Europe

Demonstrations Block Roads From London To Berlin

June 11, 2014 Amy Thomson, www.bloomberg.com Resist! Europe, Protest, Uber

Uber Technologies Inc., the car-sharing service that’s rankling cabbies across the U.S., is fighting its biggest protest from European drivers who say the smartphone application threatens their livelihoods. Traffic snarled in cities from London to Madrid and Berlin to Paris as strikes and gatherings by more than 30,000 taxi and limo drivers blocked tourist centers and shopping districts. They are asking regulators to apply tougher rules on San Francisco-based Uber, whose software allows customers to order a ride from drivers who don’t need licenses that can cost 200,000 euros ($270,000) apiece. While similar demonstrations this year have led to smashed windshields and traffic chaos in Paris, a united front in Europe highlights the challenges for Uber’s expansion after a funding round that values the company at $17 billion, almost five times the figure in an earlier round. Out of some 128 cities it serves, 20 are in Europe, including Manchester, Lyon and Zurich. “European cities have tended to regulate taxi drivers much more than the U.S.,” said Charles Lichfield, an analyst at Eurasia Group in London. “I do think the protests have a better chance of succeeding.” In London, thousands of black cabs and private hire cars descended on the tourist hubs of Trafalgar Square and Parliament Square, blocking some of the city’s busiest streets. Scooter and motorbike riders studying for the cab-driver exam joined in, honking their horns as the police tried to regulate traffic.

UN: Austerity Crippling Planet, One-Quarter Of Europe In Poverty

June 8, 2014 Occupy.com, www.occupy.com Educate! Austerity, Europe, Poverty

The United Nation's labor agency has denounced "premature" austerity measures brought in by governments around the world during the financial crisis, saying they have hurt the world's most vulnerable people. Isabel Ortiz, director of social welfare of the International Labor Organization (ILO), said on Tuesday that in 2014 alone at least 122 governments cut public spending, including in 82 developing countries. In the European Union, where many states brought in severe budget cuts in response to the debt crisis, she estimated that as many as 123 million people – or a quarter of the bloc's population – were now classified as poor because of cuts in social protection. Now, more than 70 percent of the world's population was not adequately covered by social protection, the ILO said. But China, the world's second-largest economy, has almost succeeded in rolling out universal pension coverage and has increased the wages of its lowest-paid workers. In 'Time of Most Need' Cuts to "pensions, the health system and social security... the removal of subsidies, downsizing among social workers and health personnel" hit poor people at a time when they were most in need of support, she said.

91-Year-Old Greek WWII Hero Wins Big In Euro-Elections

May 27, 2014 Jerome Roos, www.roarmag.org Create! Democracy, Europe, European Union (EU), Facism, Greece

In Europe, dark clouds are gathering on the horizon once more. Yesterday marked the conclusion of the European Parliamentary elections, and the extreme-right had a number of terrifyingly strong showings in France, Austria, Denmark, Hungary and Greece, among other countries. But as disillusioned citizens across the continent send their ultra-nationalist, proto-fascist and even openly neo-Nazi deputies to Brussels and Strasbourg, the one candidate who actually managed to secure an overwhelming victory here in Greece is Manolis Glezos, the legendary 91-year-old WWII resistance hero, who, on May 30, 1941 — at the age of 19, just weeks after the Nazi invasion and occupation of his country — scaled the Acropolis in the dead of night and, together with his friend Apostolos Santas, tore down the Swastika. . . It is an absolute disgrace that today, in the 21st century, a legendary WWII resistance hero like Manolis Glezos. . . will now have to take up a seat in a European Parliament populated by dozens of nationalists, fascists and neo-Nazis who take their despicable ideologies from the same monsters who once murdered his brother, and millions more across the continent — and far beyond.

Radical Democracy: European Video Challenge

May 26, 2014 Creative Resistance, www.creativeresistance.org Create! Arts, Democracy, Europe

‘During the Gezi Park protests, we couldn’t get any information from the main national broadcasting channels, from our newspapers, from Turkish radio. It was very tragic that we watched what was happening on our streets via live camera broadcastings from Norwegian and German TV channels. Worst of all, our elderly people who have no access to internet, couldn’t get any information from their own country. They didn’t understand what was happening, why thousands of people were out protesting, shouting and dying in their country.’ ‘During the protest days, an old man came to me and asked “What is this crowd? What is happening? Did we win the World Cup?” I felt very very VERY sad, I was shocked and got very angry. That was the exact moment I decided to make a film about the press problem and the miserable situation of ordinary people in Turkey during the Gezi Park Protests.’

