Sylt, the very beautiful German island (with an artificial isthmus), the extrem north point of Germany, where friendly and kinder squirrels up to us to take a nut from our hands!
Our hope for Europe is an democratic alternative to conservative and liberal Government of Germany by SPD and Gründen that change German politics.
Peter Steinbrück family (http://www.express.de/politik-wirtschaft/kein-interesse-am-rummel-steinbruecks-frau--fuehre-mein-eigenes-leben,2184,21018328.html)
In this sense let we see an interwiew with the SPD candidate to next elections to German Bundestag by
Spiegel in 8-4-2013
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/spiegel-interview-with-spd-candidate-peer-steinbrueck-a-892973.html:
«SPIEGEL: Mr. Steinbrück, following the revelations about
trillions of euros in assets deposited in offshore tax havens, you have
called for a tougher approach against tax evaders. Why have you waited
so long? You would have had an opportunity to do this when you were
finance minister.
Steinbrück: First, I have advocated a tougher approach for years.
Second, if there was anyone who placed the topic on the agenda during
his term in office, with the support of the OECD and my French partners
at the time, it was I. Some have even quoted my use of the word
"cavalry" to criticize my hard-hitting approach.
SPIEGEL: Why do Germany and the European Union have such a hard time taking action against tax havens?
Steinbrück: The current government has indeed neglected the
issue. Worse yet, Mrs. Merkel's government wanted to stop German tax
authorities and public prosecutor's offices from accepting tax CDs for
their investigations of tax evaders. This makes the latest reactions
about wanting to establish a sort of tax FBI all the more hypocritical.
That's what the German government should have done long ago, instead of
sidelining the tax evasion probes.
SPIEGEL: What's your objection to a nationwide tax investigation authority?
Steinbrück: It's the usual strategy of the government. First it
does nothing, and now it's far too late in presenting an idea that the
SPD already proposed in a five-point paper on combating tax fraud. In
that document, we also proposed a criminal code for corporations, which
could be used to force the banks to assist tax investigators. So far the
government has rejected all of these ideas.
SPIEGEL: At least one tax oasis could have been dried out by now: Switzerland. The SPD prevented that from happening.
Steinbrück: No, the SPD prevented a tax amnesty that wouldn't
even have made tax fraud impossible. The German-Swiss treaty would have
left bigger holes than you get in a piece of Swiss cheese. My successor
Wolfgang Schäuble was prepared to exempt German tax evaders from
punishment, allow them to remain anonymous and accept tax secrecy, while
the Americans get all the data on their tax evaders with money in Swiss
bank accounts. With the help of the OECD, which I have just visited,
and the European Commission, the pressure on European tax havens should
have been intensified by now.
SPIEGEL: Do you expect that the desire to avoid tax will become even stronger if the SPD and the Greens form the next government?
Steinbrück: Why?
SPIEGEL: Because you want to revoke some of the tax cuts enacted during the former SPD/Greens government.
Steinbrück: Times have changed since the crisis. We will not
increase all taxes for everyone, but some taxes for some people. I stand
by that because the gaps in income and wealth distribution are
widening. To contribute to greater equality of opportunities, we have to
invest more money in infrastructure and education, as well as help
local authorities. At the same time, we have to adhere to the debt
brake.
SPIEGEL: You could also cut spending.
Steinbrück: An SPD/Greens government under my leadership will
make savings. We will cut subsidies where there are environmental
disincentives. For instance, we will repeal the Mövenpick tax break for
hotels. Other changes will follow. For more than 10 years, we have been
in a situation in which top incomes and assets have been growing
considerably, while ordinary citizens have had to accept real wage
losses. That's why stronger shoulders will also have to contribute more
to the funding of public services.
SPIEGEL: The income gap between rich and poor hasn't grown any larger in recent years.
Steinbrück: The basic situation hasn't changed. In recent years,
we have also been dealing with stagnating real wages and a significant
increase in income and wealth at the upper levels of society. The gap
has grown wider, as Hans-Ulrich Wehler recently explained convincingly
in a SPIEGEL interview.
SPIEGEL: But it was already there when your party was still in power.
