A new European Parliament study has found that raising interest rates is “costly and ineffective” in tackling the profit-driven inflation and instead punishes working people and prevents climate action. The European Central Bank (ECB) raised interest rates to record levels last year in response to inflation and only began to bring rates down again recently. The study for the Parliament’s economic committee supports trade union arguments that the ECB has failed to tackle the root cause of inflation and needlessly inflicted more pain on working people. It concludes that in future the EU should coordinate measures to prevent shocks caused by sellers These measures include the use of windfall taxes and price caps – both recommended by the ETUC as part of its campaign on the cost-of-living crisis.
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For more information, please contact Paul de Beer or Oana Ciuca, De Burcht (Scientific Bureau for the Dutch Trade Union Movement) p.t.debeer@uva.nl or the Head of communications at the ETUI, Mehmet Koksal mkoksal@etui.org. For previous full issues of the Collective bargaining newsletter please visit https://www.etui.org/Newsletters/Collective-bargaining-newsletter or consult the archive with all articles in our database at www.cbnarchive.eu.
You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org.