Plenary focus - September 2019

This plenary will take place just before the global climate strike on Friday 20th September, and the debate on the Amazon forest fires will be a reminder to all of us that EU trade policies have a dramatic impact on our planet. Meanwhile, Christine Lagarde talks a lot about climate change but doesn’t ever question the role that the markets play and then pretends the European Central Bank has nothing to do with inequalities. We recently challenged her in the economics committee hearing on precisely these issues: will the ECB stop funding fossil industries? And will the ECB stop feeding the corporate finance bubble? She had no answers. Monetary policy should serve the people and the planet - not the market! Climate change and rising inequalities need urgent action, not hollow words. On Tuesday, GUE/NGL will be the only group to call for a vote against Christine Lagarde’s nomination. We cannot support the betrayal of social rights and greenwashing, and we demand a structural reform of the ECB.

Obviously, Boris Johnson is looking for a crash-out-Brexit to push through a free trade agreement that will bring down social standards and environmental protection, and open the door to tax dumping at the same time. That is the wrong path to take! It is therefore more important now than ever to protect and guarantee citizens’ rights and prevent the return of the border on the island of Ireland. That means avoiding a hard Brexit. Everything else is just irresponsible politics.

Christine Lagarde’s nomination for chair of the ECB represents a political choice for austerity. This decision means that the eurozone will be even more addicted to monetary policy as the only source of economic growth. Lagarde’s evasive responses on the need for a policy mix in which fiscal policies play a more important role is also enlightening: in short, economic governance in the eurozone will be more of the same.

On 19th August, the Turkish authorities removed the elected mayors of Diyarbakır, Mardin and Van, replacing them with government-appointed provincial governors. Ankara clearly does not accept the result of March’s local elections, and GUE/NGL have thus written a letter of protest to the Turkish government signed by more than 40 MEPs. We call on the Turkish government to end the repression against the opposition HDP and CHP. A true democracy is when the opposition can also express its opinion and carry out its mandates. This, sadly, is becoming more and more under threat in Turkey.