Steinbrück: We didn't manage to reduce the incomes gap. But the
current government hasn't even tried. Besides, the situation and the
challenges have changed since 2008, when the major crisis erupted.
Society is drifting apart.
SPIEGEL: Former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder likes to point out
that the relatively low tax rates have helped Germany become competitive
again.
Steinbrück: Yes, but as I said, we face different problems today.
Demographic change and the integration of children from weaker social
classes mean that more money is needed for education, if we want to keep
our society together and innovative. We'll have to do more for
childcare to help improve opportunities for women in the workplace.
SPIEGEL: Where exactly do you stand within your party on a program like that? Still to the right or more to the left now?
Steinbrück: The left-right scheme is too simplistic for me. If
something that is socially just also makes sense economically, I support
it. The introduction of a comprehensive, statutory minimum wage, for
example, is socially just and makes economic sense, because purchasing
power is increased.
SPIEGEL: Those are the words of someone who is trying to please
everyone. So far, you have always been viewed as a representative of the
party's right wing.
Steinbrück: That doesn't make sense to me. It isn't a matter of
right or left, but of right or wrong. For example, it's a question of
ensuring that no child is left behind. And providing for affordable
housing is probably less of an issue of right or left, but of social
necessity.
SPIEGEL: You just visited President Fraçois Hollande in France. What can a German Social Democrat learn from the winner of last year's French election?
Steinbrück: He too made an issue out of the question of greater
balance, specifically in French society. Apparently both we and the
French Socialists are concerned with the same question: How do we keep a
society together? That's how he won the election…
SPIEGEL: … a victory he is now putting on the line with many scandals and a clearly leftist economic program.
Steinbrück: He has been in office for 10 months, and he can
hardly be held responsible for the omissions of two conservative
presidents. He can't be blamed for the scandal surrounding his budget
minister, who lied to him and the French people. We have many
similarities, especially when it comes to European policy. But that
doesn't meant that in Germany everything has to be done the same way
it's done in France.
SPIEGEL: How worrisome is the situation in France, where unemployment is rising sharply and the economy is in a crisis?
Steinbrück: The French president is familiar with the situation
in his country and gave me a no-frills description. We Germans, in
particular, have a great interest in ensuring that his efforts to make
France more competitive are successful. Together, we have to make sure
that the crisis in Europe does not destabilize our social order and
social cohesion.
SPIEGEL: Hollande blames Europe's austerity policy, which Germany, in particular, has been pushing.
Steinbrück: The very one-sided crisis management pursued by Mrs.
Merkel's government, which is geared solely toward cutting costs, is a
mistake. As a result, entire countries have entered a vicious circle of
sharply declining growth, higher unemployment, especially among young
people, declining tax revenues and rising deficits, which they can
hardly refinance anymore. Then their ratings are downgraded and the
screw tightens even further. We have to be careful that this crisis
management doesn't end up costing us Germans more money than it appears
to be costing at the moment.
SPIEGEL: In contrast to Germany, wages have risen sharply in
these countries in recent years, while productivity has stagnated. This
is why European Central Bank President Mario Draghi argues that there is
no getting around a strict austerity policy.
SPIEGEL: I disagree. Reforms are necessary and mistakes have to
be corrected. But the mix of consolidation and growth enhancement, of
demanding and encouraging, isn't correct. As a result, social tensions
are building in these societies.
SPIEGEL: In the end, your argument amounts to a call for Germany to spend more money for Europe.
Steinbrück: Well, saying that in Germany, at any rate, has long been a taboo for the current government.
SPIEGEL: Then you now have the opportunity to break the taboo.
Steinbrück: I'm not saying this for the first time: We must tell
people the plain truth. Overcoming the European crisis will cost money.
And Germany will always only do well if its neighbors are doing well.
SPIEGEL: Do you want to give the affected countries more time to save money?
Steinbrück: Yes, as long as they make verifiable efforts to improve their situation in return for the solidarity they receive from others.
SPIEGEL: And the consequence is that the rest of Europe, including the Germans, will have to take on more costs?
