Sanctions Are Genocidal, and They Are the US’s Favorite Weapon

Justin Podur

After withdrawing from the nuclear deal with Iran last year and resuming sanctions last November, the White House in April announced that its goal was to “drive Iranian exports to zero.” To make this drive happen, the White House stopped allowing (my emphasis) countries like India, China, Japan, Turkey, and South Korea to import Iranian oil: dictating to sovereign countries whom they can trade with.

The dictating doesn’t stop there. Last December the United States had Canadian authorities detain and imprison a Chinese executive, the chief financial officer of telecom company Huawei. Meng Wanzhou is currently on trial in Canada, on the allegation that her company violated U.S. sanctions against Iran. Not content with having told China that it cannot trade with Iran, the United States has gotten a third country, Canada, to take a Chinese corporate executive captive in what Trump suggested was leverage for a trade deal: “If I think it’s good for what will be certainly the largest trade deal ever made, which is a very important thing—what’s good for national security—I would certainly intervene, if I thought it was necessary,” he told Reuters in December.

The trade deal with China didn’t come through, and a “trade war” has begun. Meng Wanzhou is still stuck in Canada. And the blockade against Iran is still tightening. Economist Mark Weisbrot assessed some of the damage to the Iranian economy in a recent segment on the Real News Network, noting that when sanctions were imposed in 2012, oil production dropped by 832,000 barrels per day and GDP by 7.7 percent; when they were lifted in 2016 in the nuclear deal, production increased by 972,000 barrels per day and GDP increased by 12 percent that year. In 2018 when sanctions were imposed, oil production fell dramatically again and inflation rose by 51 percent; shortages of dozens of essential medicines, according to a study at the University of California, have followed.

Some basic economics are in order here. A country that does not need to import or export is called an autarky, and in today’s global economy there are no autarkies. All national economies depend on trade: they export, earn foreign currency, and use that to import what they cannot produce. Driving a country’s exports to zero means destroying the country’s economy, and depriving the country’s people of necessities.

Sometimes billed as an alternative to war, sanctions are in fact a weapon of war. Far from precision-guided munitions, sanctions are weapons of starvation, which target the most vulnerable civilians for slow and painful death by deprivation of food and medicine. They are an alternative to war in the sense that unlike the invasion of ground troops or even the dropping of bombs, they pose little risk to the aggressor. This is their appeal to someone like Trump, who revealed the genocidal intent behind the Iran sanctions when he threatened (on Twitter) “the official end of Iran.”

In the 1990s, one focus of the antiwar movement was the impact of the genocidal sanctions against Iraq, which killed 500,000 children (a “price” that Madeleine Albright famously said was “worth it”). Antiwar activists feared that the sanctions were part of a military strategy that would end in even more devastating shooting war. Those fears proved true. Today’s sanctions seem to draw from the same playbook.

International law recognizes that sanctions are a form of warfare, and places the use of the sanctions weapon in the hands of the United Nations Security Council. And so it happened that between the 1990 and 2003 U.S. wars on Iraq, the UN played the shameful role of administering the Iraq sanctions. But today’s unilateral sanctions imposed by the U.S. circumvent any UN legalities. In the same Real News segment, UN Special Rapporteur on Unilateral Coercive Measures Idriss Jazairy noted that about one-quarter of the world’s population is under some form of unilateral sanctions. Iran, Venezuela, Syria, Cuba, Sudan and others are under various U.S. sanctions regimes. Yemen is fully blockaded by the U.S., UK, and Saudi Arabia; Gaza and the West Bank are completely sealed in by Israel; Qatar is blockaded by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and the list goes on.

U.S. sanctions against Venezuela have already killed 40,000 people between 2017 and 2018, according to a report by Mark Weisbrot and Columbia University’s Jeffrey Sachs. The more intense sanctions imposed in 2019 will kill still more. Venezuela’s electrical grid is damaged, most likely because of sabotage. Maintenance of potable water pumps has become impossible without imported spare parts, leaving millions without water. A Venezuelan professor of economics, Pasqualina Curcio, told a delegation of the End Venezuela Sanctions coalition that sanctions have cost the country $114 billion, “which is nearly equal to one year’s worth of Venezuelan GDP at a typical oil price, or 26 years’ worth of medical imports.”

One of the tactical arguments anti-sanctions campaigners sometimes make is that sanctions “don’t work.” And for their declared purpose of “regime change,” indeed they do not. But when a policy is so widespread, such a first resort, perhaps the declared purpose is not the real purpose. If the purpose is to destroy economies, isolate countries, coerce allies, keep tensions near boiling and maintain a constant threat of war, sanctions are successful. It has been shown time and again that torture “doesn’t work” for obtaining information. But torture is not a technique for obtaining information. It is a technique for breaking a person and, when practiced on a mass scale by an apartheid state or dictatorship, for breaking a society. Sanctions are similar: the point is to break the society, not “regime change.”

Sanctions are Trump’s favorite weapon, but good Democrats are no different. Obama oversaw the destruction of Syria, Clinton laughed about the murder of Gaddafi and the destruction of Libya, and Albright said that 500,000 Iraqi children’s deaths were “worth it.” For the empire, genocide, like aggression, is a normal part of politics. Nuclear planners plan how to commit it. Sanctions officials administer it. And for the most part, human rights organizations take no position on it.

It is possible that at some point sanctions could become self-limiting. If enough countries are sanctioned, they might of course decide to trade with one another. In attempting to isolate so many big countries, the United States could isolate itself, creating a kind of “coalition of the sanctioned.” But from the U.S. perspective, with Brazil, India, and Egypt (the biggest countries in Latin America, South Asia, and the Arab world) all utterly subservient, perhaps this looks like a good moment to try to pressure China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela and Cuba. Trump’s planners can rest assured that it is not them, but millions of innocents in those countries who will pay for their power plays.

Encouraging Illegal Planting of Bt Brinjal in India: Political Posturing, Displaying Contempt for the Wider Public Interest

Colin Todhunter 

In February 2010, the Indian government placed an indefinite moratorium on the commercial release of Bt brinjal. Prior to this decision, numerous independent scientific experts from India and abroad had pointed out safety concerns regarding Bt (insecticidal) brinjal based on data and reports in the biosafety dossier that Mahyco, the crop developer, had submitted to the regulators.

The then Minister of the Ministry of Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh had instituted a unique four-month scientific enquiry and public hearings. His decision to reject the commercialisation of Bt brinjal was supported by advice from renowned international scientists. Their collective appraisals demonstrated serious environmental and biosafety concerns, which included issues regarding the toxicity of Bt proteins resulting from their mode of action on the human gut system.

Jairam Ramesh pronounced a moratorium on Bt brinjal in February 2010 founded on what he called “a cautious, precautionary principle-based approach.” The moratorium has not been lifted.

In India, five high-level reports have advised against the adoption of GM crops. Appointed by the Supreme Court, the ‘Technical Expert Committee (TEC) Final Report’ (2013) was scathing about the prevailing regulatory system and highlighted its inadequacies and serious inherent conflicts of interest. The TEC recommended a 10-year moratorium on the commercial release of all GM crops.

Prominent campaigner Aruna Rodrigues says:

“In his summing-up of the unsustainability of Bt brinjal and of its implications if introduced, one of the experts involved, Professor Andow, said it posed several unique challenges because the likelihood of resistance evolving quickly is high. He added that without any management of resistance evolution, Bt brinjal is projected to fail in 4-12 years.”

And that is what we have witnessed with Bt cotton. The reason why this crop made it into India’s fields in the first place was due to ‘approval by contamination’. India’s first and only legal GM crop cultivation – Bt cotton – was discovered in 2001 growing on thousands of hectares in Gujarat. In March 2002, it was approved for commercial cultivation.

The pro-GMO lobby, having lost the debate on the need for and efficacy of GM, has again resorted to such tactics. It appears nothing has been learnt from the experience of an ill-thought-out experiment with Bt cotton that put many poor farmers in a corporate noose for the sake of Monsanto profit.

Pro-GMO lobby encourages illegal planting

India is signatory to the international agreement on the regulation of modern biotechnology – the Cartagena Biosafety Protocol. The country also has science-based legal regulations for modern biotech.

The moratorium on Bt brinjal occurred because science won out against a regulatory process that lacked competency, possessed endemic conflicts of interest and demonstrated a lack of expertise in GMO risk assessment protocols, including food safety assessment and the assessment of environmental impacts.

As we have seen with the relentless push to get GM mustard commercialised, the problems persist. Through numerous submissions to court, Aruna Rodrigues has described how GM mustard is being undemocratically forced through with flawed tests (or no tests) and a lack of public scrutiny: in effect, there has been unremitting scientific fraud and outright regulatory delinquency. Moreover, this crop is also herbicide-tolerant (HT), which, as stated by the TEC, is wholly inappropriate for India with its small biodiverse, multi-cropping farms.

Despite this, on 10 June 2019 a bunch of pro-GMO activists stage-managed an event designed to gain maximum publicity by illegally planting Bt brinjal seeds at Akola in the state of Maharashtra. A press release issued to coincide with this stunt stated that the event was an act of ‘Satyagraha’ (the notion of nonviolent resistance used by Gandhi against British rule).

One of the instigators has even argued that Bt brinjal is ‘organic’, involves almost pesticide-free cultivation, probably uses less fertiliser and is entirely natural. Moreover, the argument put forward is that if organic farming means growing plants without the support of safe and healthy modern technology and this is imposed by ‘eco-imperialists’, the poor would starve to death.

These unscientific claims and well-worn industry-inspired soundbites must be seen for what they are: political posturing unsupported by evidence to try to sway the policy agenda in favour of GM. The actions in Akola display a contempt for government acting in the wider public interest.

Drawing on previous peer-reviewed evidence, a 2018 paper in the journal Current Science concluded that Bt crops and HT crops are unsustainable and globally have not decreased the need for toxic chemical pesticides, the reason for these GM crops in the first place. Furthermore, GM crop yields are at least no better than that of non-GM crops, despite the constant industry claims that only GM can feed the world.

Each genetic modification poses unique risks which cannot be controlled or predicted; as a technology, GM is thus fundamentally flawed. But a food crop isn’t just eaten. There are effects on the environment too. Even a cursory examination of the US cropping system is enough to prove that the legacy of pesticidal GM crops has fueled the epidemics of herbicide- resistant weeds and emerging insecticide resistant pests.

GMOs are not substantially equivalent to their non-GMO counterparts and there is no consensus on GM safety or efficacy among major institutions, despite what lobbyists claim. Genetic engineering is fundamentally different from natural plant breeding and presents various risks. This is recognised in laws and international guidelines on GM worldwide. The claims and the research and ’big list’ studies (claiming safety) forwarded by the pro-GMO lobby do not stand up to scrutiny.

We need to look at GM objectively because plenty of evidence indicates it poses risks or is not beneficial and that non-GM alternatives are a better option. Moreover, many things that scientists are trying to achieve with GMOs have already been surpassed by means of conventional breeding.

Wider implications of GM agriculture

If people are genuinely concerned with ‘feeding the world’, they should acknowledge and challenge a global food regime which results in a billion people with insufficient food for their daily needs. As stated by Eric Holt-Giménez and his colleagues in the 2009 book, ‘Food rebellions! Crisis and the hunger for justice’:

“The construction of the corporate food regime began in the 1960s with the Green Revolution that spread the high-external input, industrial model of agricultural production to the Global South. The World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s structural adjustment policies (SAPs) followed in the 1980s, privatizing state agencies, removing barriers to northern capital flows, and dumping subsidized grain into the Global South. The free trade agreements of the 1990s and the World Trade Organization enshrined SAPs within international treaties. The cumulative result was massive peasant displacement, the consolidation of the global agri-food oligopolies and a shift in the global flow of food: While developing countries produced a billion-dollar yearly surplus in the 1970s, by 2004, they were importing US$ 11 billion a year.”

Instead, we get calls for more corporate freedom, GMOs and deregulation that coincide with constant attacks on proven agroecolocical methods which have no need for proprietary pesticides or GMOs and thus represent a challenge to industry profits. India has more than enough food to feed its 1.3 billion-plus population and, given appropriate support, can draw on its own indigenous agroecological know-how built from hundreds (even thousands) of years’ experience to continue to do so.

But pro-GMO lobbyists adopt a haughty mindset and assert the world can genetically modify itself to food security. At the same time, they attempt to marginalise safe and sustainable approaches to farming and sideline important political, cultural, ethical and economic factors.

The consequences of GM do not just relate to unpredictable changes in the DNA, proteins and biochemical composition of the resulting GM crop. Introducing GM can involve disrupting cultures and knowledge systems and farmers’ relationships with their environments: changing the fabric of rural societies. We just need to look at the adverse social and environmental consequences of the Green Revolution as outlined by Bhaskar Save in his 2006 open letter to officials. Even here, if we just focus on the Green Revolution in India in terms of production alone, the benefits are questionable to say the least.

Like the Green Revolution, GM is not just about ‘the science’; if anything, it is about solidifying the processes described by Holtz Gimenez et al above and a certain type of farming and the subsequent impacts on local economies and relations within rural communities. Before the Green Revolution, for instance, agriculturalists relied on mutual relationships within their villages. After the introduction of Green Revolution technology, they found themselves solely dealing with banks and agribusiness, thus weakening relationships within villages (Vandana Shiva discussed these impacts at length in her 1993 book, ‘The Violence of the Green Revolution’).

If India or the world is to continue to feed itself sustainably, we must look away from the industrial yield-output paradigm and the corporations driving it and adopt a more localised agroecological systems approach to food and agriculture that accounts for many different factors, including local food security and food sovereignty, local calorific production, cropping patterns and diverse nutrition production per acre, water table stability, climate resilience, good soil structure and the ability to cope with evolving pests and disease pressures.

Prominent critics of GM respond

In response to the recent activities in Akola, Aruna Rodrigues issued a legal notice to initiate proceedings against those responsible for the deliberate planting of illegal Bt Brinjal.

Vandana Shiva issued a press release, which can be read on the site seed freedom. She cites numerous peer-reviewed studies to rebut the claims made in support of GM and notes the outright hypocrisy of industry lobbyists who are laying claim to Gandhi’s legacy. She argues that that ‘Satyagraha’ is being degraded and misused: the planting of illegal Bt brinjal is a crime that violates India’s Biodiversity Act.

Of course, one of the most vocal claims of lobbyists is that GM technology offers farmers choice and that ‘activists’ are denying choice.

Writing on the Times of India website, Kavitha Kuruganti says if choices are to be left to farmers entirely, why do we need regulation of chemical pesticides either? What about the choices of farmers impinging upon consumer health and environmental sustainability? What about the choice of one set of farmers (let us say the ones who are keen on adopting GM crops) impinging upon the choice of neighbouring organic farmers whose crop will inevitably get contaminated? She argues there is nothing like absolute freedom without concomitant duties and responsibilities and that applies to technologies too.

Choice operates on another level as well. It is easy to manufacture ‘choice’. In 2018, there were reports of HT cotton illegally growing in India. A 2017 journal paper reported that cotton farmers have been encouraged to change their ploughing practices, which has led to more weeds being left in their fields. It is suggested that the outcome in terms of yields (or farmer profit) is arguably no better than before. However, it coincides with the appearance of an increasing supply (and farmer demand) for HT cotton seeds.

The authors observe:

“The challenge for agrocapital is how to break the dependence on double-lining and ox-weeding to open the door to herbicide-based management…. how could farmers be pushed onto an herbicide-intensive path?”

They show how farmers are indeed being nudged onto such a path and also note the potential market for herbicide growth alone in India is huge: sales could reach USD 800 million this year with scope for even greater expansion. From cotton to soybean, little wonder we see the appearance of HT seeds in the country.

And as for ‘choice’, what choice is there when non-GM seeds disappear and farmers only have GM seeds to ‘choose’ from, which is what happened with GM cotton. Real informed choice is the result of tried and tested environmental learning and outcomes. Then you decide which option is best. However, where Bt cotton was concerned this process gave way to ‘social learning’ – you follow the rest. This, coupled with Monsanto’s PR campaigns within villages and in the national media, did not leave a great deal of space for ‘free choice’.

The ‘free’ market ideologues behind events in Akola talk about ‘freedom’ and ‘choice’ and helping the farmer. But the real agenda is to open-up India to GM and get farmers hooked on a corporate money-spinning GMO seed-chemical treadmill.

Indian prime minister boosts strategic ties with the Maldives and Sri Lanka

Rohantha De Silva

Following his recent re-election and swearing-in, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the strategically-located Indian Ocean nations of the Maldives and Sri Lanka last weekend. The trip underlined New Delhi’s increasingly aggressive pursuit of its great power interests in the region and its role as a US strategic partner against China.

Modi met with Maldivian President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, addressed the parliament and signed six agreements, including defense and maritime during the trip. One of the agreements involves the Indian Navy and the Maldives National Defence Force sharing “white shipping information”—i.e., prior information about commercial shipping. Modi and Solih also inaugurated a Maldives National Defence Force training facility and Coastal Surveillance Radar System.

A joint statement by the two leaders declared that they would remain “mindful of each other’s concerns and aspirations for the stability of the region and not allowing their respective territories to be used for any activity inimical to the other.”

This statement, along with Solih’s reaffirmation of a so-called India First policy, reflects the sharp shift in the Maldives foreign policy following his election as president. Solih came to power last November after defeating the pro-China former President Abdul Yameen. The former Yameen administration had side-lined India while pledging support for China’s Belt and Road Initiative and several Beijing-funded infrastructure projects.

India, the US and EU repeatedly criticised human rights violations by the previous Yameen government and denounced its crackdown on the opposition, including former President Mohamed Nasheed and his Democratic Party of Maldives (MDP). These hypocritical concerns had nothing to do with defending democratic rights but were to undermine the president’s pro-China policy.

Solih was elected president after behind-the-scene manoeuvres by the US and India. He immediately pledged his support for India and begun dismantling several Chinese projects. His government has also launched a so-called anti-corruption drive against Yameen and his top supporters.

Modi made a brief four-hour visit to Sri Lanka last weekend where he met with President Maithripala Sirisena, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and opposition leader Mahinda Rajapakse.

Sri Lanka is another country in South Asia where India backed a US-orchestrated regime-change operation. In January 2015, India’s ruling elite endorsed the moves to oust President Rajapakse and install Sirisena as president.

The US and India were hostile to Rajapakse’s close relations with Beijing, including the purchase of Chinese arms for the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and financial assistance for various projects from Beijing. The incoming Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration quickly adjusted Sri Lanka’s foreign policy away from China and in favour of the US and India.

