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the Eurozone nations would permit this. The increasingly alarming market reactions put pressure on key European nations to find ways of helping Greece. However, the perennial indecision and division within the Union continued to act as an impediment to action. Events over the following days led to intense negotiations between European nations over ‘how to help Greece to deal with its mountain of debt’. These negotiations, however, did not solely focus on Greece, but looked to address some of the wider pressing issues concerning the overall functioning of the Union
-imposed austerity, in turn point to the ruinous effects of reforms demanded by the core. The dispute continues to threaten a break-up of the EU. Not only do certain periphery countries remain close to exit from the Eurozone, but the genie of nationalist-populism, unbottled by the tensions of crisis, threatens to tear the EU apart from below. In this book, I contend that this malaise can partly be located in the response of labour movements to integration. Rather than cooperating with European counterparts so as to maximize joint outcomes, movements rely
tumbled the world over. Rates of interest on Italian and Spanish bonds began to rise. Investors turned en masse to the security of German bonds. The activity was compounded by fears of a crisis in the USA and its effects on the Eurozone. This was not a phase. It continued and became a determining factor in future developments. In order to stop the crisis spreading, the ECB decided to buy Irish and Portuguese bonds by way of support for the two countries; however, it was soon obliged to extend its action to Italian and Spanish bonds. The crisis had an entirely
29 Evaluations of the assistance programme to Greece In May 2013, the Bruegel think-tank1 published an analysis of the reform programmes in Greece, Ireland and Portugal;2 to date, this is the most comprehensive evaluation of the funding packages and associated reforms in the Eurozone. According to the report, the predictions of the first Memorandum with regard to growth, unemployment, the debt to GDP ratio and scope for a return to the bond markets (in Greece by 2013) were ‘unambiguously dashed by events’. While the restructuring of Greek debt was not considered
footing; nor would it guarantee a return to the international bond markets and the cessation of the need for external support. Commentators suggested that Greece’s liabilities to the ECB and other EMU member states that had not yet been subject to restructuring would also have to submit to a ‘haircut’.4 However, the members of the Eurozone were adamantly opposed to any such calls,5 though restructuring made sense. The majority of Greece’s liabilities were now to fellow member states of the single-currency area. These liabilities had primarily arisen as a result of the
such programme of left-wing reform at the European level. Responding to those difficulties, a current of (mainly) radical left opinion argues that left-wing economic objectives can only be achieved by countries opting for a ‘left exit’ (Lexit) from the European Union and/or the Eurozone. Such a Lexit might be mobilised around an inclusionary nationalism (itself part of a long-established left tradition) that counterposes itself to the xenophobic positions of the Eurosceptic right. The chapter outlines this Lexit argument and
European labour movements in crisis contends that labour movements respond to
European integration in a manner which instigates competition between national
labour markets. This argument is based on analysis of four countries (Germany,
Spain, France and Poland) and two processes: the collective bargaining practices
of trade unions in the first decade of the Eurozone and the response of trade
unions and social-democratic parties to austerity in Southern Europe. In the
first process, although unions did not intentionally compete, there was a drift
towards zero-sum outcomes which benefited national workforces in stronger
structural positions. In the second process, during which a crisis resulting
from the earlier actions of labour occurred, lack of solidarity reinforced
effects of competition.
Such processes are indicative of relations between
national labour movements which are rooted in competition, even if causal
mechanisms are somewhat indirect. The book moreover engages with debates
concerning the dualization of labour markets, arguing that substantive outcomes
demonstrate the existence of a European insider–outsider division. Findings also
confirm the salience of intergovernmentalist analyses of integration and point
to a relationship between labour sectionalism and European disintegration.
12 A year of the Memorandum: seeking a new solution After the March Eurozone summit, a short-lived sense of optimism returned to the EU. But Portugal’s request, on 11 April 2011, for financial assistance from the EU and the IMF indicated that nothing had changed. The crisis was far from resolved. Mirroring such sentiment, the English journal The Economist was particularly despondent in its analysis. It deemed that the summit had been ‘something between a fudge and a failure’: The Brussels gathering did little to help Greece, Ireland and Portugal.… Their
cooperation’ in specific areas; and a Europe that ‘protects’ its citizens (reforms of the posted workers’ directive) and its industries (from Chinese assault, notably). The most ambitious EU proposals related to the governance of the euro-zone. Macron argued in favour of the creation of a euro-zone super-minister, with a separate dedicated budget, and the transformation of the European Security Mechanism into a fully pledged European Monetary Fund, all to be supervised by a new euro-zone parliament. These positions were a powerful restatement of French preferences: namely
11 An ‘all-encompassing plan’ to solve the crisis in Greece? Τhe May 2010 agreement on the Memorandum initiated a short-lived period of optimism; while uncertainty remained, there was acknowledgement of Greece’s efforts. This optimism came to an end with the European Council held in February 2011, which was followed by a period of insecurity, which turned into intense anxiety and anxiety into calls for further action. This culminated in the Eurozone summit held in July 2011, at which new terms were set to deal with the Greek crisis. The major source of renewed