Though Cowards Flinch

Owen Jones has a short piece up at the New Stateman in which he says, quite rightly, that the focus of the British Left should be less on the domestic politics of the Euro summit, and more on the way the new 26 county intergovernmental agreement effectively bans leftwing economics (though I don’t care much for the way the young whippersnapper instructs me to pay attention to what I’ve already been paying attention to for some time now).

In the piece Owen says:

François Hollande — the Socialist candidate for the French Presidency — has already spoken out against a treaty cooked up by Europe’s overwhelmingly right-of-centre governments. If we’re going to listen to European leaders, Hollande is a sounder bet than avowed right-wingers like Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel.

The link he provides, though, is a few weeks old and doesn’t really mention Hollande speaking out. 

Given ths, and given a tweet request, I thought I might usefully translate something Hollande did say a few days ago, and which I posted here last week. 

I think the piece, from a French paper interview, is as good a reflection as there is at the moment of where Hollande is coming from – basically a straight down the line Keynesianism with a call for a European New Deal.  As I’ve argued, it’s an approach Miliband would do very well to copy in the next few weeks.

Of course, Hollande’s position is vital, as he takes on Sakrozy for the Presidency in May,and it is not out of the question that support now from Miliband, and other European leaders, could galvanise a real leftwing alternative to the Merkozy plan and stop the Austerity Treaty in its tracks. Here’s hoping.

Here’s the important bit translated (original below). I’m not a professional translator so apologies if it’s a bit clunky – I wanted to do it more or less word for word rather than risk misrepresenting:

We can’t wait.  I propose a responsibility pact, for governance and growth.  Today, if we’re to mount a struggle against the crisis of the Euro, we don’t do it by announcing a machinery aimed at convincing the markets and citizens.

Confidence can return quickly, and speculation can be conquered, if the European Central Bank relaxes its interventions, by statute, if the European Financial Stability Fund is transformed into a bank which can come to the aid of the most vulnerable country, if the European Investment bank engage in a policy of large scale public works, and if the European budget gains new resources, through the establishment of a Financial Transaction Tax and the launch of Eurobonds.

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.