Communication of support for the European Protests

European Alternatives supports the movement born in Spain in May, fighting for a real democracy, able to offer citizens a real choice over their own future and to restore democratic control over the main economic decisions.
 
In recent months almost all European countries have been subject to a politics of austerity, cuts to the social security system, and a general tendency to disproportionately place the cost of the economic crisis and of saving the banks onto the weaker parts of the population.
 
Under the impetus of an economic consensus promulgated by the European Council and the International Monetary Fund, and in the futile defense of a presumptuous and moribund national sovereignty, the ruling classes of Europe have shown themselves to be not only incapable of putting in place the necessary instruments to slow down financial speculation, but also deaf to the many alternative propositions made by European civil society and significant parts of the business sector.
 
What is most striking and worrisome is the lack of every real political alternative in almost all democracies in Europe. The parties on the historic left compete with the conservative parties to demonstrate who is the best servant of neoliberal rhetoric. The xenophobic and populist right wing is taking advantage of the desire for a political alternatives and attempts to place all the blame for public unhappiness on migrants. In this context all protest cannot but take place under the banner of democracy. Democracy means first of all the construction of alternatives, and elections must mean competitions between different understandings of the public good.

This tragic condition emerges from the impossibility of any European member state acting on its own to offer a real response to the economic crisis or any other great political challenge of our times, from migration to climate change. Incapable of standing up to the global market, our leaders tip their hat and follow it.

European Alternatives supports the movement born in Spain in the name of the construction of a real European democracy from the bottom-up, and of a really democratic governance of the economy, capable to give back to citizens the control over their future and to demonstrate that the European citizenry is more united and determined than the sad spectacle of our politicians might lead one to believe.

We believe all citizens in Europe should respond to the call from Puerta del Sol and act in unison over the coming weeks and months to construct a more democratic and social Europe of solidarity, and to make sure that our continent does not once more return to division or tragedy.