Blockupy: Thousands At Demo Against Capitalism in Europe

May 19, 2014 Revolution News, www.revolution-news.com Resist! Capitalism, Europe, Protest

Large demonstrations in Europe, today, in Germany, Italy, France and Spain: “You want Capitalism without democracy. We want democracy without capitalism”. @blockupy Police violence against demonstrators in Berlin (2 arrested) and Hamburg (8 arrested). In all, over 10,000 protested in Germany alone today. Thousands are on the streets of Rome too. See first part of the blog for the demonstrations up to this moment.

European Days Of Action Against Austerity Begin May 15

May 15, 2014 Staff, www.PopularResistance.org Resist! Austerity, Europe, Spain

The programs of austerity and privatizations imposed by the Troika decide on the lives of millions of people in Europe. Together with people in Europe and the whole world we resist the rehabilitation of capitalism on the backs of employees as well as unemployed, retirees, migrants and the youth. Together with them we say: “We don’t owe, we won’t pay!” While the European Union crisis regime builds more and more borders in order to divide, exploit and oppress us, new transnational movements are arising. We are social movement activists, altermondialists, migrants, precarious and industry workers, party members and unionists and many more, who want to connect our struggles and powers beyond nation-state lines. During the week before the elections for the European Parliament we call for the spirit of the multitude of these social movements to build real democracy from below. We call for an international week of decentralised actions from May 15-25, 2014. Be part of it!

New Initiative Launches To Decentralize The Internet, Empower People

April 14, 2014 Staff, www.dcentproject.eu Organize! Democracy, Europe, Finance and the Economy, Video

D-CENT is a Europe-wide project creating privacy-aware tools and applications for direct democracy and economic empowerment. Together with the citizens and developers, we are creating a decentralised social networking platform for large-scale collaboration and decision-making. The initiative, D-CENT (Decentralised Citizens ENgagement Technologies), backed by the European Commission, will see the development of new open source, decentralized and privacy-aware digital tools and applications for direct democratic and economic empowerment. Together with citizens, social movements, and developers, D-CENT is creating a distributed social networking platform for large-scale collaboration to solve social problems and allow full citizen participation in the democratic process. The project will study possible implementations of liquid democracy: collective deliberation, decision-making, and the pros and cons of proxy voting.

US: EU Circumvention Of NSA Spying Would Violate Trade Law

April 11, 2014 Sarah Lazare, www.commondreams.org Educate! Europe, Globalization, NSA

Following Edward Snowden's revelations that the U.S. is spying on people and governments across the world, European Union countries have floated proposals to build a Europe-centric communications system designed to bypass NSA surveillance. But on Friday, the top U.S. trade negotiating body charged that such a move would violate international trade law. "Recent proposals from countries within the European Union to create a Europe-only electronic network (dubbed a 'Schengen cloud' by advocates) or to create national-only electronic networks could potentially lead to effective exclusion or discrimination against foreign service suppliers that are directly offering network services, or dependent on them," states a report released Friday by the office of U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman.

Tens Of Thousands Demand End To EU Austerity

April 5, 2014 Andrea Germanos www.commondreams.org Resist! Austerity, Europe, Protest

We need investment, not austerity. It's time for a new path forward. That was the message brought by tens of thousands of people from across Europe who converged in Brussels on Friday in a European Trade Union Confederation-organized protest against EU-supported austerity policies. "Our message is simple, and one which EU leaders do not want to hear – that their policies for dealing with the financial crisis are not enough, and have caused a mounting social and economic crisis," stated Bernadette Ségol, General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation. "Our message is that austerity is not working. Demonstrators marched through the streets carrying placards reading, "We demand quality jobs and solidarity," "Another Europe is possible," "Down with austerity," and "Invest to get out of the crisis."

VIDEO: Class, Race, and War – Resistance Report One-Hour Pilot

March 3, 2014 Dennis Trainor Jr, www.PopularResistance.org Resistance Report Class, Europe, Guaranteed income, Housing, Kiev, Laura Gottesdiener, Maidan Square, Mychal Denzel Smith, Neoliberalism, Nicole Carty, Post Racial America, Putin, Russian, Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, Wall Street

Host Dennis Trainor, Jr. navigates a lively panel discussion with Nicole Carty (The Other 98%), Julianna Forlano (Absurdity Today), and Joel Northam (Resistance Report contributor). Special guests also include Mychal Denzel Smith (The Nation), Kateryna Ruban (expert in Ukraine and Russian history), and Cheri Honkala (Poor Peoples Economic Human Rights Campaign).

