Strasbourg 13/09/2016

 

Greek MEP Dimitrios Papadimoulis kicked off the proceedings by saying less talk, more action was urgently needed: 

“What citizens want is tangible action. They want quantifiable results and not just rhetoric. Not just on global investment and tax evasion – even though the Commission was absolutely right on the Apple case in Ireland – but a global cooperation on the refugee crisis.”

“How can we set an example when the EU can’t even live up to its own obligations when member states aren’t taking their share of the refugees?!”

“We need action. We need facts. The Council has to explain to us in meetings like this why such actions are never carried out!” implored Papadimoulis.

Portuguese MEP Miguel Viegas was equally damning – criticising the G20 as minority club for the wealthy and does nothing to serve the vast majority of the world:

“This G20 meeting is full of hypocrisy.”

“The group already represents more than 80 percent of global wealth and they are still trying to put economic growth, deregulation of international trade, environmental challenges and social justice into one single basket.”

“The thirty richest countries in the world cannot decide for the others. Financial instability, corruption and social inequality are all outcomes of these neoliberal policies.  They cannot keep hoodwinking us every day with neoliberalism that only serves global capitalism. The poor must come up with a progressive alternative to capitalism and not cater to billionaires,” concluded Viegas.

Also feeling short-changed was Greek MEP Nikoslaos Chountis, who criticised the EU’s role in the G20 for doing more bad than good:

“They said at the end of the G20 that this globalisation was supposed to be beneficial to us all. But this is a desperate attempt to evade responsibilities in the refugee crisis, the Middle East crisis, global injustice and climate change.”

“The economic crisis has its root causes in the EU’s austerity and budgetary policies. Growth is stagnating and unemployment is increasing.”

“This whole putting a human face on capitalism in the G20 will simply not fool anybody,” Chountis said.

 

 

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European United Left / Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL)