28.04.2004

Their Europe or ours

The ‘Campaign for a European Constitutional Democracy’ met publicly for the first time in Istanbul on April 17, at the latest assembly to prepare for the third European Social Forum. So far, mainly organisations from Italy and France have been involved in this campaign, which aims to develop a European charter as a counter-document to the European Union’s draft constitution.

This good and somewhat overdue initiative was greeted with scepticism by Chris Nineham (Socialist Workers Party) and Redmond O’Neill (Ken Livingstone’s adviser and a member of the underground sect, Socialist Action). They used the small meeting in Istanbul to declare how unimportant the issue of the EU and its constitution are to the British people - meanwhile in the real world Tony Blair buckled under massive pressure and announced his U-turn on a referendum. Although comrade Nineham did not know of Blair’s volte-face at the time, he has since repeated the absurd notion that the EU constitution is a non-issue in Britain. At the latest meeting of the British ESF coordinating committee on April 22, he ridiculed the French proposal that our London ESF in October 2004 should focus on the EU and its constitution. He insisted that the question of war would have to be the main topic throughout, because “we are living in the heartland of neoliberalism”.

The notion that both issues are important and that both could prominently feature seems beyond the SWP. It is the war or nothing for our comrades, who still seem to be under the illusion that they can catapult a big section of the anti-war movement into SWP membership. It has not worked so far, but it looks like the comrades are still trying.

The SWP and their allies in Socialist Action are of course very much mistaken if they believe the EU is a “non-issue”. Quite the opposite: it is a highly controversial question and hotly debated by the labour movement. The TUC, for example, has backed not only the EU, but also its draft constitution. It believes that the introduction of some of its labour laws would actually lead to improved working conditions for many British workers. A number of big unions are less enthusiastic and reject the constitution - without, however, putting forward an alternative vision for a Europe from below.

Ditto in the Labour Party: the parliamentary Labour Party is of course in favour of the constitution - while the left and the majority of constituency activists are dead against it. The Morning Star’s Communist Party of Britain is so concerned about the EU that it advocates British withdrawal.

Fortunately, our European comrades tend to be more sophisticated. The meeting in Istanbul was presented with two documents: a short ‘Declaration for a democratic and social Europe’ and a four-page background paper, entitled ‘Constituent movements’. Both will be further discussed at an assembly in June, called ‘Proposals for another Europe’. We are hoping to make them available on our website.

Reading through them, I got the feeling that the comrades are desperately trying to straddle two different constituencies. On the one hand, a number of organisations involved in this campaign have representatives in the European parliament, not least Rifondazione Comunista (Italy) and the Communist Party of France. The ‘Declaration’ especially reads like a brief election manifesto. On the other hand, those same parties have been heavily involved - mostly through front organisations - in the so-called social movements in their respective countries.

Both areas of work have been kept apart rather artificially in the last few years. For example, political parties are not allowed to openly participate in the European and World Social Forums. How the left should contest the European elections has not once been discussed at the ESF. Instead, the same people who go to the ESF have met separately to discuss joint election slates in either the ‘European Left Party’ (the gathering of mostly ‘official’ communist parties and Rifondazione) or the ‘Anti-capitalist left’ (Fourth Internationalist-led).

It says a lot about the state of the British left that, despite the wholly inadequate and hesitant moves of our European comrades on the EU and left unity, they are far in advance of anything on offer from the likes of the SWP.

Franco Russo, a member of the national committee of Rifondazione Comunista, is active in the campaign for a democratic, alternative EU. Tina Becker spoke to him in Istanbul

For three years now, this working group has been meeting on and off to discuss the European constitution and the response the left should develop. Tell me about the work you have done so far.

The European question is about overcoming the national state in order to respond to the process of privatisation, the destruction of the welfare state and workers’ rights. I understand very easily why people, especially in Sweden and many on the left in Britain, are very concerned about the European Union and the draft constitution. So am I, of course. But the problem is that today it is not just the nation-state which is carrying out neoliberal policies - it is increasingly the EU. It is the main driving force in destroying the conquests made by our social movements in the 20th century. I feel our common space is Europe.

On the other hand, we have to recognise that the bourgeois leaderships in the 1950s had a very impressive vision. They answered a crucial question: the question of war and peace in Europe. For centuries, their rivalries led to wars and mass destruction. Their method was unification through the market, which in their view was the best way to overcome the deadly conflicts between France and Germany, France and Britain, and so on. This was very imaginative, you know.

The forerunners of the EU also served as a bulwark against communism in Europe, didn’t they?

