26.09.1996

European alarm call

Countdown to a ‘united’ Europe has begun. When you wake up bleary-eyed from the New Year’s Eve celebrations on January 1 1999, possibly organised by bankers and money-capitalists across the continent, you will be able to pop down the local shop and buy a pint of milk in Euros.

Or will you? Whatever the case, the conference of finance ministers held in Dublin at the weekend has accelerated the process of European integration, leaving Eurosceptics and Little Englanders of all hues - whether in the right wing of the Tory Party, the Labour left or the Morning Star - reeling with shell shock. For them the decision in Dublin to push for a single currency, which could affect as many as 10 member-states in the European Union, is another large ominous step towards the dreaded European ‘superstate’.

Unsurprisingly, civil war has immediately broken out in the Tory Party. The Euro-phobes are pointing the accusing finger at Kenneth Clarke, portraying him as a Quisling-like figure who has sold out the ‘national interest’. John Redwood denounced Clarke for “damaging the unity of the government”. The very eccentric duo, Bill Cash and Sir George Gardner, went straight for the jugular, the latter advising Clarke that if he “insists on preventing the party serving the wishes and interests of the British people”, then he should resign.

Clarke’s bullishness, if not downright aggressive stance, took almost everybody by surprise. He denounced John Redwood et al as “rent-a-quote critics” and ridiculed the idea of Britain staying outside the European Monetary Union come 1999, declaring: “That would be the worst policy of all - of the British doing their traditional business of not being able to make their minds up and then joining late. That would be pathetic.”

Even more significantly, at the Dublin meeting Clarke overtly endorsed the virtues of a single currency, which would “offer the prospects of stability, low interest rates and a zone of economic conditions which attract investment and stimulate the growth of trade” - a clear ‘federal’ agenda which tends to fly in the face of recent cabinet statements, reaffirming the government’s determination to exercise its opt-out clause on EMU.

The looming 1999 crunch will inevitably generate pressures and strains on all the political parties. Some in the Socialist Labour Party will be particularly alarmed by the Dublin conference, given the policy document submitted to conference. It wants to turn its back on Europe and build national ‘socialism’ in Britain. A common single currency in Europe would pose a serious threat to such a utopian project. Fortunately this document does not go uncontested and many amendments calling for a workers’ Europe have been submitted.

Communists recognise that the merging of nations and the formation of a European ‘superstate’ are objectively positive, even though they are being propelled and engineered by a section of the capitalist class.

We have no irrational fondness for the pound sterling, even if it wasArthur Scargill’s face that happened to be beaming up at us from its notes. We believe in a world workers’ state, as a preliminary stage in the eradication of all nation-states, whether they be socialist or not.

We must also reject the notion that a ‘single’ Europe under capitalism is somehow ‘impossible’, a concept which some in the communist movement have subscribed to. Such a view comes from a mechanical, text-book interpretation of Das Capital and Marx’s work in general.

Yes, crisis and war is embedded into the capitalist system and the bourgeoisie will never relinquish national chauvinism/patriotism as an ideological weapon in their arsenal.

Yet there is no law of history which forbids the European bourgeoisie from ‘merging’ together and forming a ‘federal/united’ Europe - in the near future.

Indeed, Clarke’s statements this week indicates the pressure on all nation-states as capitalism’s contradictions heighten. The merging of capital into bigger and bigger blocks is the dynamic of the system, which at the same time expands competition.

In the face of the power blocs around the US and Japan the states of Europe cannot survive alone, though any act, or process, of coming together inevitably puts a strain on the individual national economies.

We are quite clear that a capitalist Europe - EMU or not, federal or not, super-state or not - exists only in order to exploit the working class and promote the interests of imperialism. But for communists there would be nothing progressive about such a system collapsing back into national autarky, even if that was possible.

The austerity measures being imposed in an attempt to rescue the ailing economies of many European states have not gone without opposition - most notably with demonstrations in France and Germany, the main motors of European integration. This opposition needs a working class European-wide perspective to resolve capitalism’s contradictions positively.

One thing history does teach us is that socialism can only be built on the most advanced achievements of capitalism, not on backward-looking failures.

Paul Greenaway