Steinbrück: If consolidation efforts are tied to stimulating
economic growth, it will also be possible to curb costs. Any other
solution will not only come with an economic price, but will also impair
democracy in Europe. Then we won't be seeing a peaceful demonstration
by 200,000 young people in Madrid, but of 300,000, and protests of
similar magnitude elsewhere.
SPIEGEL: Do you think Germany has assumed sufficient responsibility in Europe?
Steinbrück: Germany has assumed responsibility. Our country had a
good reputation for a long time, but it's no longer quite as certain at
the moment. (Former Chancellor) Willy Brandt's motto about Germans
wanting to be good neighbors is in question.
SPIEGEL: Does it worry you that posters in Southern Europe depict the chancellor with a Hitler moustache?
Steinbrück: That's completely unacceptable. We Germans haven't
prevented these countries from implementing reforms and making
themselves more competitive. Their governments should take a look at
themselves and shouldn't lay the blame on Mrs. Merkel or a different
German leader.
SPIEGEL: Should the Germans change their tone toward the other countries of Europe?
Steinbrück: Yes, there have been tones coming from Germany that
were not seen as helpful. For example, the remark by Volker Kauder
(chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag), that
German is now being spoken in Europe, or some of the chancellor's
speeches ahead of the 2010 regional election in (the western state of
North Rhine-Westphalia) were unsettling.
SPIEGEL: You, on the other hand, with your keen diplomatic abilities, would be the right man to represent Germany in Europe?
Steinbrück: I can certainly distinguish between plain language and the duties of the office.
SPIEGEL: It's not that easy for voters.
Steinbrück: Many voters understand my language. In the case of Mrs. Merkel, it's hard to tell what she wants.
SPIEGEL: There would be no more talk of clowns and cavalry attacks?
Steinbrück: The cavalry remark put the debate in a nutshell in political terms. And I won't take back what I said about clowns in relation to Mr. Berlusconi. But you can be sure that as chancellor I will speak the way a chancellor should.
SPIEGEL: So you think that you've learned something?
Steinbrück: One should never stop learning.
SPIEGEL: You were finance minister when you made your cavalry remark. You held a position of governmental responsibility at the time.
Steinbrück: Yes, and a broad segment of the public understood what I was saying perfectly well.
SPIEGEL: But it caused considerable upset in Switzerland.
Steinbrück: Perhaps, but much has changed in Switzerland since then.
SPIEGEL: So far you have only been restrained when it comes to
Russia, even though the regime of (President Vladimir) Putin has just
taken action against the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the Friedrich
Ebert Foundation, the latter of which is aligned with the SPD. Why were
you so loud in the case of Switzerland and are so quiet on Russia?
Steinbrück: What the Russian authorities have done is completely
unacceptable, and I strongly object to it. But I believe that since
Willy Brandt's time, we have done very well with the motto "change
through rapprochement." It's the way we should deal with countries where
there are human rights violations. This also applies to China.
SPIEGEL: So you don't agree with your mentor, (former Chancellor) Helmut Schmidt, who says that the West should stay out of these issues?
Steinbrück: These issues must be clearly addressed in direct
talks with the governments in question. All former chancellors have done
so, it's what the current chancellor does and when I am chancellor,
I'll do it, as well.
SPIEGEL: Do you enjoy running for office?
Steinbrück: Yes. Come to my events and you'll see.
SPIEGEL: Have you sometimes regretted running for chancellor?
Steinbrück: Never.
SPIEGEL: We don't quite believe you.
Steinbrück: When I was chosen as the candidate all of a sudden in
late September, I assumed a responsibility that goes beyond me as a
person. That is why I say "never."
SPIEGEL: Does that mean that you did indeed think of ditching your candidacy?
Steinbrück: No, because when the wind is blowing in your face,
you automatically think that a candidacy isn't a private matter. It's
sort of like the motto: The air contains iron, so I'd better pull the
covers over my head and not get up anymore. I'm aware that I also
assumed responsibility for my party, our supporters and a cause. And if
things sometimes get tough, you can't ask yourself what impact it's
having on you. It isn't an option.
SPIEGEL: Things certainly haven't gone that well in recent months.
Steinbrück: Of course, not everything has gone smoothly. I don't
deny that at all. But there have also been times when I had the
impression that others had an interest in stirring things up. But that's
behind me, and now it's time to enter the campaign and talk about the
issues.
