing economies like Brazil and India. Economic growth was already
low, unemployment already high. That is why Europe was already
looking for new strategies like the Lissabon strategy and Europe
20/20. Today these reforms have become more urgent than ever.
According to Van Rompuy
restoring economic growth is the main condition for restoring
employment. But will work the classical model of economic growth to
create employment once again, or has it become obsolete because of
the globalisation? According to Bartho Pronk the political agreement
on the introduction of a minimum wage by the German Coalition of
christian and social democrats is a first positive step in the right
direction. The minimum wages make it easier to watch over labour
contracts. The minimum wage will also help the “working poor” to
become less poor. However, Pronk notes in Europe a tendency “towards
the abolition of the social security systems, without taking in
consideration the vulnerable position of many people...The quality of
our Western civilisation is under pressure, because self-interests
and consumerism often replace an attitude of responsibility and
participation.”
Most of the speakers at
the seminar agreed that at the heart of the European Social Model
should stay the social dialogue between the three stake holders:
trade unions representing workers, employers organizations and
governments. The social dialogue is a proper tool to regulate the
ongoing conflict between capital and labour. Social dialogue brings
social peace en economic stability. It is also a proper way to
maintain solidarity between the individual (employed and unemployed)
and the society, between those who have work and those who have not:
the unemployed, the sick and the retired people.
But as already said,
the model is under pressure. Capital is considered as more important
than labour. The Anglo-Saxon model of a share holders economy
displaces the Rhineland model of the social-market economy.
Inequalities are becoming greater as a result of long term
unemployment, new technologies, instability of families and
globalisation with its delocalisation and flexibilisation. Jerome
Vignon, chairman of the French Social week, insists that social
priorities must be put above those of capital.
By comparing the post
war model of the USA with that of Europe, Professor Bea Cantillon of
the University of Antwerp, concluded that the European Union must
become a so called transfer union, a union of financial solidarity.
The classical idea that economic convergence leads to social
convergence, does not work. Europe has today a well developed common
market but not a common social security system. Therefore a new
European paradigm is needed: a European minimum wage must be
introduced, the EU must become a transfer union of solidarity between
North and South, West and East and there must be introduced a common
social policy supervised by the EU like now has been developed for
the budget policy of the EU members.
Professor Bernhard
Edmunds is critical about the underlying concepts of the free market.
Europe should not accept the classical liberal idea of maximum
liberty for the individual and a minimum of state intervention. Europe must go back to the Social Christian thesis that human beings
essentially are social beings. Therefore Europe as an economic
community (common market) should also be a political community with
social dimensions. In the same direction Patrick Develtere, director
of ACW, advocates a more qualitative economic growth as the answer to
the growing environment problems, the depletion of raw materials and
the climate change, caused by human economic activities.
The idea of the
European Union as a transfer union with shared financial solidarity,
a more social Europe and a Europe with qualitative economic growth
are today very contested by right wing politicians in many European
countries. Their promise that going back to the old times of
nationalism, autonomy, independence and no immigration will restore
the national welfare state of the past, is believed by a growing
group of voters. These voters see Brussels as a financial machine
wasting their money and not anymore as a project for economic
progress as stated by Van Rompuy. So van Rompuy was right to conclude
that the next European Parliament elections in the month of May will
become a test for he future of the EU.
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