Euro-Demonstration 9 April 2011

(17 February 2011) The ETUC is organising a European Day of Action on Saturday 9 April 2011 in Budapest. It continues the campaign against the cuts and austerity measures launched with the Eurodemonstration in Brussels on 29 September.

The demonstration is organised as the Council of Ministers of Economic and Financial Affairs will be meeting then in Budapest. Hungary holds the Presidency of the EU Council this half year. This Council will consider how well your governments have taken account of the EU priorities especially regarding debt and deficit reduction in the national government budgets. The objectives were laid down in the Annual Growth Survey of the Commission. This is now part of the European semester and part of the ETUC and EPSU campaign on the Economic Governance that the EU proposes.

The EPSU executive committee has stated on several occasions the support for the ETUC campaign. The current policies wage cuts and freezes and job reductions are unfair to working people who are punished for a crisis for which they not were responsible.

EPSU had a prominent presence both at the European action on September 29 and also at the Day of action organised on December 15. Continuing to give a voice to public service workers and our concerns is important and we call upon affiliated unions to participate in the ETUC Day of Action and Euro-demo. Many unions have been involved in strikes and actions. It is important to also give a collective expression to our struggle.

Further details will be forthcoming but this advance warning will assist in your preparation and planning. We will be in contact with colleagues from the countries close by, but we hope to be able to welcome colleagues from all countries in the EPSU block in the demonstration.

For those colleagues which might need accommodation our Hungarian colleagues will be assisting us.

Please advice the EPSU Secretariat before 15 March (return attached participation form) if we can count your union among the participants in Budapest.

And if you can not make it on 9 April, please indicate what you can do in the week preceding the 9th of April. Examples are: distributing leaflets in front of your ministry of Finance on 7 or 8 April, organising a noise action in front of the EU and/ or Hungarian embassy in your country etc. You might have better and more ideas, please let us know.

For practical details contact: Pablo Sanchez, Communications and Campaigns Officer [email protected]

Tel +32 2 250 10 89 -
GSM + 32 4 74 62 66 33