Though Cowards Flinch

On Friday I called on Ed Miliband to wake up to the European crisis and promote a socialist alternative with, amongst others, French Presidential candidate François Hollande:

If Labour wants to gain any credibility on Europe, and any kind of stable economy to inherit in 2015, Miliband and Balls need to stop shouting from the sidelines about how the Tories are shouting from the sidelines…..

Instead, they should be catching the last flight out to Brussels tonight to work through the weekend with the Party of European Socialists, and whoever they can drag in (Francois Hollande would be a good start) on a joint anti-Merkel statement ready for Monday’s meltdown signs.   

This statement should be unequivocal in its short-term support for a Eurobond backed by all members, riding roughshod over Germany’s (historically) understandable but now irrelevant fears of inflation. 

The statement should also be unequivocal in its support for a revision of the Lisbon Treaty – not to move it further towards the disastrous neoliberal entrenchment Merkel’s domestic political needs demand of her, but further away from it.

Miliband did nothing of course (and his spokesperson Emily Thornberry was simply hopeless on Radio 5 this evening) but Francois Hollande has at least spoken out:

Nous ne pouvons pas attendre. Je propose un pacte de responsabilité, de gouvernance et de croissance. Aujourd’hui, pour lutter contre la crise de l’euro, ce n’est pas l’annonce d’une machinerie qui convaincra les marchés et les citoyens.

La confiance peut revenir rapidement et la spéculation être vaincue si la Banque centrale européenne même dans ses statuts actuels assouplit ses interventions, si le Fonds européen de stabilité financière se transforme en banque pour venir en soutien des pays les plus vulnérables, si la banque européenne d’investissement engage une politique de grands travaux et si le budget européen dispose des ressources nouvelles en mettant en place la taxe sur les transactions financières et en lançant les euro-obligations.

The prospect of immediate meltdown has receded slightly during the weekend, but the threat of the Merkel-driven Treaty of Austerity, designed to temporarily satisfy ultimately insatiable markets by impoverishing millions of Europeans (and by proxy much of the rest of the world), has grown even greater.

Francois Hollande, at least, understands what’s happening, and how serious it is. 

Ed Miliband must wake up, smell le café, and follow Hollande’s lead.