Political tensions, however, escalated between Sirisena and Wickremesinghe. Late last year Sirisena attempted to sack Wickremesinghe as prime minister and replace him with Rajapakse. These moves were opposed by Washington and New Delhi with the Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court in the end forcing Sirisena to end his efforts to appoint Rajapakse.

Last weekend Modi declared his “solidarity with Sri Lankan people” over the devastating terrorist attack on April 21. While the Sri Lankan government and the opposition have seized on the terror attack to justify unprecedented police-state measures, sharp political infighting has erupted again between the Sirisena and Wickremesinghe-led factions.

The purpose of Modi’s visit was to send another clear message to Colombo that India is determined to maintain strong military and political relations with Sri Lanka. A statement issued by Wickremesinghe’s office said the Sri Lankan prime minister had held discussions with Modi on “counter-terrorism” cooperation, including more facilities for training Sri Lankan troops in combating terrorism, and expediting long-delayed Indian financed projects.

Reflecting the strategic concerns of India’s political elite, an Indian Express article by Raja Mohan declared that Modi’s “visit to Male and Colombo offers the opportunity to firmly place the Indian Ocean island states into India’s regional geography… [I]sland states and territories—including the smallest pieces of real estate—are coming into strategic play amidst the return of great power rivalry to the littoral.”

India, Mohan added, “needs to develop its own national capabilities—especially in the delivery of strategic economic and security assistance to the island states.”

Working in tandem with Washington, New Delhi’s wants to dominate the vital Indian Ocean sea lanes between Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Eighty percent of China’s of oil imports are shipped through the Indian Ocean.

During the last Modi government, India opened its bases to US warplanes and ships under various logistical agreements and boosted bilateral, trilateral, and quadrilateral strategic cooperation with the US, and its principal regional allies, Japan and Australia. Washington and New Delhi calculate that control of critical Indian Ocean sea lanes will allow them to block key “choke points,” such as Malacca Strait between Thailand and Malaysia, in any military conflict with China.

Last month, against the background of sharply rising tensions between Washington and Beijing, warships from US, Japan, Philippines and India provocatively engaged in major naval engagements in the South China Sea. Under the pretext of “freedom of navigation,” six vessels provocatively passed through the area claimed by China and close to the Chinese mainland.

Like the US, India is hostile to Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative. China’s multi-billion project, which aims to link the Eurasian landmass, as well as Africa, both by land and sea, is to counter Washington’s increasing aggressive efforts to isolate China.

As Modi toured Sri Lanka and the Maldives, India’s new external affairs minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar visited Bhutan, India’s north-eastern neighbour, and met with King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck and Prime Minister Lotay Tshering.

India and China were involved in a tense confrontation for 10 weeks in July–August 2017 over control of the Donglang Plateau (Doklam) near Bhutan. Both countries withdrew their troops, temporarily defusing the tensions, but none of the underlining issues were resolved. While there was no indication that Jaishankar discussed the Doklam dispute during his visit, New Delhi is determined to keep China out of Bhutan.

The Modi government’s moves to strengthen its strategic relations in South Asia underlines the sharpening geopolitical tensions between India and China, which are being further exacerbated by Washington’s aggressive actions in Asia against Beijing.

Fiat Chrysler-Renault merger talks collapse

Will Morrow

Talks over the proposed merger between Fiat-Chrysler (FCA) and Renault were called off last week after a final agreement on the fusion of the Italian-American and French automotive giants could not be reached. The merger, which appears to have been shelved at least for now, would have created the third-largest automaker in the world by car sales.

Reports by executives from both Renault and FCA state that the deal was blocked at the final hour late in the evening of June 5 by the French government of President Emmanuel Macron. The French state has a 15 percent shareholder stake in Renault as well as double-voting rights on the company’s board, making it the most powerful shareholder.

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire requested a five-day delay of a vote, in order to allow time for Renault to seek the support of Nissan for the merger. Nissan is in an alliance partnership with Renault and Mitsubishi. Le Maire’s request was reportedly a response to the announcement by Nissan representatives at the meeting that they would abstain in the vote on the merger. They declared that they needed more time to study its potential impact on its own operations and its alliance with Renault.

Shortly after Le Maire’s announcement, FCA announced that it was withdrawing from the talks. Executive John Elkmann sent a note to shareholders on Thursday evening stating that “when it becomes clear that the discussions have been taken as far as they can reasonably go, it is necessary to be equally decisive in drawing matters to a close.”

Executives from both companies criticized the Macron government for preventing the merger. On Wednesday, at Renault’s annual meeting in Paris, CEO Jean-Dominique Senard stated that the “project remains, in my head, absolutely remarkable and exceptional.” It was “the first time there was a chance to create a European champion at a time when people keep complaining that it doesn’t exist.”

Senard stated that the proposal for Renault to initiate discussion with FCA on a potential merger had been made by the Macron government eight months earlier.

On Wednesday, Le Maire insisted in an interview with France Info radio that the deal was not off the table and that the government remained open to a merger. “It remains an interesting opportunity. But I have always been very clear: that it should be in the context of a strategy to reinforce the alliance” between Renault and Nissan.

A range of geopolitical and corporate calculations appear to have been involved in the Macron government’s decision. The merger of Renault and FCA would have led to the halving of the government’s 15 percent stake and the loss of its double-voting rights. Under conditions of growing trade war between the United States and China and threats by the Trump administration to impose tariffs on European automakers, it is possible that the Macron government did not wish to see its stake in the company lessened.

The calculations of Renault and the French government in a merger with FCA were always closely bound up with strengthening the hand of the company in the alliance with Nissan. Under the complex “alliance” partnership between Nissan, Mitsubishi and Renault, the French automaker owns over 43 percent of Nissan’s shares. However, its ability to directly control Nissan’s decision-making is restricted by a 2015 agreement that limits its voting on the Nissan board.

Nissan, the significantly larger of the two companies by market capitalization, owns only 15 percent of shares in Renault. Any merger with FCA would evidently further reduce Nissan’s control over Renault. A statement released last week by Nissan noted that a merger with FCA “would significantly alter the structure of our alliance with Renault. This would necessitate a complete review of the relations between Nissan and Renault.” Nissan has reportedly requested that Renault and FCA agree to reduce their share in Nissan in exchange for the Japanese automaker’s support for a merger.

An article published last week by Le Monde stated that Renault’s decision to seek a merger with FCA was aimed at “shift[ing] the balance of power with Nissan to allow the French to regain control of the destiny of the alliance signed in 1999.”

