CADTM - en

MEP Lola Sánchez: “There is a struggle between democracy and corporate power within the EU”
MEP Lola Sánchez, of Podemos Party, Spain, said this Monday in Geneva (Switzerland) that the head of the European Union delegation at the UN negotiations for a binding treaty on transnational corporations and human rights, Jérôme Bellion-Jourdan, “does not represent us, because he doesn´t have an official mandate”. “We really don´t know where his opinions come from”, said Sánchez in an interview with Real (...)

In reaction to Rodrigo Rato's recent condemnations for fraudulent practices as director of the Spanish banks Caja Madrid and then Bankia, the Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt (CADTM) considers that, in consideration of the victims, the dead and left aside and those who had to leave their homes as a result of the structural adjustment policies imposed on a global scale in favour of the profits of a few, particularly in the impoverished countries, Mr. Rato should also be held (...)

Alarm bells ring about Ukraine's ability to meet IMF conditionality UN expert criticises IMF anti-corruption privatisation push
In September, IMF staff visited Ukraine to discuss the next tranche of its $17.5 billion loan programme, first approved in March 2014 (see Observer Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Winter 2016). As no funds have been received from the IMF since April 2017 and Ukraine's debt obligations are expected to peak between 2018-2020, “alarm bells” have started ringing about Ukraine's (...)

In the recent years, scholars in critical international political economy have considerably explored the differences and similarities between the countries of the European periphery. Most of the studies, however, have focused on the structural characteristics of the so-called Southern Eurozone periphery and the Eastern one. Less attention has been paid to the form of the international integration of the South-Eastern European countries into the European economy, as well as to the role these (...)

The book The Debt System. A History of Sovereign Debts and their Repudiation will be published later in 2018 by Haymarket in Chicago https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1234-the-debt-system . The original French edition has been published in novembre 2017 in Paris http://www.cadtm.org/Le-Systeme-Dette-Histoire-des-dettes-souveraines-et-de-leur-repudiation . It has been published in Spanish in Barcelona in January 2018 http://www.icariaeditorial.com/libros.php?id=1690
This book of twelve (...)

China's growth rate remains impressive, even if on the decline. The country's continuing economic gains owe much to the Chinese state's (1) still considerable ability to direct the activity of critical economic enterprises and sectors such as finance, (2) commitment to policies of economic expansion, and (3) flexibility in economic strategy. It appears that China's leaders view their recently adopted One Belt, One Road Initiative as key to the country's future economic vitality. However, there (...)

Despite economic growth, inequality in Asia deepens Fiscal neoliberalism imposed by IFIs continues to exacerbate inequality Civil society renews calls to hold World Bank and IMF to account for their actions
Asia continues to draw attention as the “most important engine of global growth,” according to IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde. Yet, as growth on the continent intensifies, countries are also experiencing deepening income and wealth inequality.
Income disparities in 11 economies (...)

Study highlights catastrophic health impact of Troika-imposed austerity Debt network stresses Greek crisis derived from private debt
In August, Greece exited its eight-year programme of loans from the ‘Troika' (the IMF, European Commission and European Central Bank) (see Observer Winter 2017). Following the approved extension of loans related to the second programme of the European Financial Stability Facility in June – creating interest deferrals, and offering €15 billion in fresh loans – (...)

Alexis Tsipras's government promised to end austerity. Now it's defending the banks against people evicted from their homes — and persecuting those who protest.
Many on the international left believe that things in Greece are slowly improving, and that the Syriza government remains a left-wing force that is protecting the interests of workers and the poor even despite very difficult conditions. For those who accept this view, recent developments in the country will come as a nasty surprise. (...)

• Debt problems on the African continent are increasing, with external government debt payments doubling in two years • The private sector is the largest source of loans, accounting for 32% of debt owed and 55% of interest payments • China accounts for around 20% of debt owed, and 17% of interest payments
In new analysis released ahead of the IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings in Bali, Indonesia, Jubilee Debt Campaign show that China accounts for one-fifth of external debt owed by African (...)

