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An energising opening ceremony combining poetry, dance, speech and music kicked off three days of planning the course of action for Europe’s service sector unions.



The Mayor of Toulouse, Pierre Cohen welcomed the participants to the city. He said that the city of Toulouse had not been chosen to host the conference by chance. Toulouse is a town that is part of the European social fabric that is being unravelled by the current crisis. The capitalist system is facing its worst crisis since 1929. While the bankers are benefitting from golden parachutes, stock options, and CEOs are receiving indecent bonuses, it’s the people who are footing the bill. Cohen said we need to come back to a social Europe through a reform of the economy and sustainable growth. The question for the conference is, “What kind of Europe do we want to live in?”



French unionist, Virginie Fernandez – speaking on behalf of the 30 French unions affiliated to UNI Europa – took up this theme. She said that Toulouse is the ideal place to be asking these crucial questions about the future of Europe because Toulouse was the cradle of the French trade union movement and where socialist France was built. However, this idea of France now has to be defended. France is suffering. Sixty-five percent of French people feel worse than ever before, fearing that we will not pull out of the crisis leading to more job losses and further cuts. Unions have to implement their vision for Europe by mobilising workers and making their voices heard at the national and the international level. This is a role for UNI Europa and that is why the conference is important. It has the responsibility to turn European worker’s hopes into reality.



Bernadette Ségol, the former Regional Secretary of UNI Europa and current General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) then spoke about the challenges Europe is facing. Ségol, the first woman at the head of the ETUC and a native of the Toulouse region, called on unions to be motivated as the world enters a dangerous period both economically and socially.



She said that the positive news is that the financial transaction tax that trade unions have been calling for is now on the table. It is now part of President Barroso’s EU plan. However, she warned that several governments will oppose it being used to feed into the European Community budget. Trade unions are adamant that the tax be used to fix the damage created by the crisis.



Ségol called on European trade unionists to be bold and progressive and to take a lead from the German trade unions who recently stated their full support for the Euro and the European Union. She warned that going back to national borders would damage the lives of all workers and that everything the union movement has worked for in the past 50 years could be undermined.



“We will not listen to nationalists who say getting rid of Europe is the answer to crisis,” she said.



Ségol said taxpayers should not be asked to pay for the mistakes made by others. She said that the so-called “Six Pack” measures announced by the European Parliament last week would have sent Europe spiralling into depression had they been applied in 2007 before the last crisis.



“They only address the symptoms of the disease rather than the disease itself,” she said.



She said that a letter from the Head of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet sent to the Italian government and later published in the Italian press, revealed recommendations for privitisation and liberalisation of local services, called for changes in employment rules, including making it easier to dismiss employees, as well as recommendations for an increase in retirement age.



Ségol said unions must work together to fight measures like these and Euro intervention measures pushing wages lower.

Frank Bsirske, President of UNI Europa paid tribute to Bernadette Ségol’s leadership during her tenure as General Secretary of UNI Europa and congratulated her on her new position with the ETUC.



Bsirske issued a challenge to the conference delegates to find new ways to react to current events which had turned into a full blown crisis of not only the Eurozone but the European Union. Even the Head of World Bank recently admitted a new storm is coming.



He called on union leaders meeting in Toulouse to work to find answers to the latest raft of EU rules, which amounted to another attack on the European social state. What is required is an international policy that is binding and will make the workers stronger as they stand up against the capitalists. A structure for change has to be put in place.



To close out the opening ceremony, the political activist French band Zebda gave a rousing end to the opening with their trademark hit “Motivés” calling for workers to get motivated to work together and fight for social and economic change.