The conflict between the two companies has become increasingly sharp over the past year and reached a high point with the decision by Japanese authorities to arrest Charles Ghosn, the chairman and CEO of Renault, on corruption charges last November. Ghosn was replaced by Senard in January.

This week, Renault revealed that it will not provide the necessary votes for Nissan to carry out a planned restructuring of its leadership positions, stating that this would weaken Renault’s position.

It is possible that the merger talks will be resumed and an agreement reached. This would result in massive layoffs and plant closures for workers at both companies in order to eliminate excess capacity and boost profits and further increase the stock portfolios and dividend payouts for shareholders. The proposed merger was estimated to save $5.6 billion of “estimated annual run synergies,” according to a press release published by FCA.

At the same time, whatever the precise form that this takes, the driving force behind the proposed merger between the automotive giants remains the global restructuring that is now underway in the automotive industry and that confronts autoworkers internationally with a deepening assault on their jobs, wages and conditions.

A decade after the 2009 bankruptcy deal of General Motors and Chrysler orchestrated by the Obama administration—which fueled record profits, based on stepped-up concessions and the slashing of wages for new-hire US autoworkers—a new stage in this onslaught is underway. Since December last year, layoffs totaling 15,000 have been announced by General Motors in North America, 5,000 by Jaguar worldwide, and more than 7,000 at Volkswagen in Germany. As far as the financial investment funds that control the automotive giants are concerned, this is only an initial downpayment.

The increasingly bitter conflict among the global auto giants is being driven by a slowdown in sales, particularly in China, exacerbated by the Trump administration’s trade war measures. This is added to the turn toward electrical vehicles, which requires major investment in research and development of new technologies, an area that FCA was seeking to obtain via its merger with the technologically more advanced Renault and Nissan alliance.

The closest allies of the corporations and governments in imposing these layoffs are the trade unions. In France, the CGT and CFDT union federations responded to the proposed merger with FCA with a combination of corporatism and nationalism aimed at preventing any unified resistance by Italian, American and French autoworkers to the offensive being prepared.

The CFDT published a statement on May 27 that could have equally well been signed by the CEO of Renault. It stated that the union “estimates that this [merger] is an opportunity for the company and the Alliance,” hailing the “synergies of our two groups”—the same phrased used by FCA executives to refer to the billions of dollars to be slashed from operational expenses.

The CGT criticized the proposed merger from the nationalist and pro-company standpoint that this “merger will exclusively benefit FCA. In addition to realizing a strong financial operation, it will benefit from the technologies that Renault has developed, in electric technology …” Its statement sought to promote illusions that the Macron government, currently deploying police to shoot down “yellow vest” protesters opposing austerity and inequality with rubber bullets and tear gas, would act as an ally of French workers.

The greatest fear of these corrupt bureaucracies is that autoworkers will break out of their control and respond to the global assault underway with their own internationally organized struggle. This requires the formation of new organizations of struggle, independent rank-and-file committees of workers, to establish direct communications with autoworkers internationally.

Austrian billionaire takes over leading German chain store

Marianne Arens

The Austrian billionaire and investor René Benko is taking complete control over the major German department store chain Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof. The decision will result in more branch closures and cuts to jobs and wages.

The current concern was formed just eight months ago by the merger of Karstadt with Galeria Kaufhof. Benko’s Signa Group will now take over 49.99 percent of the company and the remaining shares in its real estate portfolio, which previously belonged to the Canadian Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), for a total of €1 billion. The Canadian corporation will retain only its department stores in the Netherlands, while the Inno concern in Belgium will also be taken over by Signa. In future, the German head office will be concentrated in the former Karstadt headquarters in Essen. The headquarters of Kaufhof in Cologne is to be closed.

The complete takeover of the department store giant with 240 premises across Europe and around 30,000 employees awaits approval from the same antitrust authorities which easily approved the previous merger last November.

In his plans to rationalise and downsize the workforce, Benko can rely on the loyal cooperation of representatives of the Verdi services trade union. Verdi responded to the latest takeover in typical fashion. Verdi’s retail representative Orhan Akman said: “We expect the right decisions for a convincing future concept worthy of the name.”

Behind this cautiously worded comment is the fact that Verdi has been involved in talks since the beginning of the year. At that time, a top-level discussion took place in Berlin, where René Benko and his German managers presented their “future concept” to the leaders of the central works councils of Kaufhof and Karstadt. The national chairman of Verdi Frank Bsirske and Verdi federal executive member Stefanie Nutzenberger also took part.

Afterwards, Verdi promoted the deal that had been reached, i.e. Signa-Holding would “provide a three-digit-million euro cash injection in spring if workers were prepared to make a 70 million euro contribution to the company’s recovery.”

On May 17, just three weeks before the full takeover, Verdi and the company works councils signed an agreement and redundancy plan to slash 2,000 full-time jobs—1,000 management and administrative staff (mainly in the old Kaufhof headquarters in Cologne) and another 1,000 full-time jobs in shops. The deal struck with Verdi was an important step for Benko.

In the Kölner Stadtanzeiger the head of the works councils for Kaufhof, Peter Zysik (Verdi), reported with satisfaction that “only 1,000 of the initially announced 1,800 jobs” would be lost. In fact, the total number of jobs threatened is much higher, because department stores employ many part-time workers. In the merger last fall, several reports cited a figure of 5,000 jobs to be eliminated, i.e., one fourth of the current workforce of just under 20,000 in Germany.

In addition, the employees remaining will once again be expected to accept wage cuts. The contracts for the retail industry no longer apply to the workforce. Galeria Kaufhof resigned from the official contract bargaining agreement in March 2019, which Karstadt had quit some years previously.

Ten years ago, the union agreed to a special “restructuring contract” at Karstadt, which forced employees to accept wage cuts and waive their holiday and Christmas bonuses. Verdi also started negotiations at Kaufhof in November 2017 on a “restructuring agreement.” As a result, jobs and wages have been cut and branches closed. Wages and working conditions are well below contractual norms.

In the past few weeks, and as part of the current contract negotiations, Verdi has called short-term strikes and some protests. Its officials have verbally denounced the cuts at Kaufhof-Karstadt and demanded normal contractual wages, but these actions are aimed merely at letting off steam and suppressing any real resistance.

Verdi is prepared to support the company in all attacks on employees. While Verdi activists organise toothless protests, leading union representatives sit on all the company’s executive boards and often work out the plans for cuts themselves, which they then sell to the workforce as the “best possible solution.”

