Tribune – Comment, news and reviews from Britain's democratic left

The dominance of right-wing governments in the European Union has been revealed again by a “euro pact” paper agreed by national leaders which could lead to damaging reforms to wage and pension agreements, particularly affecting the countries in the euro area.

Controversial proposals by Labour peer Lord Hutton to eliminate the taxpayer-funded shortfall in public sector pensions will be “the spark that lights the blue touch paper of co-ordinated strike action” warned RMT general secretary Bob Crow.

Local councils, already reeling from the worst ever cuts to public services, are now facing a new financial burden: paying hundreds of millions of pounds of British Government fines for breaching European Union waste and pollution directives.

As government officials admitted for the first time that radiation from the quake-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in northern Japan has reached harmful levels, the danger zone was extended to 30 kilometres around the site.

The scale of the unfolding political crisis in Libya has, inevitably, attracted the attention of some of the world’s most powerful and influential governments.