Unelected Power: Democracy On The retreat In Europe

March 3, 2014 Neil Clark, www.rt.com Educate! Democracy, Europe

Genuine people’s power is on the retreat in Europe, and it's under attack from those who most loudly claim to be “democrats.” Last week we saw the unelected EU foreign policy chief, Baroness Ashton, meeting the new unelectedUkrainian “president,” Aleksandr Turchynov, who came to power following a violent overthrow of that country's democratically elected president – with the rebellion backed by the EU. In February, Matteo Renzi became Italy's third successive unelected prime minister. From November 2011 until May 2012, Greece also had an unelected prime minister, Lucas Papademos, a former vice-president of the European Central Bank. In Hungary, the unelected businessman Gordon Bajnai was the country's prime minister from 2009 to 2010. The era of neoliberalism has seen political power shifted from ordinary people to the 1 percent.

Landslide Vote In European Union Condemning U.S. Drone Use

February 28, 2014 Justin King, www.digitaljournal.com Resist! Drones, Europe, Wars and Militarism

European Union Members of Parliament condemned the use of drones in targeted killings in a vote of 534 to 49. The vote proposing a ban referred to the drone strikes as “unlawful.” The United States has used drones in targeted killings in several countries, leaving a death toll in the thousands. The resolution demands that EU member countries "do not perpetrate unlawful targeted killings or facilitate such killings by other states. The United Kingdom and Germany, both suspected of assisting in the drone war, will now come under pressure to disclose their roles in the campaigns and to cease cooperating with the U.S.-led endeavor. Drone strikes that are not consented to by the government in which the strike will take place were determined to be a “violation of international law” according to the resolution.

Understanding The Ukraine: Geopolitics, The People & The Future

February 23, 2014 The Saker, www.vineyardsaker.blogspot.com Educate! Europe, Russia, Ukraine

he EU is most unlikely to achieve its objectives in the Ukraine for a very simple reason: the Ukrainian nationalists and the so-called "opposition" (i.e. the armed insurgency) are all bought and paid for by the US. The EU bureaucrats can continue visiting the Ukraine and make loud statements, they really don't matter. So its really the US vs Russia and here I have to say that the US goals is far easier to achieve that the Russian one: all the USA needs chaos, something easy to achieve and relatively cheap to finance, while Russia needs stability and prosperity and that, at the very least, means to provide is cardiac resuscitation to the basically ruined Ukrainian economy and to jump-start some kind of much needed reforms. The latter probably cannot be done without breaking the backs of the Ukrainian oligarchs. Well, if rescuing the Ukraine is not an option, then protecting Russia from the inevitable chaos and mayhem is the only option left. That, and making darn sure that Crimea is safe. Russia could, for instance, provide direct assistance to the eastern Ukraine, especially to region like Kharkov which are governed by competent and determined people. Beyond that, the only option left for Russia is to hunker down and wait for either a viable force to take power in Kiev or for the Ukraine to break-up in pieces.

Michael Hudson: Neoliberalism Has Damaged Ireland, Europe

February 19, 2014 Staff www.meltingpress.com Educate! Europe, Ireland, Neoliberalism

Prof. H: The housing bubble has nothing to do with the corporation tax at all. It has to do with the absence of a land tax on real estate. If the land value was taxed then you would not have had all of this free rental income and the prospect for capital gain that was paid over. I mean this was what Henry George wrote about the Irish land question, back in 1880. Great book, just read Henry George and the Land Question and you’ll get everything you need to know about why Ireland should have had the tax base on the land instead of turning over all the rental income to banks, that then essentially lent it to crooks, or stole it. G: And as you said the land value tax, which is very interesting policy, which was proposed to the new government, Fine Gael, the government that came in afterwards, instead of implementing a land value tax they just implemented a flat property tax which is regressive, and has in no way made any difference. As a result we see another property bubble may be developing at the moment, just like we see occurring in the UK.

1.66 Million Europeans Put End To Water Privatization On EU Agenda

February 18, 2014 Pablo Sanchez www.right2water.eu Organize! Europe, Food and Agriculture, Human Rights

The ECI Right2Water has submitted 1.66 million valid statements to the Commission. The representatives of the citizens committee are invited to the European Commission on Monday morning. The European Parliament has a public hearing with the ECI representatives in the afternoon, jointly organised by the 4 committees of the Parliament involved. The President of the Environment Committee (ENVI) Mathias Groote will chair the event with representatives of the Petitions Committee, the Internal Market Committee and the Development Committee. Over 30 Members of the European Parliament will be able to ask questions and we expect many more to attend. The organisers and the President of the ENVI Committee will host a press conference on Monday at 14h00 at the Raoul Wellenberg room at the European Parliament (ASP 5G2) with the President of the Citizens Committee Anne-Marie Perret and Maroš Šefčovič, EU Commissioner.

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