Verdi has been working with the former Karstadt boss and today’s CEO Stephan Fanderl for years. According to the Karstadt works councillor Jürgen Ettl: “Mr. Fanderl tackles things consistently.”

Time and time again Verdi have claimed that job and wage cuts were necessary to avoid the closure of individual branches. The latest developments confirm the utter hypocrisy of such claims.

In June, the shops that were transferred to the Saks-Off-5th chain just two years ago are to be shut down. This applies to Saks-Off branches in Düsseldorf, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Wiesbaden, Bonn, Heidelberg, Cologne, Hanover, as well as in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. At the end of January 2019, Benko closed down the Kaufhof branch in Hof. Other closures will follow.

The closure in Hof graphically reveals the background to the many years of transactions. The property of the branch in Hof was sold off to a Hamburg real estate owner. The latter refused to extend its lease with Kaufhof because he preferred to hand over the property to a hotel chain planning to build a four-star hotel on the site.

This sheds light on the real interests at work in this game of department store monopoly: Investors are particularly interested in the real estate of the shops, which are mostly situated in prime locations in inner cities. They are less interested in the department store business, which is under strong pressure from online retailers such as Amazon and Zalando. Traditional department stores are struggling with falling sales and profits while property prices are rising. Ownership of the land and building is increasingly being separated from the department store business. The real estate is being sold separately, and then the department stores are forced to lease back their sites for ever higher prices.

Those able to survive will be the most exclusive and profitable department stores whose employees raise the necessary funds for leasing through increased workplace exploitation. According to Verdi, the various “reorganisation tariffs” agreed during the past few years have increased the company’s coffers to the tune of well over €1 billion.

Workers’ wages, jobs and conditions can only be defended on the basis of a socialist program: by expropriating the big banks, corporations and billionaire investors, and organising the economy to satisfy social needs, rather than the interests of shareholders and speculators.

This is impossible, however, as long as workers remain subordinated to unions such as Verdi and their works councils. This is shown by the way in which Verdi board members have welcomed and applauded the billionaire René Benko, as well as his predecessors, Nicolaus Berggruen and Thomas Middelhoff, as “white knights” and saviours.

Like Berggruen, Benko was able to take over the then loss-making Karstadt Group for a symbolic euro. Despite the years of salary waivers by employees agreed by Verdi in 2010, Karstadt has continued to make losses, while Berggruen received €7.5 million annually—from the Karstadt naming rights alone. Berggruen had originally acquired the rights for a one-time payment of €5 million. Now the same theatre is being played out under Benko.

French hospital workers strike against Macron’s health cuts

Anthony Torres

While the Senate adopted the 2022 health bill on Tuesday, hospital strikes against the deterioration of the health system that began in March in Paris are now spreading throughout France.

Health Minister Agnès Buzyn and President Emmanuel Macron have turned down all the demands of hospital staff despite rising anger among workers. Already, Macron has refused to make any concessions to demands of “yellow vest” protesters that he put an end to his policy of austerity and war. He reacted by launching riot police against the “yellow vests,” leading to mass arrests of thousands of protesters, dozens of whom have been mutilated by the cops.

On Monday on the set of the BFM-TV news channel, faced with demands for an increase in staff and salaries, Buzyn dismissed out of hand “the idea of a new salary increase for carers.” She bluntly said, “But when the concern is purely about wages whereas it is the entire system that doesn’t work ... honestly, the problems won’t be solved just because I pay you more.”

Despite €400 million investments to create medical assistant positions and finance rural or territorial health care, the 2022 health project plans to cut €3.8 billion from health budgets. There is rising anger and concern among hospital staff, who fear a drastic deterioration in working conditions.

Hospital staff began striking in Paris in March, and these strikes have now spread to 95 emergency wards across France. Demonstrations are planned in Paris and in the provinces.

Faced with rising anger in the hospitals, the trade unions have called strikes to protest against the lack of resources at the University Hospital of Bordeaux, as well as of Libourne, Agen-Nérac and Pau. All hospital staff in the neurological and cardiological services at Albi are also on strike to demand “a better quality of care and acceptable working conditions.”

Staff at Lariboisière Hospital, in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, mounted a sickout in the night from Monday to Tuesday.

Terrified by this growing movement, the Macron government deployed police-state measures against hospital workers, with requisitions issued by the gendarmerie to deprive staff of their constitutionally protected right to strike and require a return to work. In the emergency room of Lons-le-Saunier, health workers were requisitioned by order of the police prefect. The authoritarian methods first used against “yellow vests” are being deployed against all workers in struggle.

WSWS reporters spoke to Fanny and Chloé, nurses at Saint Louis Hospital in Paris, who denounced the lack of beds and staff when there are more and more people who need them. “Before, people arrived at the hospital, and we had beds for them in separate rooms,” one said.

Chloé added: “Over the past year, a year and a half, that has changed. There are no more beds, they’re full. People sleep on stretchers in the emergency corridor all night long.”

Fanny pointed out that three or four years ago there was one caregiver for every 10 people, but now it’s one for every 14. “The problem is money. There is money, but it’s the politicians who decide what to do and we the people, we have no power to decide. We don’t feel anyone listens to us at all. Our work is not recognized in fact, but it is essential for the population. Our salary has not changed since 2010.”

Fanny told the WSWS that they can earn almost €1,700 a month, but have to work on several public holidays and weekends. She compared the deterioration in the working conditions and living standards for hospital staff to that of other civil servants: “My sister is a teacher. They always cut classes and there are more children in the classes. It’s like us, because they’re closing down the services.”

The WSWS also spoke to Maryline, who works as a doctor in Nancy. She said that ruling circles “do not want to invest in hospitals. ... They are happy that public hospitals are deteriorating and that there are more private clinics, and that only those who can afford them can go to private clinics.”

She added, “There is now a crisis in the hospital system. They offer doctors 1,500 euros for 24 hours of work if they come to regions where there is a shortage of doctors. If someone doesn’t come to work, there’s a problem. But many employees have health problems, and in some services there are working conditions that are difficult, and people do not stay. Nurses are paid only 1,300 euros per month, but they have many responsibilities. We need more nurses and more caregivers. We can’t treat people like this anymore. When people wait, their health deteriorates.”