The left and communist parties were not able to respond to this unification through the market - mainly because of the great barrier that used to divide Europe. The communist parties were concerned with support for the USSR and refused to engage in the new fight on the European level. For decades, they simply did not take the question seriously. But now, the anti-globalisation movement has the intellectual capacity and the actual strength to take this task on. We have expanded a lot recently, bringing together social movements, unions, migrant organisations, political forces, etc.

The question that faces us today is this: are we happy to remain in the nation-state or do we attempt to overcome this by establishing what we in Italy call a supranational democracy? In the fight for this democracy we think it is possible to have a constituent movement that fights for a society built bottom-up, not top-down.

There are divisions between Blair, Schröder and Chirac on Iraq and other issues. But all of them want a strong fortress Europe, with a strong military wing that can play a leading role in the geopolitical global theatre.

Our view is different: we fight for the demilitarisation of Europe to establish peace. This is a key task for us. Another example: we have to cut the link between the nation-state and citizenship. All people of any colour and any background, migrants or not, who reside in Europe should be entitled to European citizenship and all the civil, political and social rights that come with it. This means building a new society. Up till now, the nation-state has stopped us acting together, so we need to overcome it to build a new social contract on our terms. It must be constructed around universal rights. Every person should have the right to dignity, education, health, free movement, sexual choice. This is the very real and daunting constitutional challenge that faces us.

You propose a great many detailed changes to the draft of the EU constitution. I could not help but get the impression that you put forward the view that the draft could be amended further and further until it has become ours.

I can see why you got this impression, but it is not what we are trying to achieve. The document was discussed by a number of organisations and attempts to provide a firm base from which we can operate - in and out of parliament. For example, article IV-7 of the constitutional treaty stipulates that national governments make all decisions when it comes to the constitution. If this process is left in the hands of the governments, they can decide on the rights and the space that every individual in Europe can have. But if this were in the hands of the EU parliament, I think the grassroots movements could exercise a great deal of influence on MEPs in order to reform the constitution in the way we want.

For example, a few months ago, we in Italy launched a petition for European citizenship, aiming for one million signatures across the continent. We want to pressurise the EU commission and parliament in this way.

You seem to concentrate a lot on parliamentary change.

The most important thing is of course the movement from below - against privatisations, against the liberalisation of the job market and so on. Margaret Thatcher, too, was against the bureaucracy of Europe, but she wanted to exploit this slogan in order to implement the same neoliberal policies herself.

At the same time, if we can introduce some element of democratisation into the European constitution through the EU parliament, then that would be a good thing. We must overcome the artificial distinction between the institutional route and the grassroots movements. The movement is so large that we can embrace both elements. For example, in Italy, we have often used parliament to make propaganda against the war. At the same time, we have organised millions of people on demonstrations. There is no exclusive way to go about protesting. But we are also not the only ones who are radical. We sometimes need to form alliances with other political parties and unions. We have to be radical, but we must also seek unity. This is not very easy.

Our movement is a constituent movement. I refer you to Bruce Ackerman’s excellent book We the people about the revolutionary character of the American constitution. He argues that there is not one single point in history in which the whole constitutional structure is remodelled. It is part of a longer process - civil wars, popular movements and so forth.

How do you square that with being a member of a revolutionary party?

I believe that revolution is a process too. The sort of revolution that was made in Russia was of course - more or less - a single point in history. But it resulted in a very bad outcome, because they did not agree on the need for permanent revolution. I do not mean this in the Trotskyist sense, but the need for a continuous revolution: to build step by step the extension of democracy, the enlargement of rights.

Let me quote the last sentence of the document: “The EU must help to establish global centres of democracy to stop the world’s most powerful countries and economies from destroying our planet.” This could be interpreted as a plea to support the good European bourgeoisie against the bad American one.
Of course governments have different tactics, but I do not subscribe to a division between good government and bad government. We should not support one over the other.

But for the first time in our history we have the chance to make a difference. We have failed in the last decades. Think about the Stalinist economy: this was exploitation of workers, peasants and nature. We are now able not only to modify, but radically change the social and economic order. Now we have different parameters: social rights for everybody - universal rights.

When enterprises invest they do it for profit. The Soviet Union was not able to substitute something else for this system. Now we can. The capabilities of human beings can be unleashed in this period. We all have different needs: disabled people have different needs from non-disabled people, young people from old people, etc. Society should respond to all those different needs. We need to plan how to spend our resources, how to produce for all those needs. But it is important that this plan is not imposed from above in a Stalinist way, but comes from the people below. Everybody must have the right to get involved in the decision-making process. Our democracy must be radical and all-encompassing.