28.04.2004

Fifteen to twenty-five

May 1 is undoubtedly a historic day for the European Union and its pampered bureaucracy and the managerial and political representatives of big capital. The EU is to gain 75 million new citizens and it will go from 15 to 25 member-states. With the inclusion of Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia, the EU will have a combined population of around 450 million and constitute the world’s largest economic bloc.

The EU has nowhere near China’s 1.2 billion, or India’s 1 billion people. However, in terms of productivity and living standards it is in a completely different, higher, league. The EU’s GDP is marginally bigger than that of the United States (though the US has a much smaller population - 290 million). True, according to a recent World Economic Forum survey, the US remains “significantly more competitive”; nevertheless the EU is still committed to become the “most competitive and dynamic, knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010” (Financial Times April 27). Whether or not that particular target is met is a moot point, but palpably the EU constitutes the only serious potential challenger to US global hegemony. And although May 1 will boost the EU’s GDP by a mere five percent - most of the accession countries are relatively poor, with rates of productivity between a half and a fifth less than the EU 15’s average - there is no doubting the political and strategic importance of expansion.

The ghost of Yalta has finally been exorcised. Eight of the 10 were either once an integral part of the USSR or constituted its defensive shield against Nato and the capitalist west. Now Europe - a tidal continent of the mind - laps at Russia’s flanks and borders the Ukraine and Belarus. Russia’s front door, St Petersburg, its second city, is just a short hop away.

Last year George Bush put on a lavish White House banquet for Romano Prodi, the president of the European Commission. Keen to impress his host, Prodi reportedly boasted about imminent European expansion and how the EU was destined to become a key world player in its own right. “Sounds like the Roman empire, Romano,” remarked a well briefed Bush (The Economist December 2003). Presumably a barbed put-down.

Opponents of “ever closer” European unity - whether American neocons, left reformists or xenophobic little Britishers - like to equate the EU with the Roman empire. A jaundiced comparison which implies fragility, hubris and the inevitability of ruin.

Memory of Roman glory has, though, inspired one imperial unifier after another. Charlemagne, king of the Franks, famously established an empire which stretched from the Pyrenees in the west to the Danube in the east and from Hamburg in the north to Sicily in the south. His Renovatio Imperii Romani, the Renewal of the Roman Empire, was formally inaugurated in December 800 AD and, though it quickly disintegrated following his death, the idea of Pax Romana continued to exert a powerful material influence.

In Charlemagne’s footsteps there followed Spain in the 15th and 16th centuries, Napoleonic France and Hitler Germany. Succeeding generations donned the trappings of the past. Eg, to reward loyal minions, in 1802 Napoleon founded the Légion d’Honneur on the model of the Roman Legio Honoratorum, and he invoked Charlemagne during his 1804 coronation. Nazis gave the Roman stiff-arm salute and cried “Heil Hitler!” - a copy of “Hail Caesar!” And when a new SS division for French volunteers was formed it was named the Charlemagne.

In actual fact, however, the foremost historic model informing the minds of the most far-seeing European federalists, is not imperial Rome nor its subsequent epigones - Charlemagne, Habsburg Spain, Napoleon and Hitler. Ironically it is America. In terms of method, scale, ambition and possible consequences the only parallel to the EU under capitalism is the formation of the USA in 1787 out of the loose confederation of 13 states which emerged victorious from the revolutionary war against the British crown (the US, of course, heavily borrowed Roman forms, symbols and styles - look at its mixed constitution, imperial eagles and the classic architecture of Washington’s famous state buildings).

Valéry Giscard d’Estaing - chair of the EU’s constitutional conference - has compared his own work to that of the founding fathers of the US. His draft constitution is designed to inspire supranational loyalty. The preamble is drawn in part from the French Revolution’s ‘Rights of man’ and the US declaration of independence. There are plenty of fine words about “human dignity”, “the rule of law”, “tolerance” and “fundamental rights” (part II). The EU is described as a “union of European states which, while retaining their national identities, closely coordinate their policies at the European level, and administer certain common competencies on a federal basis” (title III, article 9). He proposes a system of dual citizenship - home country and EU (title II, article 8). The draft constitution also contains mention of the possibility of “voluntary withdrawal” from the EU (article 59). An innovation. Till now there have been no provisions for opting out.

Prior attempts to create European unity have relied on war and the brutal domination of one country over others. Europe may have been united in the past, but this was unity achieved only with the manacles of national oppression. That is no longer the case. Since the end of World War II the European bourgeoisie - particularly in France and Germany - have had to pursue their aim of integration through the market, without war and in a quasi-democratic fashion. With the huge and constantly renewed power of the modern working class and the horrors of fascism seared onto the collective consciousness, they have little choice in the matter. That is why in Europe the philosophy of Georg Hegel has been eclipsed by that of Emmanuel Kant.