Fanny explained that there is plenty of money, but the Macron government and its predecessors are setting out to destroy social rights established by previous generations of workers struggles, looting the education and health system to extract more money from them. For the first time in 18 years, the Social Security system is running a surplus. This is due to the gutting of retirement pensions and family benefits in 2019 and 2020.

The policy adopted by the Macron government in its “social dialogue” with the union bureaucracies is deeply regressive. These austerity cuts in healthcare and the surpluses generated are used to finance Macron’s tax cuts for the rich and to finance the massive military spending increases, so that France and the EU can wage neocolonial wars in Africa and the Middle East.

The creation of a public health service that meets the needs of the masses requires a broader struggle of hospital staff, mobilizing together with other sections of workers in France and internationally. To this end, workers must create their own organizations of struggle, independent of the trade unions, to defend social rights and lead a political fight against war and the police-state preparations.

Sudan’s opposition leaders capitulate to the military junta

Jean Shaoul

The Alliance for Freedom and Change (AFC) called off its protest campaign and general strike earlier this week in exchange for some vague promises of “concessions” from Sudan’s junta.

The AFC has handed the initiative to the Transitional Military Council (TMC), which ousted long-term dictator President Omar al-Bashir in April in order to prevent the overthrow of the entire regime.

The nationwide general strike had brought cities across the country to a virtual standstill for three days after the weekend, just days after the TMC ordered a bloodbath to disperse the months-long mass sit-in outside the defense ministry headquarters in Khartoum on June 3.

The sit-in gave expression to workers’ and professionals’ determined opposition to the junta despite its threats and intimidation. It prompted warnings of an imminent civil war.

Since then, the military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), an offshoot of the notorious Janjaweed that ruthlessly suppressed the rebellion in Darfur, have killed at least 120 protesters, including 40 whose bodies were dumped in the Nile River and 19 children, injured nearly 1,000 and arrested hundreds.

Among the opposition leaders arrested was Yassir Arman, who had returned to Sudan in May to take part in the talks with the junta despite facing a death sentence. He had been detained after the military broke up the sit-in and deported by helicopter—against his will—to South Sudan, along with two other oppositionists. The TMC had earlier announced that the three had been released.

There were reports of many rapes. Khartoum has been in lockdown, the University of Khartoum ransacked, and electricity and the internet switched off.

The TMC’s deputy leader and RSF chief, Lieutenant General Hamdan Dagalo (known by his nickname “Hemeti”), who has ambitions of stepping into al-Bashir’s shoes, had justified the brutal crackdown by blaming the protesters for “causing chaos.”

The Alliance for Freedom and Change consists of 22 opposition organisations, including the Sudan Professionals Association, coalitions of political parties, Girifna (“We have had enough,” a movement of young people), the Forum of Sudanese Tweeters and the families of the Ramadan martyrs (28 of the Ba’athist officers who, following a failed attempt to overthrow Bashir during Ramadan, were summarily executed by the Islamist security services in 1990).

It has called for the withdrawal of the militias from Khartoum and other towns, an international investigation into the bloodbath, the lifting of an internet blockade and the establishment of a civilian transitional government.

The bourgeois and petty-bourgeois layers represented by the AFC, regardless of their differences with the TMC, offer no way forward for the workers and poor in Sudan. A civilian-led transitional government in alliance with the military, while giving them a greater share in Sudan’s national cake, would continue to represent the interests of the country’s capitalist elite and its enforcers in the military.

This venal clique presides over a country where at least 80 percent of the 40 million population lives on less than US$1 per day, with some 5.5 million in need of humanitarian assistance in 2018, an increase of 700,000 compared to 2017, and around 2.47 million children suffer from acute malnutrition.

The TMC is riven with dissent, having admitted there have been at least two coup attempts since al-Bashir’s ouster, with “two groups of officers,” apparently supporters of al-Bashir, taken into custody. However, Saudi Arabia’s state broadcaster al-Arabiya denied this, claiming that most of them had refused orders to disperse the mass sit-in, while al-Hurra, a US-based Arabic channel, said that the officers had been arrested for holding opposing views to the TMC.

Following the military’s crackdown in the capital, there have been reports of clashes in other parts of the country, particularly the already-fragile and troubled regions of eastern Sudan and Darfur, where Janjaweed militia shot and killed nine people in the village of al-Dalij Monday.

In Eastern Sudan, there have been escalating tribal clashes and looting by criminal gangs in Port Sudan that have spread to the cities of Khashm el-Girba and Kassala and resulted in the deaths of more than 30 people. According to the Middle East Eye, it is widely believed that the TMC, RSF and agents of the “deep state” allied with it, are responsible for the tribal clashes and that the authorities released criminal gangs from prisons and allowed them to run riot.

The TMC’s offer of concessions comes in the wake of several international developments: the African Union’s suspension of Sudan, the UN Security Council’s condemnation of the TMC’s crackdown on peaceful protesters and mediation efforts by Ethiopia. According to Mahmoud Dirir, Ethiopia’s special envoy to Sudan, the TMC and AFC had “agreed to resume talks soon.”

Both the AFC and General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the TMC chief, met separately with Washington’s newly appointed special envoy to Sudan, Donald Booth, and the assistant secretary of state for Africa, Tibor Nagy, dispatched to Sudan to help craft a “peaceful solution” to the crisis. Booth served as the US Envoy to Sudan and South Sudan from 2013 to 2017.

The US is determined to pressure the TMC for concessions to its own imperialist interests. Washington’s primary concern is to ensure that the uprising does not spread to its regional allies: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt. These dictatorial and venal regimes, fearing their own working class and poor peasants, backed the junta and ordered the bloodbath.

The last thing the US—and Europe—want is instability in Sudan, strategically located in the Horn of Africa, alongside the Red Sea and the entrance to the Suez Canal through which much of the region’s oil passes, and a new wave of refugees heading for Europe.

In a sop to the protesters, Sudan’s state prosecutors have charged former dictator al-Bashir with corruption and misuse of emergency orders and announced investigations into the financial dealings of “leading officials of the former regime.” The TMC has also “retired” 98 officers from the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) accused of cracking down on protesters while al-Bashir was in power.

The junta has also admitted that its security forces committed abuses when they attacked the mass sit-in in Khartoum, with its spokesman announcing an investigation into the violence and the arrest of several military officers for the “violations.”

