Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt

Not by coincidence, May of Solidarity called for action in a time of high European awareness. The aftermath of the European Parliament elections show, with the wide-spread defeat of governments who have overseen the crisis regime for the past five years, a widespread rejection of austerity policies. But there is a stark difference between the success of Left forces (as in Greece and, in part, in Spain) which intend to change Europe, and the advance of nationalist and reactionary forces, proposing racist policies of exclusion and the closing of borders. This is another reason why we have chosen the battleground of social movements fighting for a radical transformation, and why the May of Solidarity stands for building democracy from below, a democracy which can be realized only through struggles beyond borders, for the commons, in and for solidarity.

We took to the streets and squares in a multitude of actions, building on regions’ existing mobilizations and combining these with genuine shared transnational threads: from blocking the European Business Summit in Brussels to supporting the successful fight of the Greek janitors; from the asambleas and marches of the 15M movement in Spain to the cross border “march 4 freedom” by the refugees; from the mass mobilization in Rome for social rights against austerity and privatizations to the widespread actions across the continent against Monsanto and the introduction of GMOs in Europe; from the marches and actions in different cities to the Tribunal against the Troika Troika Troika: IMF, European Commission and European Central Bank, which together impose austerity measures through the conditions tied to loans to countries in difficulty.

IMF : https://www.ecb.europa.eu/home/html/index.en.html in Brussels and to the Transnational Care Care Le concept de « care work » (travail de soin) fait référence à un ensemble de pratiques matérielles et psychologiques destinées à apporter une réponse concrète aux besoins des autres et d’une communauté (dont des écosystèmes). On préfère le concept de care à celui de travail « domestique » ou de « reproduction » car il intègre les dimensions émotionnelles et psychologiques (charge mentale, affection, soutien), et il ne se limite pas aux aspects « privés » et gratuit en englobant également les activités rémunérées nécessaires à la reproduction de la vie humaine. Meeting in Vienna - May of solidarity has been able to become an umbrella for diverse movements, mobilizations and causes. Europe is a field of struggle and a truly political space we are beginning anew to occupy, struggle for, reconstruct – not unifying under a central banner and logic, but inviting all the multifarious approaches, sites and constituencies to come together to start defining a common framework and acting for and through it.

As part of the days of solidarity we value common initiatives and the realization of common threads of actions, such as those addressing the global exploitation chains with coordinated initiatives targeting Apple and Foxconn in different cities, those targeting the border regime highlighting the link between institutional racism, the exploitation of migrant labor and the austerity programs of precaritization. These actions represent an attempt to organize transantionally and in global solidarity, in order to grasp the volatile and transnational nature of global capital that criss-crosses the European space.

The richness of the movements and different actions during these ten days testify the potentiality of a transnational movement we have been establishing in past years by acts of solidarity, transantional meetings and common street practice – as in Blockupy Frankfurt. Therefore, we call on everyone anew to join the upcoming discussions and joint practical efforts towards the summer (in Turin 11^th July against the EU Summit on “Youth unemployment”) and autumn (in Frankfurt with the new ECB ECB
European Central Bank The European Central Bank is a European institution based in Frankfurt, founded in 1998, to which the countries of the Eurozone have transferred their monetary powers. Its official role is to ensure price stability by combating inflation within that Zone. Its three decision-making organs (the Executive Board, the Governing Council and the General Council) are composed of governors of the central banks of the member states and/or recognized specialists. According to its statutes, it is politically ‘independent’ but it is directly influenced by the world of finance.

https://www.ecb.europa.eu/ecb/html/index.en.html Tower opening), of struggles and beyond.

See you on the streets and squares in the upcoming months!