Not that the working class is in the driving seat. Continental unity is being forged in the overarching interests of capital, which is organising Europe into a blood bank - a bigger and bigger source of surplus value, ever ready to meet its vampirish needs. Indeed Giscard d’Estaing’s draft constitution contains a veritable peon of praise for the capitalist market and the virtues of competition (title VII, chapters I and II). However, capitalism is inherently fractured, not least along national lines, and is moreover in historic decline. With each year that passes it becomes ever more impossible and riven with contradictions. Hence European unity proceeds fitfully, through an endless series of tortured negotiations and backtracking national compromises.

Compared to the US in the 18th century, European unity has therefore evolved thus far at a much more cautious and protracted - and for our rulers an altogether safer - pace. There has been no great wave of liberation nor the voluntary coming together of risen peoples. Nevertheless, European integration, though piecemeal and only quasi-democratic, has gone a long way since 1957. The common market - born of the terrible slaughter and mutual destruction of World War II and then the cold war system which divided the continent - has become a 25-member giant.

By streamlining this huge political-economic bloc and putting it under centralised direction, leading federalists envisage steadily moving towards the day when the EU becomes the dominant imperialist power and thereby can reshape the entire world so as to accord to its interests. Meanwhile, in the here and now, militarily and politically the EU punches far below its economic weight. It resembles something like the 13 confederated American states before 1787 - the parts are still more important than the whole. The EU is a fractious amalgam of very unevenly developed states. But the grain of development is not hard to discern: wider, in the form of the 10 new members and in a few years maybe yet more; deeper, in the form of enhanced politico-legal institutions. The EU already has the European Central Bank and the euro, a council of ministers, the European Commission, an elected parliament and a European Court of Justice. But how deep? That essentially is the question Giscard d’Estaing’s constitution sought to answer.

Since he delivered his draft on July 10 2003 the 15 member and 10 candidate governments have been locked in fraught negotiations. Spain - a middle-ranking EU state - strongly opposed a diminution of its powers. Poland - another middle-ranking state - raised similar objections. December’s deadline for final negotiations came and went and for a while it appeared that the whole thing would end in hopeless stalemate. Over the next few weeks, however, under the Irish presidency, there will be another attempt to hammer out an agreement. Irish foreign minister Brian Cowen wants an intergovernmental conference on May 17 and a final deal struck by mid-June.

Even if an agreement is cobbled together, there are other hurdles to cross. Not only is it necessary to get the European and national parliaments to vote for it; many countries will have to submit the constitution to a referendum. That now includes the United Kingdom, of course. Having flatly rejected all such demands, Tony Blair performed his sudden and humiliating U-turn. Tarnished by the war and occupation of Iraq, under growing pressure from Michael Howard’s reinvigorated Tories, hounded by the rightwing press and crucially threatened with a withdrawal of support by Rupert Murdoch and his media empire, he decided to go for the least worst option and kick the constitution into the long grass. There is unlikely to be a UK referendum till after the next general election - 2005 or 2006. Nevertheless a high-risk strategy - not least because of lurid xenophobic propaganda, the very idea of an EU constitution is at present deeply unpopular with a large swathe of the British electorate.

Naturally little Britain nationalists - of the left variety as well as the right - have objected to the draft constitution virtually as a matter of principle. They loath everything European, fear any further loss of sovereignty and want to keep the pound in perpetuity. Tony Benn and the Morning Star’s Communist Party of Britain logically thus join together with the most obnoxious elements of the far right, including the UK Independence Party and the British National Party, in demanding a British withdrawal from the EU. A reactionary perspective which, it hardly needs saying, owes nothing whatsoever to internationalism.

Not that the Respect coalition and its leading component is noticeably better. SWP leaders such as Chris Nineham dismiss the EU and the draft constitution as “boring” and a “non-issue” in Britain. An approach which combines economistic, albeit surreal, self-delusion with the anarchist’s contempt for politics. As to Respect’s belated manifesto, it is bland, minimalist and essentially negative. Diplomatically it steers around the thorny question of withdrawal, seems to oppose a European constitution per se, nationalistically defends existing state rights and paints a woefully inaccurate picture of an EU run by the “unelected” bureaucracy, ignoring the elected council of ministers, which actually constitutes the EU’s central executive.

It is vital to highlight what we are against - lack of democracy, the neoliberal agenda, the growth and stability pact, plans for a fortress Europe, etc. However, socialism requires a positive programme. We must say, even if it is in outline, what we are for.

The EU draft constitution should be carefully studied. It is an eminently worthwhile exercise to distinguish between what should be kept and what should be deleted. Drawing up an alternative draft on that basis and deciding what should be added obviously necessitates long and painstakingly detailed exhanges on the left. That comrades from Italy and France want a “line of discussion” at the London European Socialist Forum over October 15-17 wholly devoted to the EU constitution is therefore to be warmly welcomed.

For our part, we say that if the working class is ever to realise the goal of socialism in Europe, or anywhere else, it is essential to actively intervene and take a lead in the battle for democracy under capitalism. Without that socialism is impossible. Where the member-states are haggling over a cribbed and cramped, quasi-democratic EU, the left is duty-bound to develop an alternative vision of a united Europe in which democracy is greatly expanded and filled with a definite social content.

Whether European unity is to be federal or confederal, it is at present not being brought about under the direct or indirect impact of working class self-activity - as envisaged by Marxists such as Fredrick Engels, Karl Kautsky and Leon Trotsky. So the working class has no reason to endorse, applaud or join with either the EU federalists or the confederalists who stubbornly insist on maintaining existing state rights.

Communists wish in general to bring about the closest voluntary unity of peoples - and in the biggest state units at that. All the better to conduct the struggle of class against class and prepare the wide ground needed for socialism. Hence our formulation, “To the extent the EU becomes a state that necessitates EU-wide trade unions and a Communist Party of the EU” (Weekly Worker ‘What we fight for’).

That explains why we are far from indifferent about the EU draft constitution and the project of unifying Europe. Where they have made their bureaucratic Europe from above, we must make our democratic Europe from below. There should be no truck with calls to pull the UK out of the EU because it is a “bosses’ club”, or because it is not “socialist”. A clear case of pandering to left nationalism. One might just as well suggest pulling the working class out of Britain.

Not that such a daft programme has not been tried. In the 18th and 19th century there were those utopians who argued that communists should have nothing to do with bourgeois society. It was by definition a capitalist or “bosses’ club”. They established colonies in the Americas, which would practise equality and fraternity. Suffice to say, they were ill-fated. All failed. And not surprisingly Marxism has consistently criticised such schemas. The utopian communists’ denunciation of capitalism provided wonderful ammunition for propaganda. However, opting out of the struggle within capitalism was attacked as tantamount to surrender.

Capitalism and the capitalist state, as it historically presents itself, is where the socialist-communist project starts. The journey begins not with the destination, but the first step. So begin with the capitalist EU. We therefore argue for a positive programme. A social Europe, within which the political power and economic interests of the broad masses - albeit initially under capitalism - are qualitatively advanced. To bring forward this immediate aim the following seven demands, specifically concerning the EU, are presented:

1. For a republican United States of Europe. No to Giscard d’Estaing’s constitution. Abolish the council of ministers and sack the unelected commissioners. For a single-chamber, executive and legislative, continental congress of the peoples of Europe, elected by universal suffrage and proportional representation.

2. Nationalise all banks in the EU and put the ECB under the direct, democratic control of the European congress. No to the stability pact and spending limits. Stop privatisation and so-called private finance initiatives. End subsidies to, and tax breaks for, big business. Tax income and capital. Abolish VAT. Yes to workers’ control over big business and the overall direction of the economy. Yes to a massive programme of house-building and public works.

3. For the levelling up of wages and social provisions. For a maximum 35-hour week and a common minimum income. End all anti-trade union laws. For the right to organise and the right to strike. For top-quality healthcare, housing and education, allocated according to need. Abolish all restrictions on abortion. Fight for substantive equality between men and women.

4. End the Common Agricultural Policy. Stop all subsidies for big farms and the ecological destruction of the countryside. Nationalise all land. Temporary relief for small farmers. Green the cities. Free urban public transport. Create extensive wilderness areas - forests, marshes, heath land - for the preservation and rehabilitation of animal and plant life and the enjoyment and fulfilment of the population.

5. No to the Rapid Reaction Force, Nato and all standing armies. Yes to a popular, democratic militia, equipped with the most advanced and destructive weaponry.

6. No to ‘Fortress Europe’. Yes to the free movement of people into and out of the EU. For citizenship and voting rights for all who have been resident in the EU for longer than six months.

7. For the closest coordination of all working class forces in the EU. Promote EU-wide industrial unions - eg, railways, energy, communications, engineering, civil service, print and media. For a democratic and effective EU Trade Union Congress. For a single, centralised, revolutionary party: ie, the Communist Party of the European Union.

Armed with such a continental-wide programme, a social Europe, the United Socialist States of Europe, can be realised. By taking the lead over every democratic shortcoming, by coordinating our defensive and offensive activity, by building upon our strength and extending our room for manoeuvre through securing far-reaching economic and political gains, we can change the “bosses’ club” into a workers’ club.