“Annual meeting in Bali this week is just a sham to cover up their criminal negligence of people's interests,” say peasants.
07 OCTOBER, BALI: At a meeting of La Via Campesina facilitated by Serikat Petani Indonesia (SPI) in Bali, peasant organisations from Asia, Africa, Americas and Europe have unanimously held World Bank and IMF responsible for facilitating large scale land grab, deforestation and ocean grabbing around the world, which has led to inequality, poverty and global hunger. (...)

In Tunisia, major mobilizations led by feminist organizations have taken place in recent weeks to demand full equality in the law, particularly with regard to the Tunisian Personal Status Code (CSP). The CSP consists of a series of legal provisions governing marital relations between men and women and inheritance issues. The Swiss journal SolidaritéS spoke to Ahlem Belhadj, feminist activist and member of the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women).
Joseph Daher – Can you tell us about the (...)

A meeting was held in Mexico City, in the lecturers' hall at the Faculty of Economics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) on 1st October 2018 to launch the creation of a Mexican chapter of the CADTM. The UNAM counts four hundred and fifty three thousand students, teaching staff and administrative staff for the 2018-19 academic year. Alongside the University of Buenos Aires it is the principal university in Latin America. It was and still is a leading reference in social (...)

Liberia has been taken over by multinational corporations that are exploiting its resources at the expense of Liberians, especially the country's working class that serves as cheap labour to these foreign companies.
Unlike other countries in the sub-Saharan region, Liberia was never formally colonised by European imperialism. Therefore, the West African nation was neither militarily nor politically occupied by any of the colonising states to give rise to the unhindered and unquestioned (...)

With inequality on the rise, global debt higher than ever and international tensions intensifying, the political backlash to the crash of 2008 has only just begun.
This weekend marks the tenth anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the once-mighty US investment bank whose dramatic bankruptcy on September 15, 2008 unleashed the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. A decade on, we commonly hear the complaint that little has changed since then: the banks (...)

As women were deemed to be thrifty, able to manage with meagre resources and responsible borrowers, they became the targets for such predatory lending.
We are witnessing large protests across the war-torn regions in the north and east, urging the Government to restrict the activities of microfinance companies offering loans to poor women at exorbitantly high interest rates. Women's groups in other parts of the country are also voicing their concerns.
The Government responded to these (...)

(Geneva, September 28, 2018) Seventeen years of long and arduous negotiations later, peasants and other people working in rural areas are only a step away from having a UN Declaration that could defend and protect their rights to land, seeds, biodiversity, local markets and a lot more.
On Friday, 28 September, in a commendable show of solidarity and political will, member nations of United Nations Human Rights Council passed a resolution concluding the UN Declaration for the Rights of (...)

This report examines the extreme and undue influence of big business on European Union (EU) and member state decision-making processes. It has been produced by the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation (ALTER-EU) as a response to the distortions we witness in policy and law making at EU-level and across member states.
It shows how corporate capture has been behind the lack of action in the aftermath of the financial crisis, with banking regulation that continues to allow (...)

The Kenyan Peasants League (KPL), a member of La Via Campesina and part of the Kenyan Social Movements for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debts has been following closely the just concluded Dialogue Reference Group meeting that brought together a section of religious leaders and Kenyan civil society. KPL finds that their proposals to check the Kenyan debts, already unsustainable, is not only fundamentally flawed but false as the Kenyan debt crisis cannot be solved by using the same (...)

As from May 2010 the question of the debt became a central concern for Greece and for the rest of the Eurozone . The first programme imposed by the Troika provoked a brutal increase in Greek public debt. This was also the case in various forms in Ireland (2010), Portugal (2011), Spain (2012) and Cyprus (2013).
The policies dictated by the European leaders have six fundamental objectives:
1. Bail-out the private banks with public funds so that they may avoid the damaging consequences of (...)