European Union meltdown?
Photo: © Erik Luntang
This morning I went with a journalist for an interview with John MONKS, General Secretary of ETUC (European Trade Union Confederation)
We wanted to hear how he see the future in Europe in the light of the financial crisis and if governments are doing the right stuff and enough of it to save us. I shall spare you all for the details of the interview since I was more concentrated taking pictures. Therefor I cannot give a proper report other than saying it was not the most positive views he came up with for the future.
After the interview the journalist and I talked about the financial situation as such. Today four former bank bosses apologized for their banks failures and their part in creating the economical crisis, at a parliamentary hearing in London on the financial crisis.
People get upset about the bonuses bank executives receives after getting huge sums of tax-payers money to save the banks and this also made Prime Minister Gordon Brown quite angry.
The free movement of workforce within the EU and the problem it causes with local unemployed workforce who can just sit and watch foreign colleagues taking their jobs. Lately it caused strikes at Oil Refineries in UK where the French Total subcontracted work out to a Italian company who brought their own workers to UK.
Lot’s of stuff to think about on my way back in the Metro train to the very hearth of the European Union where my office is. Outside the headquarters of the European Commission was standing two huge ice-cubes one of them with the EU-flag inside the deep frozen water, on a sure path towards a meltdown. Thinking of the citizen of Europe it became quite symbolic in my eyes. I am quite sure many folks all over Europe, just to mention a few, have had enough of greed and they will not only blame executives of the corporate world, but also the EU even EU tries to tell us that EU is cool.
The European Union will have some work cut out for its information department explaining that free movement of workforce, services and more is good for all of Europe.
I have heard somebody somewhere say: “Enough is Enough” !
Photo: © Erik Luntang