COVID-19: The EU has failed a test of solidarity. The price will be more austerity - and worse.

The European Union (EU) has been tested over its response to the COVID-19 pandemic - and it has been found sorely lacking. The resulting lack of vision, of solidarity in times of crisis, raises fundamental questions about the long-term viability of the bloc.

As the economic crisis caused by COVID-19 deepens, we have now entered the worst downturn since the Great Depression. The economic and political consequences are already massive – and will continue to grow.

In the space of just one month, International Labour Organisation predicted worldwide job losses grew from from 25 million to 305 million, with working hours lost equivalent to 124 million full time jobs in the first quarter of 2020 alone. By contrast, the crash of 2008-2009 led to the loss of approximately 22 million jobs worldwide.

The global economy was already heading into a downturn when the latest novel coronavirus struck. But it is now experiencing a unique crisis, one reaching deep into the productive sector and challenging established orthodoxies.

Panicked economic and social lockdowns to contain the pandemic have ground much production to a halt, while consumption has also shrunk massively. With millions now working from home, and millions more frontline workers all but sacrificed to the market, the logic of capitalist production and social organisation doesn’t seem quite so “logical” any more. The EU sits perched on a cliff-edge.

[Read the full article in TELESFORO MONZON eLab / Euskal Herrigintza Laborategia here, in Brave New Europe here, and in The Left in Berlin here].

Left parties must stand with the people

Neo-fascist and far right movements are growing in Europe, and internationally. Large, often violent, neo-fascist demonstrations are commonplace in some countries. In Europe, parties of the far right are part of government in Italy, Poland, Hungary and Austria, and are waiting in the wings elsewhere.

In 2017, more than 16 million people voted for far-right parties in Germany and France. The National Front’s Marine Le Pen won over 10 million votes in the 2017 presidential election. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) became the first far right party to enter the German parliament since World War II. Austria’s Freedom Party - founded by former Nazis - is in coalition government, and Poland’s Law and Justice government has subverted the courts, while encouraging white supremacists onto the streets. 

In Italy, deputy Prime Minister Mateo Salvini’s extremist Lega party (formerly Legal Nord), overshadows its larger coalition partners, while Hungary’s Fidesz government vilifies its critics as agents of the (Jewish) billionaire George Soros and treats refugees as “a Muslim invasion force”.

 

Read the full article at An Phoblacht.

Serie A - Italian footballers to go on strike

On September 10, the players of the Serie A - Italy's top-flight football league - declared they would go on strike on September 25-6.

AC Milan defender Massimo Oddo - speaking on behalf of the Italian Players' Association (AIC) - made the declaration as part of an ongoing dispute over the renewal of the collective contract for the game's top players.

The statement - signed by the captains and union representatives of all 20 Serie A clubs - read:

"The association, in perfect symphony with the players of Serie A, has decided not to go on the field for the fifth round of matches of the Serie A championship in protest against requests to impose new contractual rules,"

The football league, Lega Serie A, is attempting to introduce a new collective contract that would strip players of their existing transfer rights and bring larger profits to football clubs and their owners, at the players' expense.