26.05.2004

Movement from below

Antonis Manitakis, who represented the Greek party, Synapsismos (which has two members in the European parliament), at the Rome conference on the EU constitution spoke to the Weekly Worker.

What do you hope will come out of this weekend?

The most important thing for my organisation is that we start an exchange of views and build towards a common conception of Europe. It is very important to understand what visions other left organisations have of Europe and how the EU works.

The European Social Forum is very important in this context. Firstly, we have a chance to meet and get to know each other. And inside Greece we have been able to overcome the most serious divisions on the small Greek left. Unfortunately, it has not been possible to get the Communist Party of Greece involved. For them, the ESF is a capitalist plot and they have no vision or alternative for Europe.

What is your vision then? Can the left across Europe get together and formulate its own, joint alternative to the constitution? Its own programme for Europe?

I doubt very much if we can achieve something like this in the short term. We have only just begun to discuss our conceptions of the EU and the kind of Europe we want. What kind of institutions are we facing in Europe? How do we try to overcome the nation-state? What kind of different Europe do we really want?

And there are lots of different ideas on the left, which we need to thrash out. Some on the left seem to argue for a federal structure of Europe. But this is wrong. I think we are now surpassing the national state, moving towards a meta-national political organisation, in the Hegelian sense. Political power in Europe in the long term will not be a sovereign state, but another kind of political organisation that is not based on nation-states. This is why I am against federalism.

We have to be clear that this so-called constitution is in fact a treaty. It does not establish an autonomous political power, which derives from the people. This constitutional treaty organises the union of states, not the union of peoples. So we have to fight for a real constitution for all the peoples of Europe. A federation of the peoples, the regions and the communities - but not a federal state. This is what our Italian comrades call a 'multi-level democracy'. On the top of that will be the sovereignty of the peoples of Europe. This will require a different kind of demos.

But how do we get there? Surely drawing up a common programme would help to move forward?

Sooner or later, there will be a single power of Europe - with this constitutional treaty or a different one. We need to discuss it, we need to achieve clarity on the things we agree on - as well as the things we disagree on.

I believe that people across Europe want to be united with their brothers and sisters in other countries. However, the draft constitution does not address this real desire and of course it does not establish a democratic Europe. That is why we have to explore and explain that we have a vision of Europe that is united and democratic. It will take many years and is the task for another generation, but I am certain that we can establish a real movement from below for a really democratic Europe.

The key question is that we have to overcome the nation-state. The constitution must be drawn up by parliament, by the direct representatives of the people, not the different heads of states. Our two representatives in the European parliament, for example, have no possibility to amend or make changes to the draft. And, as in many other countries, there will be no referendum on the EU constitution in Greece. The parliament simply has to ratify it.

Last week saw the official launch of the European Left Party in Rome. How does this relate to the work around the constitution?

The ELP's main purpose really is to have a common platform in the European parliament. It does not have a joint programme for the elections, for example. For the moment, it is simply there to help us work in parliament. The organisations of capital are very much organised, but we on the left are not. We have not the least kind of common outlook on Europe and no idea of what kind of Europe we really want.

The success of the ELP really depends on the workers' movement and class struggle across Europe. If our movements do not develop, then I am not sure how useful it will be and if it would ever become a real party that is actually visible across Europe. While the setting up of the ELP is a good step forward for our own organisations, hardly anybody knows about it.

The main problem we have in the ELP is not so much that we might have different outlooks for the future. It has got to do with the divisions in our past. We simply have no common culture to discuss things. The communist parties did share such a culture, but socialist and social democratic organisations did not. We have not yet created strong united political organisations across Europe. The ESF, the ELP, joint discussions around the constitution - they can all help to bring our forces closer together.