Under the banner “Let’s change Europe” manifesto proposals include demands for a financial transaction tax, a crack down on tax fraud, and a shift in taxation from labour to capital to move the burden from those on middle and low incomes. It also calls on countries to reduce the pay gap and tackle youth unemployment, warning that choosing austerity risks “sacrificing a whole generation of young people” across the EU.
Signatories already include S&D group President Martin Schulz, vice-president Stephen Hughes, Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, leader of the Party of European Socialists, Bernadette Ségol, new secretary general of ETUC, as well as leading academics and economists.
The move comes as the Council and European Commission put pressure on MEPs to adopt the controversial economic governance package before the end of June. Although the S&D group included a social clause in the legislation to ensure collective bargaining and workers’ rights are safeguarded, the Council, Commission and right-wing MEPs are seeking to remove this from the final agreement.
Meanwhile, conservative and liberal MEPs continue to block S&D proposals to allow targeted investment in growth-creating areas of the economy. Responding to this, the “Let’s change Europe” campaign argues: “It is possible to regain control of public finances without killing our economic development or investment in areas such as education, research or renewable energy and without feeding social injustice and exclusion.