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
Interview by Konstantin von Hammerstein and Gordon Repinski»
Wolfang Schäuble by him side was critic about European Commission during a televised debate on Europe (May 16, 2013):
[was not] «faster, more efficient»[, for instance in fighting
unemployment among young people.
European institutions, are] «always the slowest» [to react
and, given their slow pace], «what one could do
bilaterally».
About Greece, Schaeuble said that
responsibilities within the Commission were too fragmented, creating an
administrative burden.
Oskar Lafontaine founder and former chair of the
Left Party in him «productivity-oriented wage policy» (May of 2013) have similar points of view of Bernd Lucke, chair of the right-wing party
Alternative for Germany (AFD) in Ap, the extremes touch each other (
die extreme berühren sich) by a point of view of the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) published by the «Marxist» International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI):
«German Left Party’s Oskar Lafontaine calls for return to national currencies» (http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/05/11/lafo-m11.html)
By
Christoph Dreier
11 May 2013
«Amid growing social conflicts in Europe, the founder and former
chair of the Left Party, Oskar Lafontaine, has made a proposal about how
the austerity measures in Europe can be intensified and the continent’s
workers divided. He wants to cut wages in the Southern European
countries by 20 to 30 percent by reintroducing national currencies.
Last week, Lafontaine published a commentary on his web site, arguing for a “productivity-oriented wage policy”.
“Wages
and social expenditure have grown too much in Southern Europe,” writes
Lafontaine. Because wages in Germany have sunk, this has led to an
economic imbalance that makes exporting from Southern Europe more
difficult, he said.
“To again achieve an approximately balanced
competitiveness”, says Lafontaine, “countries like Greece, Portugal and
Spain [must become] around 20 to 30 percent less expensive, and Germany
20 percent more expensive compared with the average of the EU
countries”.
The attempt to reduce wages in the Southern European
countries with austerity measures has failed, he said. “The real
devaluation through declining wages, leading to a 20 to 30 per cent loss
of income in Southern Europe and even in France, is leading to
disaster, as we can see already in Spain, Greece and Portugal.”
By disaster, Lafontaine does not mean the social misery, unemployment or
pay cuts, which he himself advocates a little later in the text.
Rather, he means the risk of uncontrollable social uprisings and
revolutions in the face of growing social anger and class tensions
throughout Europe. He wants to prevent this by developing a new
mechanism for imposing social attacks and stoking up nationalism and
chauvinism to divide the European working class.
Concretely,
Lafontaine suggests the re-introduction of parallel national currencies
“alongside the euro”, in order “to make controlled devaluations and
controlled revaluations by means of an exchange rate regime underpinned
by the EU possible again”. According to Lafontaine, the Southern
European countries should then devalue their own currencies to a level
where their exports are competitive again on the world market.
Lafontaine
advocated a similar model in 1990, when he was the Social Democratic
Party (SPD) candidate for chancellor. At that time, he spoke out against
the introduction of the West German deutschemark into East Germany, in
order to keep wages as low as possible in the east before reunification.
Lafontaine’s
proposal to return to national currencies builds on the austerity
policies of the German government. The Merkel government dictates a
policy of wage cuts and cuts in social spending to all European
countries. With the help of the EU and the IMF, it has unleashed a
social disaster in Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy. In Greece alone,
real wages fell by an average of 40 percent. At the same time,
unemployment rose to over 27 percent.
For Lafontaine, this does
not go far enough. Through the introduction of parallel national
currencies, and then devaluing them, he wants to cut wages, pensions and
benefits to a minimum with the scythe of inflation.
Such parallel
currencies are a common phenomenon in countries of the Balkans and the
former Soviet Union, where the euro or the dollar function as a
semi-official currency. Workers are paid abysmally low wages in the
national currency and have no access to imported goods, international
travel or expensive medication, while a wealthy section of the middle
class with access to foreign currency is living a comfortable life.
Would
Lafontaine’s proposal be implemented, the countries in the south would
become a paradise for foreign investors thanks to slave wages, with
devastating social consequences. A section of the wealthy middle class
would have access to funds and income in euros and to the funding pots
of the EU, while their housemaids, gardeners and shoe-shine boys would
receive starvation wages.
