The altermondialist network attac declared its solidarity with the strikers of the Belgian Volkswagen plant in Forest. After the board of Volkwagen forced the German staff to accept significant wage cuts and subsequently reduced the Belgian production, the Belgian employees called for a mass demonstration on Saturday. “As falling wages in Germany have led to stagnating or decreasing wages in Belgium for the last two years – due to a compulsory maximum wage regulation in Belgium – we fully appreciate the justified anger of the people concerned facing the anticipated closing of the biggest private employer in Brussels. Yet the Belgian employees are above all the victims of a totally misleading and irresponsible economic and social policy in Germany” explained Gerold Schwarz, spokesperson of attac’s EU working group.

For many years now, German government and enterprises had put the working standards all over Europe under pressure by worsening wage and social cuts at home, in order to achieve an unprecedented trade surplus by competing the European competitors out of the field, Schwarz continued. As Germany’s most important European trade partners are tied to the Euro they can not defend themselves against the German dumping strategy using devaluation, so that the EU trade balance contributes more than two third of the German trade surplus.

Facing the growth losses caused by this process and the anorexia of the German internal market, the German social and economic policy had for a long time ceased to be only an internal German affair. “Therefore we demand from the German government to support the social harmonisation on a European level that has often been suggested by other governments, to finally replace the empty word holes regarding the “European social model” by concrete actions” insisted Sven Giegold from the attac steering board.

While the altermondialists expect the German government to implement the demands of the Council Of Europe by harmonizing the German laws concerning strikes with the European standards, they also demand in return from the trade unions to concentrate more intensively on the creation of an ability to act effectively on the European level. As has been shown by the recent struggles at Volkswagen or in the public services on the one hand, and of the dock workers on the other hand, the German trade unions would only then be capable to defend employees’ rights effectively and to refuse the employers’ impertinent unilateral cancellation of collective wage agreements. “Who abuses the social rights of people in Germany, Belgium or in other places in a way the German government and employers do will put a lighter at the powder keg of the European unification and will not need to reason about euroscpticism”, Giegold warned.

Contacts:

· Gerold Schwarz, +49 179 9899826

· Sven Giegold, +49 163 5957590