21.12.1995

Workers left behind in Europe

Saying ‘No’ to Europe is not enough

Despite another humiliation for the Tories in the European fisheries vote the Madrid summit indicates that the sceptics will be left behind. As the French strikes edged towards a resolution, the European heads of state were meeting to force their much needed unity.

Incredibly, workers in Europe are still way behind. Railworkers in France won a massive victory, although the trade union leaders are busy selling welfare demands down the river and demonstrations are collapsing. The left and the workers’ movement condemned the militancy in France to isolation.

Treacherously the Aslef leadership instructed train drivers to drive Eurostar trains during the strike. “They were only stopped by French railworkers standing in front of the trains”, a driver in Manchester told us.

Many of the governments that came together in Madrid are incredibly weak, not least France and of course Britain. This makes meeting the criteria for the new Euro and monetary union difficult. It makes wooing the Eurosceptics in Britain difficult. But it also makes union vital. Major doffed his hard line on Europe and had to carefully balance the need for Britain to be part of economic and political union with keeping the Eurosceptics on board. His majority continues to dwindle. Nevertheless arch sceptic Redwood was only able to muster six business leaders in a joint statement against a single currency.

Europe is on a fast track one way or another, with the new Euro due to be launched on January 1 1999. Germany may have failed to bring Europe together by force under its hegemony by two world wars but the heads of state know they must come together peacefully now and Germany is leading the way. National economies cannot survive against the US and Japan. The Dayton agreement for Bosnia, brokered by the US, served as another indication of continuing US hegemony over the world.

But the left remains almost unanimously silent on Europe, except to say ‘No’. This situation must be changed and the left must take the lead in putting the working class onto the offensive for a workers’ Europe. The working class needs its own agenda for Europe, in trade union organisation and vitally in political organisation.

If we are presented with a European capitalist bloc we must organise workers throughout Europe to fight our common enemy. This demands the highest organisation, political organisation, revolutionary organisation. The need for a Communist Party of the European Union must be put onto the working class agenda.