From Friday, April 21, to Sunday, April 23, 2023, the days against illegitimate debt and vulture funds were held in Madrid. These were organised by ATTAC Spain, CADTM International, the Platform against Vulture Funds, the Citizen Audit of the Debt in the Health Sector, Ecologistas en Accion, the Coordination for the Right to Housing in Madrid, various neighbourhood associations in Madrid, etc.

Em 16/10/2022, Dia Internacional de Luta pela Soberania Alimentar dos Povos contra as Multinacionais, La Via Campesina comunicou uma análise da actual crise alimentar e uma lista de propostas indispensáveis para a resolver. O problema da falta de soberania alimentar, que já era grave em grande parte do mundo, levou-nos a um ponto em que pelo menos 193 milhões de pessoas, em 53 países, sofrem insegurança alimentar aguda.

Last week, Ghana’s central bank announced its biggest ever interest-rate hike as it sought to slow rampant inflation that threatens to create a debt crisis in one of West Africa’s largest economies. The Bank of Ghana raised its main lending rate by 250 basis points to 17% as consumer inflation reached 15.7% year-on-year in February, the highest since 2016. The war in Ukraine will likely make things worse. Ghana imports nearly a quarter of its wheat from Russia and around 60% of its iron ore from Ukraine.

Nothing can replace reading the official document creating the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) in its entirety. However, since this reading implies an effort that few mentally healthy people would be willing to undergo, and in order to make things easier for the reader, we provide a synopsis, accompanied by some considerations.

The European multi-annual budget plan (2021-2027) created a fund called the Next Generation EU (NGEU) which makes available a total of around €806.9 billion, of which €723.8 billion is destined to sustain the «covid-19 recovery package» known as the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). There are two semantic deceptions embedded in this plan:
1) It is not exactly about combating «the effects of covid-19»; it is, strictly speaking, about dealing with the economic, social and environmental consequences of the policies implemented by the public authorities in recent years, including the measures adopted during the pandemic period.
2) Of the EUR 723.8 billion supporting the Recovery and Resilience Facility, some 42% is presented as non-repayable grants; the remaining 58% would be funds available for loans to member states. The reality is different: the entire RRF budget is obtained through loans raised on the financial market; there are in fact no «non-repayable» grants, everything ends up being a financial loan; everything will have to be repaid in full and with interest.

O que é e como funciona o Mecanismo de Recuperação e Resiliência europeu (MRR)? Apresentado como uma «ajuda» aos estados da UE para recuperarem da crise económica e social subsequente à pandemia de covid-19, na realidade é um monstruoso processo de endividamento colectivo.