European Marches
against unemployment, job insecurity and social exclusions

Against the G8 Summit in June 2007

Precarious of every country, let’s march to Heiligendamm near Rostock!

Against the precarisation of our lives and our jobs!
Against Unemployment, poverty, misery, exclusion and discrimination!
For equal social rights for everybody, everywhere!

The more wealth is produced in Europe the more the number of people living in precarity increases. Now we’ve had more than three decades of mass long term unemployment which is now a fact of daily life for millions of men and women.
In the year 2000 at Lisbon, the European Union promised a paradise for 2010. In fact not only has unemployment not gone down (the official figures now only take into account a small proportion of the actual number of unemployed) but the number of precarious and underpaid jobs have exploded, notably for the young, for women, for immigrants and particularly the undocumented (sans papiers). To the ‘official’ unemployed should be added the working poor in towns and in the countryside, those who are more and more numerous working in the informal sector, those on miserable social benefits, the young people who have no benefits entitlements at all, the homeless and more and more retired people.
This social destruction has been generating poverty and misery at the same time as the dividends of shareholders are reaching record levels. Social injustice has never been as hard. No-one should be lacking in the necessities to live. There is enough wealth for everyone!

The G8 are illegitimate!

As every year, the closed » club « of the G8 which brings together the leaders of the seven wealthiest countries as well as Russia, will meet to decide the future of the planet. These » masters of the world « will be meeting in Heiligendamm, a rich seaside resort near Rostock in one of the poorest regions of Northern Germany, from the 6th to the 8th of June. The G8 at this time is as illegitimate as it could be.
It’s during these » informal summits « that the 8 most powerful countries on the planet drive forward the neo liberal politics which concern the way wealth is shared, the casualisation of employment and the life conditions which favor the logic of predatory wars and the destruction of the environment.

The German government which is welcoming the G8 in June is also ending its presidency of the European Union. In taking the role of host to the G8, it wants to relaunch the constitutional process rejected by the French and the Dutch. The total deregulation of public services like those previewed by the Bolkestein directive would be incorporated into the constitutional treaty as well as rearmament which would become a constitutional obligation for the member states.

From everywhere in Europe, let’s march together to Heiligendamm for the equality of social rights everywhere

Against all forms of the precarisation of our lives and our jobs there is but one solution: equality of rights for everyone

• the right to an income which allows one to live
• the right to employment and to training
• the right to land
• the right to housing
• the right to healthy food
• the right to free, good quality health care
• the right of freedom of movement and settlement
• the right to papers
• the rights to access culture, and to the public services guaranteeing those rights.

To express with strength these requirements, the marches will be leaving in the middle of May from the four corners of Europe, to converge in Germany on the weekend of the 26th -the 27th of May 2007; they will then join up with the of German Groups to arrive in Rostock on the 1st of June to participate in the big demonstration at the opening of the G8 on the 2nd of June, and in the counter summit from the 3rd of June. There will be an assembly of the precarious where the precarious and have-nots will gather...

Against precarity, international solidarity !
For another Europe! For another world!

Contact: marches-en-europe-2007@ras.eu.org