Crisis, Crisis, Crisis! Finance • Economy • Ecology • Politics … Coverdesign by kind permission of vvlbbdo - Campaign of the Belgian Coalition for Decent Work Impressum: transform! european journal for alternative thinking and political dialogue Edited by transform! Europe, Brussels Editors: Walter Baier (V.i.S.d.P.), Eric Canepa, Elisabeth Gauthier & Rosa Reitsamer Photgraphs by: Emanuelle Reangot transform! 30 Rue Parnasse, 1050 Brussels, Belgium Publisher: Karl Dietz Verlag Berlin GmbH, Franz-Mehring-Platz 1, 10243 Berlin transform! Tel.: 0049 30 29784533, Fax: 0049 30 29784536 european journal for alternative thinking and political dialogue e-mail: [email protected] Layout: typothese.at 04/2009 Printing: MediaService GmbH, Franz-Mehring-Platz 1, 10243 Berlin Price: 10 Euro, Subscription: 18 Euro for 2 issues ISSN 1865-3480 2 3 Contents Agrarian Neocolonialism: Feeding People Will be One of the Great Battles 160 Contents of the 21st Century John Neelson The Dangers and Opportunities of the Global Crises 166 Editorial 4 Gustave Massiah Walter Baier and Elisabeth Gauthier The Left and the European Parliament 6 World Social Forum Francis Wurtz The World Social Forum Calls for Urgent Action Against the Crisis 180 The Return to Primitive Accumulation. Using Complex Financial Instruments 16 João Romão Saskia Sassen Shared Concerns and Issues Emerging From the First Science and “A Billion Dollars to Save the Global Economy” 24 Democracy World Forum 190 Joachim Bischoff Jeanine Guepin Faced with a Crisis, Will the EU Manage to be More Than the Sum of its Parts? 36 A Call for a New Social Network for Labour and Globalisation 193 Lutz Brangsch Gian Franco Benzi The Mission of the Icelandic Left: Rescue the Welfare State 48 Crisis and the New Internationalism 196 Steingrímur Sigfússon in conversation with Ruurik Holm Christophe Ventura Transparency, Financial Crisis and Tax Havens 56 Activities of the International Frantz Fanon Network Matti Ylönen at the African Social Forum 199 The Urgent Call for a Society of Solidarity 66 International Frantz Fanon Network Institut für Gesellschaftsanalyse der Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Chronicles The “Refoundation of Capitalism” and the New Challenges for the Left 80 A Visit to the Gaza Strip 206 Renato Soeiro Luisa Morgantini Approaching the Crisis 84 The Crisis and the Social Movement in France 212 Michalis Spourdalakis Maryse Dumas in an interview with Elisabeth Gauthier and Dominique Crozat Radicalising the Agenda: the Left’s Response to the Crisis 88 Popular Movements Challenge Policies 222 Euclid Tsakalotos Dominique Crozat A New Phase of Neoliberalism: Collapse and Consequences for Sweden 98 Daniel Ankarloo in conversation with Patrik Vulkan Parliamentary Elections in 27 EU Countries: A Score-Card 228 Gaël DeSantis Capitalism and Crisis in Denmark 110 Anders Lundkvist The Ugliest Face of Neoliberal Employers 233 Sissy Vovou Financial Crisis and the Remaking of the Society of Labour in Spain 120 Armando Fernández Steinko Guadeloupe Joins Forces Against Abusive Profits 240 Hélène Romieux Crisis and the Czech Republic: Political Observations from the Left 132 Jirˇí Málek Post-Soviet Critical Marxism 243 Alexander Buzgalin Crisis in Poland 146 Krzysztof Pilawski List of Contributors 246 4 5 Editorial ties in Europe and the formulation of questions relevant to the development of each of them. The second focus of transform! this year is the global eco- nomic crisis and its political consequences and impact on people’s thinking. Editorial The current issue of the journal, with its thematic focus, offers an initial sur- vey of this work. A working group headed by Elisabeth Gauthier provided the editorial coordination of this thematic area. Within the economic crisis, tensions in Europe are rapidly increasing and aggravating the EU’s legitimation crisis. The articles published in this issue indicate the multi-faceted forms as- sumed by the crisis, with its differing but also shared tendencies. Unfortu- nately, it is clear that the capacities of the left and progressive forces to carry out a change of politics in the individual countries and on the European scale are limited at the moment. In the last weeks, sectoral, but also in part coordinated and unified, resist- ance movements have developed around the slogan “we won’t pay for your Walter Baier and Elisabeth Gauthier crisis”, which are to be combined into a series of Europe-wide demonstra- tions planned by ETUC for mid-May. The extent and direction of the deep global crisis’s impact on social and political conditions will be more broadly he current issue of transform! european journal for alternative thinking addressed in our Fall issue to appear after the June European elections. Tand political dialogue introduces some innovations. There are two Right before going to press we received Ruurik Holm’s interview with the changes: first, a change of organisation and of technical coordination behind Icelandic Finance Minister. the scenes. This was necessary, because with the publication of the first issues The illustration of the front page was provided by the Belgian Trade Union of the Portuguese and Italian editions, the journal is now being published in vvlbbdo - Campaign of the Belgian Coalition for Decent Work to which we six languages.