Reacting to President von der Leyen’s announcement, Judith Kirton-Darling, industriAll Europe’s General Secretary, said: “Europe can only be strong externally if we are strong internally, and, therefore, we need a united Europe. Strengthening Europe’s security must go beyond military spending and must include a wider understanding of economic security. Industrial workers are extremely anxious about their futures – this is evident in the ballot boxes across Europe.
“Meeting in the European Council, our national leaders must recognise that our collective defence cannot be delivered through increased defence spending with social austerity. Our defence depends on our unity, our economic resilience, our social stability. This demands a united, proactive European industrial policy to stimulate demand, upgrade our infrastructure, deliver affordable, clean energy, and social conditionalities on every cent of public support. This is incompatible with austerity. We need investment; now!”
Reacting to President von der Leyen’s announcement that she will trigger the EU’s national escape clause, under which military expenditures would not be counted towards the EU’s spending limits of the revised fiscal rules, Judith Kirton-Darling stated, “Workers are wrestling with a grim situation of daily restructuring, site closures, investment postponements and stalled demand, because of the cost-of-living crisis and austerity policies. This exceptional circumstance also calls for the urgency to trigger the escape clause to allow all Member States to invest into social, green and digital objectives to meet the investment gap shown by Draghi.”
Isabelle Barthès, industriAll Europe’s Deputy General Secretary, continued: “We are concerned to read that the new instrument will be partly funded with €93 billion of unclaimed loans made under the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility, meant for green and digital investments. We insist that EU initiatives on defence or security should not come at the expense of the much-needed investments in the twin transition. The proposal to repurpose more regional funds for defence purposes could come at the unacceptable expense of social progress in those regions of Europe that are anyway lagging. We need to finance upward convergence in Europe, not widen the gap and put our social stability at risk.
“A robust, internal demand, underpinned by a strong purchasing power of wages, are key elements of a strong social stability and economic security. Unfortunately, they are falling off the radar of policymakers, as for many of them, the crisis is over because inflation has gone down. But we see that the food, energy and housing prices have remained, eroding workers’ purchasing power and overshadowing recent wage increases. Europe needs to rebalance its model by also investing in its internal demand and by strengthening collective bargaining.”
Finally, industriAll Europe takes the opportunity to reiterate the messages from our recently adopted Warsaw Declaration, calling for an EU defence industrial policy which invests in workers and ensures good quality industrial jobs for all, while stressing the need to end armed conflict worldwide.
Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine continues, and the EU has increased its ambition to provide defence equipment to help the Ukrainian people defend themselves. This has highlighted the decades-long lack of investment in the European Defence Technological and Industrial Base (EDTIB) and its workforce, including skills shortages, an ageing workforce, and difficulties attracting new workers.
While we agree on investments in European defence production after decades of under investment, we insist that EU initiatives on defence or security should not come at the expense of social progress, workers’ rights, working conditions, and investments in the twin transition.
IndustriAll Europe’s Warsaw Declaration: webnews EN FR DE