Communist Party in Denmark

Report from The Communist Party in Denmark, KPiD, on the COVID 19 pandemic 2020

It was the unemployed part of the working class who were hit the hardest. Collective agreements are put aside in the name of the pandemic especially with the public employees such as kindergarten teachers, teachers and health personal. The police are given barrier-breaking tasks. At the same time, we see employers’ unions, right-wing parties and the EU pushing for the opening of country borders and shops.

eu and denmark

In all, the companies in the C25 index have earned more than 45 billion kroner during the past two quarters. Never the less they were given state financed helping packages without any duty to pay back. Many of those packages are given to companies registered in tax shelters of the EU. That means that many countries have had to borrow large amounts of money which shall afterwards be the excuse for not having sufficient funds for welfare.

Denmark must pay more to the EU after BREXIT. The budget law is maintained (the EU Finance Pact) in spite of an exemption during the COVID 19. The corona crisis is not the whole explanation for the hard-hit treasury. Next year Denmark has to send 2.2 billion kroner more to the EU than we did this year, so the draft budget shows.

That is the biggest EU bill ever, and it is only going to get bigger in the years to come. It is completely daft that Mette Frederiksen, our social democratic prime minister, signs an EU budget that costs Denmark billions each year, and after that the government pays the EU bill with debts.

the laBour market in denmark

Collective agreements and manifestations are being cancelled, or people are afraid to show up for fear of infection. The contamination and the pandemic have enormous financial consequences like sackings, handicaps followed by lack of incomes. The politicians are using the situation to carry through in Denmark the highest retirement age in Europe, and at the same time crush early retirement and rehabilitation which have previously been paid for collectively over the taxes, as a part of the so-called Nordic welfare.

Our productivity per worker is raised, and working hour regulations and safety are neglected all in the name of COVID 19. “We all have to make sacrifices”, the mantra goes. Lots of companies sack and then use the situation to hire again on worse terms. It al-

ways hits the weakest. The expenses of facemasks make a lot of people reuse them or fish them out of trashcans which leaves them without protective use. The government exploits the fear to carry through legislation whose termination after the end of this situation has to be kept an eye on.

free movement of the laBour forCe

The slaves of our time are our own EU citizens. The closing of national borders to limit the pandemic did not affect the free movement of the labour force. Workers crossed borders, because the capital demands it. They come from conditions where you do not have a health choice. If you want to stay at home, you will lose your job and thus your income. These workers go to work sick, live closely in workmen’s huts and small rooms, and thus pass on infection very quickly. We know that racism is raging, but all people live in a culture. Skiing tourists, cruise tourists, slaughterhouse workers, football spectators and people from Aarhus all move within different cultures. Culture explains nothing, but many politicians still let it serve as an exotic explanation, tied to a specific alien behaviour which spreads corona virus.

Culture is a nasty concept, because it woos more the fantasy and the prejudices than the reason, and to play the recipients’ prejudices is pure snake oil, and is at the same time a free round politically at the dispense of a whole group of the population.

The truth is that the picture is the same all over the world: Minorities, people with short educations and the less well-off are hit the hardest by the corona pandemic. Not only do they have a higher risk of being infected, they also have a higher risk of dying from the decease. All research suggests that it is all about a combination of trade, housing, finances, family size and access to the health services.

Ethnic minorities are far more often employed in frontline trades with long and massive exposure to infection while other trade groups may have the possibility of working at home. I took a long time, till the frontline workers had the possibility of protecting themselves at work, at that gave, all things equal, the more well-off people with higher education and office work a 3 – 4 week’s advantage in relations to the risk of infection. But the rich, who employ moonlight workers in their homes, suddenly get close to sources of infection.

Up to 2.3 million children will die as a consequence of COVID 19 because of corona restricktions and the lack of help for babies and women giving birth due to the fear of infection, and access to a safe birth will be limited and reorganized, and due to lack of food and medicine, shows a study from Lance Global Health. This we now currently hear about in the EU with the many children infected in the refugee camps as in Lesbos, Greece, and other places.

the eu Community has no solution

In the EU budget are earmarked over the next 7 years no less than 97.5 million kroner for the development of new weapons – not vaccines. During the budget negotiations in the EU they are now constructing new common debts in the so-called Corona EU helping packages which did not come till long after the COVID 19. This common debt is a big step on the way to a real union. This means that if a country wants to leave, it will still be responsible for the common debt. A dangerous road to take.

A huge break through for the EU State. This is how it is described by several parties that the EU in the new budget finally opened a long-cherished wish from the leadership of the EU that the EU should have new incomes of its own in the shape of taxes and duties. According to the treaty EU can actually not collect taxes, but by letting the membership countries collect them and then pass on the money, they can sidestep the rules. Actually, they have chosen some duties which are supposed to be popular within the population. To begin with a plastic-duty is introduced. After that the EU Commission wishes to decide on a CO2- and a digital duty.

These are not to be decided on till later. In that way the EU system wants a pitch-black budget appear green, and at the same time secure a larger independence from the member countries and this way get more power into the EU. In practise it has been impossible to prohibit corona-help to be given to companies in tax shelter, as the EU rules hinders this. The different countries’ health services have been weak because of the EU Financial Pact. Not less than 63 times has the EU demanded cutbacks in the health services in all the EU countries during the past 9 years. Approval of new means of protection was delayed because of the EU bureaucracy, and you could go on.

In short, the EU is an impediment to dealing with the epidemic. Our biggest struggle now is to show that the EU is the cause of the crisis and not the

the demands of the Communists:

There is no sense in opening up the common treasury for the profit-mongers.

The communists back up the state holding a hand under the small self-employed persons, but we are opposed to private banks and large companies receiving any kind of state support. During the latest decades Danish economic life has in spite of financial progress and gigantic profits paid still less tax. At the same time, it has shown a complete lack of will to let the increase in these riches benefit the working class in the shape of higher wages, shorter working hours and a better working environment.

Now we are all witnessing the same people being paid really many billion kroner from our common savings. A part from a staggering hypocrisy this shows that under capitalism we are taken hostage with the threat and fear of losing our jobs, go down in wages and subsequently lose our homes.

The communists ask: ‣ If capitalism is such a superior system, it has to prove it without state helping packages to support it. ‣ If it is really necessary to save a bigger private enterprise from going down in a crisis, why not just nationalize it instead and let its full profit benefit us all?

Admit that the system has failed – or reveal it!

These are questions, we must say out loud to our politicians as well. What else should a staggering profit otherwise be used for if not for situations like this?

The activities of the Communist Party in Denmark, KPiD

As in many other countries the pandemic has hindered the usual work of the communist parties. It is difficult to communicate with the working class in a situation where it is illegal to meet many people on the same time, and where some of the special vulnerable people do not dare to participate in legal meetings, demonstrations, rallies, etc. 1. Mai arrangements was cancelled and we for the time being make just a very little communications with the citizens on the streets in Denmark.

Still of cause ore written material is produced as usual but without a personal contact everything becomes difficult. So, we really hope that the pandemic will soon be over by means of vaccines or by natural developments.