By Nikki Ulasowski and Russell Pickering
AMSTERDAM — On June 14, 50,000 people from across Europe gathered in Amsterdam at Dam Square to protest against "unemployment, exclusion and insecurity". The protest preceded the Inter Governmental Conference (IGC) on European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), held in the same city on June 16-17.
The EuroMarch demonstration brought together 18 large marches, including from Greece, Italy, Germany, Austria, Spain, Finland, Sweden, Norway, UK , France, the Netherlands and Belgium. Some of the marches began in April.
Most people had travelled long distances to attend. Three thousand people from Italy took several days to arrive after commandeering a train when not enough seats were made available to them. Upon arriving in Amsterdam, around 150 of them were arrested for painting graffiti on the train, and approximately 300 were confined to the railway carriages until the rally was over.
European monetary union is the key issue in mainstream European politics today. The Amsterdam rally sent a clear message that radical changes are needed across Europe to deal with massive unemployment, to stop the attacks on wages, working conditions and the environment and to stop sexism and racism — all questions that the EMU summit was evading.
This was the first time that people from across Europe had demonstrated together around these issues. It signalled growing recognition of the need for united action to build a "different Europe".
The IGC produced new steps towards monetary union, which is planned to begin on January 1, 1999. However, even the pro-EMU establishment media reported that the agreement reached at the conference will promote "high levels of employment" and described other measures for improving the environment and public health as a bald attempt to sell the unpopular EMU to the public.
Under the monetary union plan, national employment strategies will be coordinated and monitored by the European Union with aim of "promoting a skilled and adaptable work force and labour markets" and to ensure that all member states maintain a budget deficit of less than 3% of gross domestic product.
The consequences for working people are ominous. Already there are 20 million unemployed and 50 million poor people in the EU (from a total population of 360 million).
Governments have already slashed public spending to meet the EMU criteria. This austerity will continue, but with greater intergovernmental cooperation between police, customs and judicial authorities, and by the strengthening of Europol, to control the inevitable social unrest that the cuts produce. The December 1995 French strikes are examples.
During the IGC, Spain also attempted to ban member states from accepting political asylum seekers from the EU states, but this was defeated.
Prior to the IGC, the largest police force in Amsterdam since World War II converged on the city. With a large presence on all the major streets and canals, they starkly contrasted with the festive mood of the rally and the counter-summit. Even Dam Square was an interesting contrast: where noisy protesters filled the streets surrounding the square on June 14, just one day later the police had cleared and condoned off the area.
As a response to the official conference a counter-summit conference was organised by the coalition Towards a Different Europe and attracted around 500 people to five days of debates, workshops and actions. The coalition is made up of more than 50 different organisations.
A declaration of the Dutch Coalition for a Different Europe summarised the purpose of the conference: "Our Europe must be a Europe that carries out a strong social and environmental policy, creates jobs, eliminates the democratic deficit, offers equal opportunities to women and men, safeguards the rule of law, is hospitable to refugees, is open to the East and in solidarity with the South, disarms in order to contribute to peace, and promotes sustainable development both inside and outside of Europe".