European Union after the French Referendum

Peter Gustavsson

Peter Gustavsson of the Centre for a Social Europe spoke at a Campaign for Socialism and Morning Star conference in Glasgow in June 2005

The Left all over Europe need much more opportunities to discuss the current development in Europe and find our strategies to take back lost ground and advance forward.

I am a Social Democratic party member since a long time. During the Swedish Euro Referendum I was Director of Organisation for the Social Democrats Against the Euro, and after that I was heading the campaign for a euro sceptic MEP, Anna Hedh, in the European Elections last year. These experiences led me to work for the Centre for a Social Europe with networks and campaigning.

Clearly, something very dramatic has happened this week. I think no one can really grasp the full consequences of the French and Dutch referenda at this stage. What we can say though is that "the times they are a-changing".

I'd like to stress something in the beginning. All over Europe, opposition to the current direction of the EU is strongest on the Left. In the French referendum, the majority of the voters for the Socialist Party voted no. In Holland, the Labour party was the largest no party of all parties. In Sweden's 2003 Euro referendum, the Social Democrats were the largest no party. And in UK polls, the amount of labour voters opposing the Constitution outnumbers the amount of no voters in any other party including the Conservative Party. Labour is the UK's largest no party, despite what Tony Blair thinks on the issue.

To understand this strong Left opposition, we need to take a short look in the mirror. During the I 980s, the Left wasn't able to formulate an alternative and the European right succeeded in making a shift and turning the tide. From the post-war era's development towards increased equality, the development was now towards decreased equality. The EU was a powerful tool in the hands of the right wing. Since the early 1980's, the ERM/EMU project has been the cornerstone of the neo liberal monetarist policies that has devastated country after country.

President Mitterrand's choice in 1983 to stick to the ERM and thereby accept Helmut Kohl's policy to combat inflation with higher unemployment was a death kiss to radical politics in France and in many ways in Europe as a whole.

The 1992 ERM crisis released the terror of mass unemployment in my country and worsened it in the UK.

The launch of the single currency has increased the problems to the level that top politicians in both Germany and Italy now are speaking about leaving the Eurozone.
At this stage in European development, the relatively high social standards in Western Europe are under attack by employers who see the opportunity offered by the enlargement with new member states where social conditions are much worse. This is the background to the so-called Bolkestein directive with its "country of origin" principle, and of several industrial conflicts in my country where employers try to go round collective bargaining by importing labour to slave wages. It's all about using the East as a wedge to force the West to accept neo liberal politics. And this goes on with enormous risks of a fascist revival when people start blame workers from Eastern Europe rather than the companies that are responsible for all this.

This process is deeply connected to the transferring of powers to the European Union. The labour movements in Europe have been relatively successful in establishing decent working conditions in their countries, despite recent backlashes. Democracy is a key thing for the labour movement, as one person one vote IS a
completely different way of making decisions than "one pound/euro/krona one vote". One of the virtues of democracy is the fact that two poor persons can outvote one rich person. Therefore, the labour movement should be absolutely clear that control should be where democracy is the strongest.

I don't think I need to describe the lack of democracy in the EU. 45 per cent, less than half of the European electorate, voted in the last European elections, and even a smaller share turned out in countries such as the UK and Sweden. The lack of a public debate on EU issues, the lack of popular movements on a European lever etc shows this very clearly.

It is not a coincidence that the establishment of an unaccountable, unelected bureaucratic elite in Brussels also implicates a drive to the right in European politics. It is in the nature of a body without popular control that it reflects the interests of the ruling classes. It is not a coincidence that attempts from European trade unions to beat Thatcherite working hours seems to fail while the ECJ last week ruled out the Swedish state monopoly on pharmaceuticals.

The only way to win power back to labour from capital at this stage is to transfer powers back to the nation states. To let democratically elected parliaments get back power from unelected officials.

It is too early to say if the train of "an ever closer union" is stopped. Other victories in referenda -1992 in Denmark and 200 I in Ireland -has simply sparked a small crisis until EU succeeded to force the population to vote yes in another referendum.

What is speaking against that Brussels simply ignores the no votes is that this happened in two of the founding members of the EU -none of them previously seen as eurosceptic. The last days, we have seen the no side going up to the lead in Danish and Czech polls, while 2 out of 3 Swedes now demand a Swedish referendum. In the UK, a recent poll says that 73 per cent are against the Constitution. This makes more and more government to move towards stopping the ratification process. No one knows what the summit will decide. Will European leaders accept the people's verdict, or will they try to elect a new people?

But one point must be made very clearly from all those who oppose handing over more control to the EU. Ideas on a new treaty with some of the parts of the Constitution have been put forward. There must be no Constitution by the back door. If any changes are made from the existing treaty that giver more powers to the EU, there has to be referenda. This must be very very clear.

We must also build the networks necessary within the Left. As the UK has a strong euro scepticism from the right, the Left case must be put forward very strongly. The Centre for a Social Europe is constructed to make the Left case heard and is a substantial part in the newly formed no campaign, and I have the privilege to work for it. Whether or not there will be a referendum, people on the Left need to form networks inside and outside the UK.

It remains to see if you will have the opportunity to do a referendum campaign or not. Experiences from Sweden, Denmark, Ireland, France and the Netherlands show that referenda can be won if you succeed in having a cross-party mobilisation.