One of the great weaknesses of Spain’s indignados movement, which this week celebrated its second birthday, has been its failure to pursue a strategy that turns power in the streets into the real power needed to change the world. In the November 2011 general elections, six months after Spaniards occupied town squares across the country, [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Spain’
A drubbing for Spain’s socialists, but Rajoy should not be smug
Oct 23rd, 2012 by Tom Gill.It would be foolish to read this weekend’s local elections in Galicia and the Basque country, in Spain, as an endorsement of Mariano Rajoy’s self-perpetuating austerity policies. But instead, the strongest message was the confirmation of the Spaniards’ enduring distrust of the socialists. The party that ruled Spain for almost eight years during the build-up [...]
Spain’s students and their families turn up heat on Rajoy
Oct 12th, 2012 by Tom Gill.Rising student fees, regressive education reforms, a €4 billion cut to state education and the firing of thousands of teachers are set to be contested by students and their families as they step up protests in the coming week. Until now, it has been the teachers who have been leading the defence of state education, [...]
Spain: the power and reach of the bankers
Aug 29th, 2012 by Tom Gill.Any move to fix Spain’s economy will necessarily involve curtailing the influence of bankers, those well-heeled types who speculated big on the housing market that then went bust, bringing the economy down with it, and which continues to drain extraordinary amounts of public money paid for by ordinary citizens. Unfortunately, this isn’t going to be [...]
Spanish Miners start march to Madrid
Jun 23rd, 2012 by Tom Gill.Around 200 Spanish miners set out Friday on a march set to culminate July 11 in Madrid with a protest against government plans to slash subsidies to the coal sector. Family, friends and neighbours gathered in several towns in the northern regions of Asturias and Leon and the east-central region of Teruel to give the [...]
Spain shows how lethally fragile the euro really is
Jun 12th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.If the rallying call of Mariano Rajoy, the Spanish Prime Minister, is right – that “the credibility of the euro won” – then let’s hope we never have to experience a loss. It’s more a case of the first rule of politics – when you capitulate, declare victory. The Spanish deal cooked up over the [...]
Greek exit won’t save euro: fundamental restructuring needed
May 15th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.With the smart money on an early Greek exit, the two main questions to arise are: what will happen to Greece, and what future then for the Eurozone? If Greece leaves, the exchange rate will drop sharply from 340 drachmae to €1 at entry to the euro to perhaps 1,000 drachmae, a loss of value [...]
Standing up for Ireland
Mar 15th, 2012 by Gerry Adams.If you want to know who is taking the real decisions about the economy of the Irish state then you need look no further than EU Commissioner Olli Rehn. Since Fianna Fáil crashed the economy and Fine Gael and Labour won last years election they have repeatedly asserted that there can be no deviation from [...]
The odds for the euro are shortening in 2012
Dec 23rd, 2011 by Michael Meacher.The take-up by the eurozone banks of €489bn from the European Central Bank (ECB) ought to be good news as a sign that the ECB is now at last, having refused to do so in 2011, ensuring eurozone banks can fund themselves adequately next year. The ECB believes they will need €720bn of loans in [...]
Not much grand about this EU bargain
Dec 8th, 2011 by Michael Meacher.The praeternatural calm that has descended on the financial markets after Merkel-Sarkozy declared a ‘comprehensive’ bargain on Monday is unlikely to survive the Friday summit as the details sink in about what is involved, and even more about what is left out. Meanwhile back in Britain there is sound and fury from the Tory Right [...]
