Politicians who have supported strict new spending rules must have the courage to tax wealthy corporations making record profits – and not make struggling workers pay through new austerity measures.
The European Parliament today voted in favour of fiscal rules which mean that member states will need to cut their budgets by over 100 billion Euro a year from 2027 or raise the equivalent amount through tax.
Cuts would prevent the majority of EU member states from meeting their targets for investment in schools, hospitals and housing, a study by the New Economics Foundation for the ETUC found.
That is why the ETUC is calling for member states to instead meet the requirements through progressive taxation. The EU should also put in place a permanent investment mechanism to ensure that member states still have capacity to meet social and green goals.
Responding to the European Parliament’s vote in favour of new fiscal rules, ETUC General Secretary Esther Lynch said:
“Today’s vote risks returning Europe to the misery of austerity at a time when we need to massively scale up public investment to meet the EU’s social and climate goals.
“Working people who have suffered a historic drop in living standards as a result of the pandemic and cost-of-living crisis simply don’t have anything left for politicians to take.
“Instead politicians who supported these fiscal rules should have the decency to meet them through taxes on the corporations which registered record breaking profits which fueled inflation.
“Any cuts resulting from today’s vote should come from the pockets of ultrarich CEOs and shareholders not at the expense of our children’s schools, decent housing for working families or health and social care for the vulnerable and elderly.”
