The EU Summit on 18/19 of December 2014 and its decisions constitute an escalation of the offensive of the EU, governments and monopolies against the working class and the poor popular strata in all the EU member-states.

1. The weak capitalist recovery, as well as the possibility of the outbreak of another crisis in the Eurozone and the EU increase the difficulties of bourgeois management and sharpen to their full extent the contradictions inside the EU, and also with the other imperialist centres and powerful capitalist countries at an international level.
2. Their competition has nothing to with the people’s interests. It expresses the fierce confrontation amongst the bourgeoisies of the EU member-states and amongst sections of them.
3. The INITIATIVE expresses its particular concern regarding the ever increasing imperialist aggressiveness of the EU on its eastern borders, focusing on Ukraine, as well as other countries that are included in the “Eastern Partnership” – Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan, in confrontation with capitalist Russia. The more than 20 EU military missions all over the world, in the southeastern Mediterranean, the Middle East and Africa, the sharpening of the contradictions with the other imperialist powers focusing on the energy resources and their transport routes increase the dangers of a generalized imperialist war, threaten the peoples with slaughter. NATO and the further development of strategic cooperation with it continue to be a pillar of the EU’s aggressive military policy. The EU is expanding its military capabilities with new mechanisms and bodies, using every available pretext, and seeks to become, as its decisions state, a “global player”.
4. Either through the continuation of the so-called fiscal adjustment, or through a less restrictive version, their common denominator is:

• The continuation of the sacrifices of the working people, the reduction of the price of labour power on the altar of the so-called competitiveness, living between unemployment and flexible labour.
• The promotion of the anti-people reforms that demolish any rights that remain: labour, social-security, education, health and welfare.
• The faithful observance of the anti-people commitments that have been agreed on by the EU and the governments for all the EU member-states, in relation to fiscal policy, the “liberalization” of the markets (particularly energy, telecommunications, digital technologies, transport) and the privatizations in sectors of strategic importance.
• Intensification of the anti-people measures in order to foist the burden of paying off the state debt onto the people who did not create it and did not benefit in the slightest from its inflation.
• Reinforcement of the repression, the measures that restrict the right to strike, the persecution against trade unionists and other militants, the mass drowning of immigrants and refugees, their confinement in concentration camps.

5. The strengthening of the so-called ‘European Economic Governance” includes the “European Semester”, the “recommendations for each country”. The monitoring of the member-states’ budgets, the enhanced procedures for monitoring, compliance and sanctions concerning the performance of member-states in relation to the goals of the Stability Pact and the anti-people EU 2020 Strategy. It is forming a mechanism of “permanent memoranda” and supervision in all the member-states for the unrestricted implementation of the capitalist restructurings that are necessary in order to safeguard the profitability of the monopolist business groups and strengthen their position in the global monopoly competition.
6. The so-called investment package of 300 billion euros, which was presented by the European Commission, is intended to provide additional capital for the business groups to make investments with state subsidies in order to reinforce their profitability. The people will continue to bleed in order to finance the monopolies, with an even more extensive looting of their income and new sacrifices.
7. The consequences are also painful for the poor and medium farmers who are paying a high price for the EU’s policies. The new CAP for the period 2014-2020 is the coup de grace which will drive the poor farmers off the land, because it strengthens the concentration of agricultural production into the hands of the few and the full liberalization of the markets.

The capitalist growth that is sought after by the parties which support the EU and capital’s profitability, regardless of the different management variations, will mean even more torments and misery for the peoples. The EU can not be reformed, it can not become pro-people. The workers must make their mark on the developments. This is their way out and their hope.

The European Communist Initiative expresses its solidarity and salutes the mass strikes and other working class and popular mobilizations that are underway in several European countries, such as Belgium, Greece, Italy etc.

The parties that participate in the Initiative devote all their strength in order to develop the class struggle, to emancipate the peoples, to break the shackles of the EU and the monopolies, so that the peoples will take power and enjoy the wealth they themselves produce.