These concessions urged upon the TMC by international “mediators” can and will be revoked at the drop of a hat. They are a trap for the Sudanese working class. Complicit in this treachery are Britain’s fake lefts—the Socialist Workers Party and the Socialist Party and their international affiliates—who have called for Sudan’s revolutionaries to negotiate and ally with the lower ranks of the officers and among soldiers.

They likewise supported the Egyptian Revolutionary Socialists, which backed the Egyptian military’s ouster of elected President Mohamed Mursi, paving the way for General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s bloodbath and repression more ferocious than that of his predecessor, Hosni Mubarak.

Sudan’s struggle takes place amid a growing wave of working-class militancy throughout the Middle East and North Africa, exemplified by the strikes and demonstrations in Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco.

The only way to establish a democratic regime in Sudan is through a struggle led by the working class, independently of and in opposition to the liberal and pseudo-left forces in the middle class, to take power, expropriating the regime’s ill-gotten wealth in the context of a broad international struggle of the working class against capitalism and for the building of socialism. This requires the building of a section of the International Committee of the Fourth International, the World Party of Socialist Revolution, in Sudan.

European Union threatens to sanction Italy over budget deficit

Peter Schwarz

Following last month’s European elections, the dispute over Italy’s state debt has flared up once again. The European Commission recommended on June 5 the launching of disciplinary procedures against the highly indebted country, which could culminate in the imposition of severe fines if the government fails to drastically cut spending.

However, numerous steps would have to be completed before that point is reached. To date, no financial penalty has ever been imposed on a eurozone member. Additionally, the potential of an Italian bankruptcy could drag the entire eurozone over a cliff. After Germany and France, Italy is the third largest member of the currency bloc.

The Italian government is divided over the issue. While the non-party prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, threatened to resign, and pleaded together with Finance Minister Giovanni Trea, also a non-party minister, for obeying European Union (EU) regulations, far-right Lega leader Matteo Salvini initially adopted a confrontational stance. The strongman of the government ridiculed the “little letter” from Brussels and vowed not to bow to the EU’s demands.

But Conte announced a de-escalation of the situation earlier this week. At a crisis meeting with Salvini and Five Star Movement leader Luigi Di Maio, it was agreed that a strategy would be drafted together with Trea to avoid EU sanctions, Conte announced. He previously warned that disciplinary action would trigger a crisis on Italy’s financial market.

Salvini confirmed the agreement. However, this isn’t worth much. The EU previously threatened to initiate proceedings against Italy late last year, but eventually agreed to a compromise. The EU now assumes that both Italy’s new debt and its overall debt will continue to increase.

In essence, the conflict over Italy’s budget is a bitter fight between competing factions of the European and Italian bourgeoisies that is being carried out at the expense of the working class.

The EU’s threats of penalties recall its treatment of Greece. The EU is particularly irritated by the Five Star-Lega government’s introduction of a basic income and the abandoning of a pension reform, both of which cost several billion euros. EU officials are demanding an end to these measures and a stricter regime of austerity.

As the World Socialist Web Site has explained, these measures are nothing more than a drop in the bucket, and are, moreover, bound to draconian requirements much like Hartz IV in Germany. They do nothing to change the glaring levels of social inequality, and poverty and unemployment continue to rise. They were introduced above all at the initiative of the Five Star Movement, which won large numbers of votes in southern Italy on the basis of its promise for a basic income.

By contrast, Salvini is developing very different plans. His Lega was initially formed as a separatist party in northern Italy and had a base of support among sections of the middle class and businessmen. An old hate-filled song that Salvini posted on YouTube at the beginning of his political career is once again making the rounds. It concerns the stinking Napolitans (people of Naples, the largest city in the impoverished south), who allegedly even force the dogs to leave the city.

Only later did the Lega expand its influence across the country with anti-refugee xenophobia and anti-EU demagogy. But Salvini benefited above all from the fact that the so-called left parties and trade unions had slavishly imposed the EU’s austerity demands for more than three decades.

Salvini’s major goal is the cutting of taxes for the super-rich and corporations. By introducing a flat tax, he wants to trigger a fiscal crisis. The project would cost between €50 billion and €60 billion to implement.

Such a policy would be inseparable from ruthless attacks on the working class. In the past, similar policies were practiced by dictatorships, like the Pinochet regime in Chile, or the right-wing governments that ruled in Eastern Europe following the restoration of capitalism. Salvini is consciously cultivating a fascist base to enforce these policies against bitter opposition from the working class.

The Five Star Movement, which long claimed to be neither left nor right, has been exposed as a reliable prop for the far-right Lega. The WSWS warned six years ago that the Five Star Movement was mobilising distressed sections of the middle class with nationalist appeals against foreigners and refugees.

While the Five Star Movement won 33 percent at the 2018 Italian elections, and Lega 17 percent, the vote percentages were almost reversed in last month’s vote. While the Lega emerged as the strongest party with 34 percent of the vote, the Five Star Movement secured just 17 percent. The protest party is deeply divided and faces the threat of a split.

Under these conditions, Salvini hopes to be able to form a government of right-wing parties following early elections. Together with the Forza Italia of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (8.8 percent) and the fascist Fratelli d’italia (6.5 percent), the Lega secured almost half of the votes in the European elections. However, Salvini can’t afford to engage in an open conflict with the EU, which brings with it the threat of a financial crisis. This is why he is shifting on the debt issue.

In principle, the EU has no objection to massive tax cuts for the rich, provided that they are offset through deep social spending cuts. All of its policies over recent decades have been based on this principle. However, the EU is not prepared to tolerate tax cuts being offset temporarily through increased debt. This would, first and foremost, undermine Germany’s dominant position in the euro zone, which is based on a strong euro.

This is why German economists in particular are stressing that Italy must first cut social spending. For example, Clemens Fuest, president of the Munich-based Ifo Institute for Economic Research, said that the former Democratic Party (DP) government “deregulated the labour market and secured more flexibility.” Now, they are “taking the other direction. The deregulations were reversed, and that’s just the wrong approach.” It is necessary to “restructure costs, away from pension benefits towards investments, for example.”

The dividing line between supporters of the EU and nationalists like Salvini is fluid, with both agreeing that major attacks on the living standards of the working class are necessary to defend the capitalist system. For the Italian working class, there is no lesser evil in this conflict. They must organise themselves independently, align themselves with the workers in Europe and internationally, and fight for a socialist programme. This is the only way to prevent a relapse into barbarism and war.