Lafontaine’s proposal aims to mobilize
these middle class layers in order to continue the austerity measures of
the financial elite and to suppress the resistance of the workers
against them. He aims to deepen the income differentials in Europe, to
divide workers and play them off against each other.
Incomes in
Europe are already drifting far apart. According to Eurostat, gross
average annual wages in Germany in 2012 were €42,400, in Spain €26,300
and €17,400 in Portugal. Lafontaine wants this gulf to widen even
further.
His contention that wages in Southern Europe have “grown
too strongly” is simply a lie. According to figures from the pro-union
Hans Böckler Foundation, real wages in Spain rose by just 4.6 percent
from 2000 to 2008, and by only 3.3 percent in Portugal. As a result of
the austerity measures they have since fallen dramatically and are
mostly below the level in 2000.
The wage reductions proposed by
Lafontaine would have a direct impact on Germany. Wages in Germany would
not rise by 20 percent, as he suggests. Rather, as in the past, low
wages in Southern and Eastern Europe would be used systematically to
depress the wages in the Western and Northern European countries. The
goal is the destruction of all workers’ social achievements across the
continent.
That Lafontaine employs such right-wing and reactionary
arguments and openly stands behind the programme of social
counter-revolution in Europe reveals the social nature of the Left
Party. Emerging from the Stalinist bureaucracy in East Germany and the
Social Democratic bureaucracy in the West, it represents the interests
of a wealthy layer that is extremely hostile to the working class. The
more the crisis sharpens, the closer these elements move to the
financial elite and their state apparatus.
Lafontaine’s views on
this question hardly differ from those of the most right-wing
formations. The proposal to introduce parallel currencies with the aim
of devaluation was first advanced two weeks ago by Bernd Lucke, chair of
the right-wing party
Alternative for Germany (AFD). The AFD
advocates a neo-liberal economic programme and is aiming to reduce
social spending and other taxes for the rich. They want to maintain the
EU and “streamline it through more competition and personal
responsibility”.
“In many ways, their criticism of the currently
practiced euro rescue is right”, said Left Party deputy chair Sahra
Wagenknecht about the program of the right-wing formation to N-TV
.
It was “not yet clear” in which direction this party is going. “Like
us, they are critical of the [German] chancellor’s European policy.
There is a lot of overlap”, Wagenknecht said.
With her advances
towards the right-wing fringe, Wagenknecht reveals the orientation of
her own party, following the example of similar petty bourgeois and
pseudo-left groups in other countries. The Greek Coalition of the
Radical Left (SYRIZA) recently forged an alliance with right-wing
populists. In Eastern Europe, the collaboration of self-proclaimed
“left-wing” organizations with far-right and fascist parties is the
order of the day.
Lafontaine’s proposals have led to clashes in
the Left Party. Chair Katja Kipping argues for the preservation of the
European Union and its common currency. She is lining up behind the
Merkel government, the SPD and the Greens, who currently uphold the EU
and the euro, and use them to attack the social rights of workers
throughout Europe.
In the final analysis, the differences between
the two viewpoints are minimal from the standpoint of the working class.
While Kipping clings to the past policies of social cuts under the
dictates of the EU, Lafontaine is seeking to develop new mechanisms to
achieve the same goal.
The workers of Europe can only confront the
EU’s austerity diktats and break the power of the financial elite by
uniting and fighting for the United Socialist States of Europe.
Lafontaine is trying to prevent such unity by dividing the working class
and stirring up nationalism.»
One more approach:
«German companies in Portugal have rates of productivity similar to those which occur in Germany. In some cases there is even the units located in Portugal occupy prominent places in international rankings of these companies in relation to productivity.» Hans-Joacquim Böhmer (director of Chamber of Commerce and Industry Luso-Germanic)
About hours of work don´t doubts: Portuguese workers works much more than German workers. The problem is the Value Added by hour of work because the activities/the market that Portuguese elites create in Portugal are in lower level with a tyrant like Salazar that rules the country a lot of years with affraid of industry and development, that saved all the gold that he can.
