Workers Party of Belgium ✹ German Communist Party ✹ Communist Party of Luxembourg ✹ New Communist Party of the Netherlands

Starting the struggle for change now
Common declaration

The banking and finance crisis is developing into a global economic crisis. In the course of this development the present growth model of global capitalism with consumption and profits in the US as the motor driving the entire world economy is collapsing.

Now the helping hand of the state is to secure the assets of the rich. Introducing bank rescue programmes, the governments are shifting the burden of the costs of the finance crisis on to society. Industry is coping with the crisis by stopping or cutting down production and destroying jobs.

The struggle has now begun to fight for a progressive solution and to prevent capital burdening society with the costs of the crisis.

We will offensively intervene in this political and social conflict. For it is not only the major banks that have collapsed in the finance crisis; it is the entire ideological, political and economic conception of neo-liberalism which is shaken. The Lisbon strategy has failed; the Stability Pact is just a piece of paper.

It is high time to further develop socialist ideas in Europe.

In the struggles ahead of us, we will focus on the struggle for an economy that serves the people.

In our countries, we demand:

 Not only savings must be secured, but also jobs, wages, pensions and social security systems

 Make the rich pay

Those who have made money out of the financial excesses of the past years have to pay: financing groups, funds and the super-rich. They were the ones who urged their mountains of money be exploited to earn them even more money faster, higher and riskier by the day.

Tax benefits for top incomes and profits of the past years are to be taken back as well as privileged treatment of financial investments. Profits, high incomes and assets must be taxed progressively.

Consumption taxes on everyday items as well as taxation of low and medium incomes must be reduced.

 Public investments for an economy that serves the people

For an environmentally-friendly economy which serves the people, public investment in restructuring the production and consumption practices is necessary, i.e. investment in energy saving and environmentally-friendly energy supplies, for the reduction of exhaust emissions and the use of ressources, investment in public transport systems, public infrastructure, health, education, .. .

For this purpose, the billions which wander all over the world looking for profitable financial investment must be creamed off.

 Nationalising the finance sector

In order to establish alternative policies, banks and financing groups must be turned into public property under public control, i.e. control through representatives of society, local councils, medium-sized companies, trade unions , consumer and environmental lobby groups, the movement of globalisation critics, the peace movements, “Third World” groups – organisations which are elected from bottom to top and which are committed to an alternative economic policy.

 Stop the transition to capital-funded social security systems

Pensioners must no longer be exposed to the global players at the stock exchange. It is necessary to return to public, mutually supportive, social security systems. They must be strengthened by including incomes from gains and assets to finance them. Pensions from these systems must be raised at least to an extent that is above the poverty line.

On the level of the European Union we demand

• The Lisbon Reform Treaty must finally be abandoned.

• The Lisbon Strategy has failed and must be replaced by a strategy which develops the European Single Market by strengthening internal private consumption – higher wages, pensions, scholarships, unemployment benefits - and public demand.

• The Stability Pact is to be replaced by a Solidarity Pact, the aim of which is the development of a Europe of solidarity and the adjustment of the individual social standards of its member countries to the highest level respectively.

• Protection of collective and cooperative property. Stopping all privatisation. The corresponding rules of the European Union must be changed (Articles 81, 82 and 86 of the Treaty of Europe).

• Tax havens must be closed; the progressive taxation of profits, high incomes and assets is to be adjusted to a high level.

• The European Central Bank is to be put under democratic, social control. Its tasks must be changed to support full employment, the strengthening of the public sector and development. The monetary and fiscal policies must be orientated towards the goal of a sustained development, favourable financing of public debt and equal cooperation with the countries of the Mediterranean area and the developing countries.

Credits may only be used for investments in the real economy and not to move new speculative fortune wheels. Its most urgent tasks must comprise the promotion of long-term structural and regional programmes for the transition to another way of production, consumption and life.