Brussels, 20/09/2011
ETUC General Secretary Bernadette Ségol commented: "It is extremely regrettable that the European finance ministers failed to live up to their responsibilities and failed to take the measures needed to keep from adding further to the crisis. Instead, certain Member States, which are caught up in the logic of national election campaigns, decided that the emergency could wait until tomorrow and did not have to be dealt with today. They turned their back on Greece, at the risk of speeding up a contagion effect in Europe. More than 50,000 trade unionists from 18 countries demonstrated in the streets of Wroclaw on 17 September to say that the time has come to make a reality of European solidarity. I regret that we did not have the opportunity to say this in person to the European ministers, since they did come to at least one decision: they cut their meeting short to keep from meeting us."