Thousands of anti-austerity protesters jammed the streets of this Polish city Saturday, upping the pressure as EU finance ministers cut short two-day talks on the eurozone debt crisis. Organisers from the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) said 40,000 people turned out, while Wroclaw police put the figure at 20,000, unusually large in Poland.
ETUC leader Bernadette Segol told AFP that with concerns high over Europe's austerity course it was crucial to take the message to ministers. "We're here to call them to order and to tell our politicians that they shouldn't be sawing through the branch they're sitting on," she said.
To the constant din of sirens, horns and drums, the protesters formed a giant cortege in blazing sunshine, snaking slowly from the south-western city's Olympic Stadium past the Centennial Hall conference centre - venue for the talks - and into Wroclaw's picturesque Old Town.
The loud but peaceful protest included a red, double-decker former London bus, carrying members of Poland's OPZZ union federation, sporting banners reading: "Workers' Rights Are Human Rights" and "We Support The Right To Decent Work And Wages." While the rally was overwhelmingly Polish, the shirt-sleeved, sun-hatted protesters also included Czechs, Germans, Hungarians and Lithuanians.
"We're here to push for a Europe that gives its people a chance," German steelworker Detlef Kraebs, 50, told AFP. "We mustn't let the financiers run everything," said Kraebs, waving the flag of Germany's powerful IG Metall union. Before the cortege moved off, police cleared barriers blocking roads around the venue, saying they did not want to hamper the right to demonstrate.
Most ministers exited well before the cortege moved off, but demonstrators were unfazed, stepping up the decibel count as they marched by. On Friday, ministers delayed until October a decision on whether to lend Greece - the country in the eye of Europe's debt storm - eight billion euros ($11 billion) in blocked loans from a 2010 bailout, awaiting proof of drastic budget revisions and economic modernisation. Athens has warned it will run out of funds next month, endangering pensions and state salaries for millions of Greeks.
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