The ETUC Executive Committee: declaration on the jobs situation in Europe

Brussels, 08/07/2009

Yet against this desperate situation, much of the talk of policy makers is to about how to cut back public spending and plan exit strategies from the present growing levels of public debt. To follow these would make a grave situation much worse, and the need is for Governments to hold their nerve and keep priming the economy. Premature exit strategies would kill the prospects of recovery as they did in the USA in 1937 and Japan in 1997.

Instead, we call for expanded recovery plan, though controls on excesses of financial capitalism and a new social deal for this year's school and college leavers.