Who will lead Europe?
New EU leaders must invest in growth & jobs
The President of the European Council has now a mandate to find a candidate for the presidency of the EU Commission. ETUC urges new leaders to get out of austerity and invest in growth and quality jobs.
The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) believes that Europe’s new leaders must get the European Union to abandon its obsession with austerity and invest in growth and quality jobs. Austerity is not working. With 26 million unemployed, 7.5 million young people neither in education, nor training nor employment, wages fallen in 18 out of 28 EU countries, poverty and inequality unacceptably high,
the crisis is far from over.
Europe needs to invest in growth to create jobs, to end the crisis, and to raise tax revenue to reduce public debts. The ETUC estimates that with an annual investment of €250 billion, Europe could create 11 million jobs. It would be far less than the amounts spent on saving the banks, and what is lost annually in tax evasion and
avoidance. Europe needs to invest in sustainable re-industrialisation, renewable energy, education and training, research and development in sustainable new industries, infrastructure for electricity, transport and telecommunications, and decent public services.
The people chosen to lead the European institutions must lead a plan of investment at European and national level, using public and private finances. The EU’s claim to be a democracy must be measured by the role given to the European Parliament, including who is the next President of the European Commission. That choice must be made by Europe’s citizens in the elections, not by Heads of Government behind closed doors.
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