* want to express our heartfelt thanks. The illustrations inside the journal are Distribution and marketing are now being handled by VSA Publishing taken from a photo report on the World Social Forum at Belém by Émanuelle House, Hamburg. Reungot. Starting in May, the print edition will be supplemented by a modified and technically improved website. At the same time, the first issue of a regularly published newsletter will appear. The editorial coordination of this expand- ed medial presence and the production management of the English issue of the magazine are from now on in the hands of Rosa Reitsamer, sociologist and journalist based in Vienna. This expansion of the network’s public presence was agreed on at the last general meeting in January 2009. By now the network consists of 16 organi- sations, journals and educational institutions from 13 European countries. Due to its recognition as a political foundation linked to the Party of the European Left, transform! europe also receives funding from the European Union through which two research projects are being financed. One of these, called “Strategic Prospects of the European Radical Left”,has as its focus a comparative survey of the political experiences of the left par- *) Thus the journal appears in English, Greek, German, French, Portuguese and Italian editions. A Spanish edition is in preparation. Francis Wurtz The Left and the European Parliament 8 9 The Left and the European Parliament The Left Parliament and the European the Parliament, therefore, has the power it needs to block or annul a Com- mission proposal. It did not, for example, approve a proposal to liberalise port services and blocked one on working hours that would have allowed The Left and each member state to authorise a workweek of 65 hours or more. Too often, unfortunately, the situation is otherwise: Nearly every time that the European Parliament the European United Left–Nordic Green Left (GUE-NGL) presents an amendment to reject a Commission proposal, which it does nearly systemat- ically, it receives only a hundred or so votes in favour and is rejected by a ma- jority (including the European Socialists) that prefers to modify the text without going to the core of the issue. This is what happened with the “Bolkestein Directive”: The majority simply reduced its scope, leaving the mistaken impression that it does not apply to sectors that it does not specif- ically cover – health, social services in the general interest … An outright re- jection of such an emblematic text, would have, in the end, made it much more politically difficult for the European Commission to renew its assault on these points. Which it already has begun to do. Francis Wurtz It is obvious: The problem is not the Parliament’s lack of power. Rather, there are not enough MEPs willing to break – with their actions and with their votes – from the logic of liberalism. To declare that “the European Par- t is considered good form in some leftist circles – particularly the “far left” liament is useless” sounds “leftist” but helps the right … and its allies. Mean- I– to look down on the European Parliament: “What are you doing in this while, directives are passed and peacefully transposed into the national legis- mess?”; “Decisions are taken elsewhere”; “Any change is illusory”… I under- lation of each member state. stand, naturally, and share the exasperation generated as much by the struc- Two questions deserve clarification in this context. The first concerns an ap- tural orientation of European Union policies as by the deep lack of democ- parent contradiction: If the prerogatives of the European Parliament have been racy in the way that it functions. I too deplore the “parliamentary cretinism” reinforced by the recent Treaties, why have we fought them? The answer is be- that leads elected representatives to shut themselves up too frequently in the cause these same Treaties have, above all, integrated and codified a liberal eco- “bubble” of their assembly, far from real life, and to vastly overestimate their nomic model – with constraining regulations on every member state that personal ability to change things. But, there is, in my opinion, more to it than signed and ratified them. As a result, a “different Europe” requires a different that. treaty. This is fundamental. But this does not obviate the potential – and the left’s duty – to use the new power of this Parliament to oppose these regula- Permanent cooperation with social movements tions, to prevent them – as much as possible – from becoming directives and to question the legitimacy of the current (liberal) model in order to prepare the The conditions in which the European political struggle generally takes ground for an alternative.