French MEP Pierre Larrouturou announced on Wednesday that he was on a hunger strike to alert the public to the lack of a budget for combating climate change, health and employment policy. “Day and night without food to condemn the scandal: seemingly more money for climate and health, little for employment,” quoted MEP French daily Le Monde.
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Larroutura has been sitting in the European Parliament since 2019, when he was elected as the smaller party Nouvell Donne he had founded. He joined the socialist faction, for which he acts as rapporteur for the parliamentary budget.
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In recent weeks, the MEP has been very involved in the battle between the European Parliament and the Member States, in which the former institution is trying to raise more money for the 2021-2027 budget. This multiannual financial framework, which mobilized European leaders for four days in July, ultimately ended in a compromise. The EU will have a budget of € 1,074 billion and a recovery fund of € 750 billion. All this is accompanied by cuts in the Ecological Transition Fund, in health, in research or in the Erasmus + program.
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MEPs are asking for 39 billion more, and Larroutourou is fighting for the introduction of a financial transaction tax, or other taxes that would make it possible to finance an ambitious climate policy. “If we do not tax speculation, the Green Europe Agreement is dead,” he said.
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Hunger therefore wants to draw attention to the next two weeks, which – if an agreement is reached on the above-mentioned figures – will, according to him, lead to “social, climate and health chaos”.
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Larrouturou calls on the French Government to clarify its allegedly ambiguous position: France supports the introduction of a financial transaction tax, but to a lesser extent than proposed by the European Commission in 2011. The MEP refers to information from Austria and points out that as many as 99 percent of financial transactions are avoided.
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About two million people have already registered on the Facebook page, where he wants to discuss these topics with citizens in the last 48 hours.
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