EU - Force for Good?

Vince Mills

With the European elections closing fast, I was not surprised to see the current issue Scottish Left Review take a look at Europe. What was a little surprising was the general support given to the European project. This is a position shared by what might reasonably be described as a fairly broad section of `progressive' opinion in Scotland and Britain.

The end of the bipolar conflict between the Soviet bloc and the West, with the total dominance of the US, has given this perspective new force. Perhaps one of its best known proponents is Will Hutton. In his collection of essays on globalisation On the Edge Hutton and his co editor Anthony Giddens write:

`It (the European Union) is a nascent system of continent wide cosmopolitan governance with mechanisms for proper democratic accountability and continental citizenship...It is crucially important that the European project succeeds, both in its own terms and as a forerunner of what must eventually be attempted globally.'

It is difficult to see how Hutton can seriously argue this with an unelected commission at the very heart of political power in Europe and a neutered parliament seeking but failing to provide a fig leaf of democratic accountability. Furthermore, he ignores the embodiment of the principles of free movement of goods, services capital and labour into the very foundations of the EEC - the treaty of Rome signed in 1957. It's hardly democratic if the form of your economy is written into your rules!

But Hutton and others want to argue that while it is true that capitalism is at heart of the European project, it is a more regulated more tamed version than the feral capitalism of the United States. Here is David Purdy from the current issue of the Scottish Left Review

`European social capitalism is the product of prolonged and widespread resistance to free market utopianism, involving all sections of society, including - on occasion - even capitalists. For all its many flaws, the EU is a valuable resource for those who oppose the neo-liberal project and the relentless march of the market. Its `crooked timber' provides a unique transnational framework of social protection and partnership. Confined, for the moment, to one continent, the European model could, in time, be extended - outwards to other states and upwards to the global level. A useful shorthand name for this process is progressive globalisation. Its aim is not to create some global superstate - this would be neither desirable nor possible - but to socialise global capitalism. A formidable undertaking no doubt - but then, so too was the task of socialising capitalism on the terrain of the nation-state. `

The rather obvious flaw in this argument is that capitalism has not been socialised on the terrain of the nation state and worryingly, capitalists are seeking to use EU as a way of defeating the democratic opposition to whatever form of capitalist exploitation they feel is necessary, or more to the point, that they can get away with, at the level of the nation state.

And this is a critical point, for the although it is true that different European ruling classes have adopted different economic and social strategies this has depended, crucially, on the strength of working class resistance on the one hand and international conditions of the other. So that the much vaunted social capitalism of West Germany owed more, historically, to its proximity to German Democratic Republic and more recently trade union and political resistance, than to some inherent desire on the part of German Capitalism to look after its workers. It is worth remembering German Capital's relationship with Nazism in this context.

And closer to home we can see, on the anniversary of the miners' strike, how British capitalists were able to ditch welfare capitalism once they had defeated the working class in industrial struggles and populist appeals to individualism through the Thatcher years - years which helped create the conditions for Tony Blair's naked adulation of US led imperialism and neo liberal orthodoxy.

Perhaps more to the point what EU consolidation now threatens, in the context of the US neo-liberal hegemony, is the enshrining of just such ideas in the European Union without reference to the democratic structures of member nation states. States, incidentally, where the appetite for neo-liberal solutions and imperialist adventures is surely wearing thin. I refer here to Spain's recent election and defeat Blair's ally, the right-wing Popular Party's José Maria Aznar.

Lest there be any failure to understand precisely what the leaders of Europe have in mind by consolidation, a proposal was made in a joint letter to the current president of the European Council, Ireland's Bertie Ahern by Schröder, Blair and Chirac. They proposed the nomination of a "vice president of the European Commission exclusively devoted to issues of economic reform." This was in advance of the 14th February Berlin summit.

The economic reforms are also outlined in the letter. It talks of "modernising the European Social Model," "abolishing regulations and reducing bureaucracy which unduly hamper competitiveness and innovation," "an active labour market policy based on "the spirit of lending support, yet demanding a matching effort in return," "efficiency with regard to expenditure in the sphere of health,"

No, you are not experiencing deja vu; this really does repeat the language and the thinking of New Labour in Britain.

There are acknowledgements of the need for more research and education but research is to be left to the private sector. Fat chance of that happening then. In Britain it is the publicly funded HE sector that produces the vast majority if research. And as we know in Britain more higher education has been delivered on the backs of making the student pay and improving the infrastructure of primary and secondary education through the private finance initiative.

According to the letter "The vice president should have a right to participate in decisions in all EU projects that have implications for the aims of the Lisbon Agenda" The Lisbon agenda was a blue print for neo liberalism set out by Tony Blair.

The heads of government of Spain, Italy, Portugal, the Netherlands, Poland and Estonia sent a letter to the president of the European Council. It was critical of Germany and France but not from the left. They argued for an even more thoroughly "free-market" deregulation of the European economy.

They called for a "more flexible labour market" and a "consideration of the best model for tax incentives." This refers to extending to the whole of Europe the extremely low levels of taxation on profits and high incomes that exist in East European countries like Slovakia.

So I think the anti neo-liberal left is faced with two dangers. One is a certain naivety by some on the left about the nature of the European project. The second is the nature of the consolidation that is promised. It is a barely concealed attempt to import feral capitalism into the EU's structures.

To that I would add a third danger that hopefully Morning Star readers will give some thought to. That danger is that we fail to find new ways of engaging the mass of people about Europe and its dangers. Because if we do, then either though ignorance or apathy, the EU will become an even more effective instrument for European leaders to ratchet up the level of exploitation of Europe's already hard pressed work force.