by Bernadette Segol, General Secretary of the ETUC and David Begg, General Secretary of the ICTU)
The citizens of Europe have been subjected to a massive fraud. From the outset of the current crisis - first manifested in countries like Ireland, in 2008 - the narrative from on high has been consistent and consistently deceptive.
The first official response was one that is common to all panicked bureaucracies and administrations: blame the people.
Blame the people for wanting decent schools, good hospitals and proper care for their families. Blame the people for wanting decent jobs and a good standard of living.
In this manner, public debt and "excessive" government spending became the great spectre that haunted Europe and threatened the very existence of the union.
But that ghostly spectre was no more than a convenient illusion, a very big and deliberate lie. Before the private financial sector started to topple national economies across Europe, average public debt was falling, not rising.
Nonetheless, the ghostly spectre of ballooning government debt served a useful political purpose.
Primarily, it obscured the real cause of the crisis and thereby facilitated the mass transfer of public money required to rescue the financial sector from the consequences of its own morally corrupt actions.
Ireland is the most egregious example of this. Before the crisis we had net public debt of some 12%: it is now ten times that amount. It cost us €64 billion to save our banks and that bill has been passed to this and future generations.
A striking feature of this crisis has been the almost casual disregard for peoples" welfare and for the wider common good that has characterised the official policy response.
Thus the "ghostly spectre" of huge public debt also provided political cover for the evisceration and dismemberment of the European Social Model, perhaps the European project's greatest single achievement and that which persuaded many in the trade union movement to sign up to the process in the first place.
Indeed, it is arguable that this vision of a decent quality of life for all has been the very glue that bound the citizens of Europe to what was often a very remote process.
But for those of a less progressive political persuasion, the European Social Model has always been a costly hindrance and an encumbrance upon the operation of the free market.
Therefore standards had to be driven down to the level of the lowest common denominator and protections for working people systematically dismantled. Here in Ireland we saw the Minimum Wage and mechanisms that protected the low paid targeted.
Elsewhere in Europe, it became easier to fire and replace workers, as though making work more precarious could magically conjure up legions of new jobs.
The results of this ideological experiment are frightening: the Eurozone is now immersed in its longest recession ever as national economies continue to shrink and unemployment rises above 12% - twice that figure among young people.
Hardly surprising that we now see increased xenophobia, far right extremism and social fracture.
We risk losing an entire generation of youth to disaffection and despair as Europe sinks perilously closer to falling below that basic threshold of decency that once was its hallmark.
The respected Pew Research Centre recently reported that public support for the European Union has fallen significantly and that the entire project is "in disrepute" in many member countries.
This corroborates the growing sense of foreboding amongst European trade unions, who have consistently argued for a dramatic and radical change of course.
This week, the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) meets in Dublin to address the theme: High Noon for Social Europe.
It is somewhat fitting that we do so in the centenary of the 1913 Lockout, when working people in Ireland combined to battle for their right to a better life.
In those tumultuous events we hear echoes of today's battle to halt Europe's downward spiral and re-establish the pre-eminence of the social dimension.
The ETUC has proposed the adoption of a Social Compact for Europe as a means of addressing these key deficits.
European trade unions are also calling for a major European Recovery Programme, with the EU investing some 1-2% of GDP in a systematic plan to restore growth and create jobs.
We need nothing less than a New Deal for Europe, in order to regenerate economies stripped bare by austerity and communities laid waste by service cuts.
European leaders have an opportunity to commence this task when they convene for a summit on June 27-28. If they fail us again, they will not be forgiven.
A version of this article appeared in the Irish Times, June 5, 2013
Details of the ETUC Conference on JUne 5-6 in Dublin Castle can be found here.
