These notes on the current situation in Europe, the state of opposition to the austerity policies implemented by all governments, and the prospects for rebuilding the radical left are the result of a report and discussion in the Bureau of the Fourth International.

- IV454 - November 2012 / Europe, European Union

The impact of austerity measures on women in Europe

The debt, Trojan horse for an unprecedented social war against the peoples of Europe, is not neutral from the point of view of gender. The austerity measures imposed in its name are gender-determined, both in their characteristics and their effects. Everywhere, they are hitting workers, pensioners and the unemployed, both men and women, as well as all the different kinds of “those without” (without housing, without papers, without the minimum needed to survive...), seeking to make them pay for the effects of a profound crisis for which they are in no way responsible. Everywhere, they impose the worst forms of social regressions on the most vulnerable, the poorest populations and thus predominantly on women! And among them, the most vulnerable (single mothers, young women, elderly women, migrant women, women from ethnic minorities, women who live in rural areas or who have been victims of violence) will suffer the strongest pressure to rush to the rescue of the profiteers of the debt.

- IV453 - October 2012 / Europe, Women, European Union

Since 2010, in the stronger countries of the eurozone most political leaders supported by mainstream media have flaunted their so-called generosity towards the Greek people and other weaker countries in the eurozone that are currently in the limelight (Ireland, Portugal, Spain…). In this context, measures that further destroy the economy of recipient countries and involve social regression on a scale unprecedented over the past 65 years are called ‘rescue plans'. To this we must add the ripoff of the March 2012 plan to reduce the Greek debt – a plan that involves a 50% reduction of debts owed by Greece to private banks whereas these same debts, if negotiated on the secondary market, had lost up to 65 to 75% of their value.

- IV453 - October 2012 / Europe, Germany, Greece, European Union, Debt

This article seeks to show how the current crisis of the Euro zone stems from the original design faults of the “Euro-system”, whose contradictions, revealed by the financial crisis, are of a structural nature. This demonstration is carried out through a statistical and analytical methodology which gives this study a “technical” nature. But it is a necessary stage for the development of a more solid diagnosis of possible exits from the current crisis, or rather from its specifically European dimension. This crisis has deeper roots than the symptom through which it has been expressed, namely a sovereign debt crisis. Thus, there are only two responses adapted to the structural nature of the European crisis: either the breakup of the Euro-system, or its radical refoundation. The others confine themselves to staggering the contradictions over time or programming a socially unacceptable regression. - IV451 August 2012 / Europe, Economy, European Union

During the 1930s, US president Herbert Hoover liked to say that recovery was “just around the corner”. During the current crisis and most especially in Europe it would be difficult to count the number of statements by leaders (Nicolas Sarkozy was a specialist at this) periodically announcing either the end of the crisis, or more prudently, for example after a European summit, that we are now on the right road. - IV451 August 2012 / Europe, Economy, European Union

The European governments, in accordance with IMF criteria, have made the choice of imposing strict austerity measures on their peoples. Slicing away public spending, lay-offs, pay freezes and salary cuts for civil servants, reduced access to vital public services and welfare, later retirement age, etc. Increased cost for public transport, water distribution, health services, education, etc. Heavier indirect and particularly unfair taxes like VAT. Massive privatization of companies in competitive sectors. The strictest austerity policies since 1945. The consequences of the crisis are multiplied by the so-called remedies which protect the interests of capital. Austerity seriously aggravates economic slowdown producing a snowball effect: weak growth, when there is any, automatically increases public debt. The meaning of 'triple A' becomes clear: wage Austerity, monetary Austerity and budgetary Austerity. - IV450 - July 2012 / Europe, Economy, European Union, Debt

Last November in Katowice (Poland), a European conference was held on the defence of public health and social care systems. It was decided to call a new conference which will be held on May 12-13 in Paris, to continue our analysis and establish joint mobilizations. - IV447 - April 2012 / Europe, Public health services

At a time when the Greek Campaign for the Audit of the Public Debt is being imitated a little all over Europe, a first assessment of its activity is necessary in order to draw useful lessons for everyone. Indeed, since this Greek campaign took its first steps exactly a year ago, and since it was the first to try this hitherto completely new experiment in the planetary North, we should consider its gains and dilemmas, successes and setbacks so as to debate not the debt itself, but rather the political and social dimensions of the combat for the independent audit “from below”. - IV445 - February 2012 / Europe, Greece, Debt

The European financial crisis is the expression in the sphere of finance of the situation of semi-paralysis in which the world capitalist economy finds itself. It is at this moment the most conspicuous expression of it, but by no manner of means the only one. The austerity policies that are being conducted simultaneously in the majority of the countries of the European Union (EU) contribute to the world recessionary spiral. They are not the single cause of it. The chapter headings of the OECD note on perspectives of September 2011 were eloquent: “World activity is close to stagnation”; “World trade has contracted, world imbalances persist”; “In the job market, improvements are less and less perceptible”; “Confidence has been degraded”, etc. Following on the projections of Eurostat in mid-November of an economic contraction of the EU, to which even Germany would not be an exception, the most recent note of the OECD (November 28, 2011) spoke of a “considerable deterioration”, with growth for the OECD as a whole of 1.6 per cent, and 3.4 per cent for the world economy. - IV445 - February 2012 / Europe, Economy, European Union

The French Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA) backed the public sector strikers in Britain and called for coordinated resistance across Europe. The NPA participated in organising the Coalition of Resistance‘s Europe Against Austerity Conference last month, which was addressed by Olivier Besancenot on behalf of the NPA - News from around the world / Europe, Britain