23.06.2004
EU Constitution: No to confederal quasi-unity
Europe's capitalists and bureaucrats cannot democratically unite the continent. That historic task, argues Jack Conrad, falls to the working class
June 18 was undoubtedly another historic day for the European Union and its political elite. After two years of debate, months of haggling and redrafting, failed summits and endless hours of brinkmanship, the EU's 25 heads of government finally agreed their constitution. Just before midnight they emerged bleary-eyed to announce success before the small army of reporters and camera crews gathered in Brussels.
In the days prior to and following the agreement, the Tory right, the United Kingdom Independence Party and the anti-EU press went into a patriotic frenzy. An unseemly sight.
Shadow foreign secretary Michael Ancram insisted that the constitution created a "gateway to a country called Europe". UKIP's Robert Kilroy-Silk likened Tony Blair to Neville Chamberlain: "It's appeasement," he said. "He is waving a piece a paper saying, 'It's okay, I've only given a little bit away of our national sovereignty', when in fact this is the beginning of the end of Britain as a nation-state governing itself." The Sun agreed: Tony Blair is prepared to sign away "a thousand years of British sovereignty. Our independence to run our own lives, make our own laws, be masters of our destinies, will be lost" (editorial, June 18). The Daily Telegraph protested that the constitution was the "capstone of a federalist state", because of the creation the EU as a legal personality, a five-year-term president, a foreign minister, a prosecutory magistracy and a "federal police force" - to be called Europol (June 19).
Meanwhile, a group of 28 top capitalists - including Sir Rocco Forte, the hotel boss, Sir Crispin Davis, chief executive of publishers Reed Elsever and Lord Sainsbury, a Tory peer and president of the supermarket chain - sent an open letter to Tony Blair. They complain that he had "committed Britain to a structure that will harm our prosperity and weaken democracy". One of the signatories, Michael Spencer, chief executive of ICAP, the money broker, elaborated: "A lot of businesses are worried about the implication of the EU charter of fundamental rights, which would damage our flexible economy" - the charter enshrines the right to strike (Financial Times June 21).
Most of this is hysterical nonsense, of course. The EU is no more a single country than is the United Nations or Nato. Nor is it the equivalent of Hitler's Europe. As for The Sun's claim that British sovereignty dates back a thousand years, this is a blundering mix of hyperbole and ignorance. The kingdom of Great Britain dates from the accession of James VI of Scotland as James I of England in 1603; and it was not till 1707 that the act of union created a single parliament. As a nation - a people sharing a common language, culture, economy, territory, identity, etc - Britain comes into being only after 1745 and the defeat of the Jacobite counterrevolution.
Moreover, the fact of the matter is that, far from representing a further step down the federal road, the proposed constitution is an admission that the EU will remain a loose confederation of independent states. There is the introduction of majority voting in the council of ministers in certain areas of common concern; but this will be heavily circumscribed, done through the 'double majority' system, which requires at least 15 member-states comprising at least 65% of the EU's population. However, apart from minor details, Tony Blair and Jack Straw basically got what they wanted. Unanimity is still necessary when it comes to tax, foreign affairs and defence. It has also been made clear that the charter of fundamental rights does not create new employment rights.
Nevertheless, lurid chauvinism aside, it is clear as day that the anti-EU press are right in at least one important respect. Britain is becoming more and more reliant on others and sovereignty is increasingly shared and as an ideal is thoroughly compromised. Under these circumstances reactionaries will, of course, hark back atavistically to a mythical past. But the glories of the British empire can never return. Britain cannot operate effectively in the world in isolation from Europe. Nor can Germany, France, Italy or any other EU country. Only together can they hope to withstand, match, let alone out-compete the US and Japan.
The real question is, what sort of EU? Ever since Jean Monnet and the European Iron and Steel Community in 1952, the strategic aim of the French and German ruling classes has been clear. A federal Europe which would eventually rise to become the dominant world power and thereby occupy the top position in the imperialist pecking order.
Nowadays this ambition is framed in the context of US hyperpower. Hence Jacques Chirac, the French president, is said to want a "multipolar world in which Europe is the counterweight to American political and military power." Former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt has openly declared that his country and France "share a common interest in not delivering ourselves into the hegemony of our mighty ally, the United States". Even Chris Patten has called for Europe to become "a serious player ... a serious counterweight and counterpart to the United States" (all quotes from N Ferguson Colossus London 2004, p227).
Needless to say, such ambitions have been frustrated, or at the very least put on hold, by the EU's constitution. Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, the former right-centrist French president who chaired the EU's constitutional convention, undoubtedly drew inspiration from the American declaration of independence of 1776 and the 1787 Philadelphia constitution, which united the 13 states. Yet his federalistic rhetoric and goals were ruthlessly exterminated and unceremoniously buried during the course of the constitutional convention - eg, the suggested titles 'United Europe' and 'United States of Europe'. Moreover, since he delivered his final draft on July 18 2003, an Atlanticist grouping - in particular Britain, Italy and Poland, but including the Nordic countries and other new member-states in eastern Europe - have pursued the anti-federalist offensive. Blair can justifiably claim to have speared any immediate prospect of a EU superstate with his 'red lines'.
The proposed EU constitution has none of the brevity and simplicity of the US constitution. It is both a dense legal text and a massive work of condensation. Though 330 pages long, this is from a starting point of the EU's four treaties and body of laws, which together total some 80,000 pages of text. Whether or not the constitution can contain both the confederalist and the federalist visions of Europe's future remains to be seen. But in recognition of these two camps a new concept called the 'brake-accelerator' has been introduced.
Any country objecting to a particular integrationist move can put on the 'brake'. Not only can they appeal to other member-governments through the council of ministers; they can effectively opt out, while others, using the 'accelerator', proceed. Germany and France have already indicated that they intend to apply the mechanism of "enhanced cooperation" in order to harmonise their corporation tax and set a minimum rate. Under the constitution they could gather an "avant-garde" of countries around them who are prepared to abandon their vetoes on taxation and proceed on the basis of qualified majority voting - thus leaving behind one of the supposed cherished features of 'national sovereignty'.
Of course, this model is how adoption of the euro and the creation of the eurozone worked in practice. Britain, Denmark and Sweden decided to wait, while the other 12 motored ahead. The idea was that the three would catch up later. Incidentally it is worth noting that the constitution gives eurozone governments increased powers over limits on deficits set by the now discredited stability and growth pact. Eurozone members will be able to decide their own policies and who can, and who cannot, join them.
Taken as a whole, the brake has been applied to the project of "an ever closer union" laid out by the founders of the European Economic Community in the 1957 Treaty of Rome. The rights of national governments over tax, defence and foreign policy have been fenced off. National parliaments have also been given a role in overseeing EU legislation. Nevertheless, in 30 specific, albeit narrow areas, the accelerator pedal has been gently pushed down.
Innovations
Though there is already an EU high representative for foreign affairs and national governments retain a veto over foreign policy, the EU is to have a higher, sharper profile with the appointment of a foreign minister and a new corps of EU diplomats. Essentially the same approach has been taken with the presidency. Instead of the six-month rotating presidency, the council of ministers will appoint someone to serve for a fixed term of five years who can then represent the EU on the world stage. The constitution also smoothes the way for greater cooperation in arms procurement, combating crime and strengthening fortress Europe in order to keep out unwanted migrants.
Some other key constitutional innovations stem not from the division and compromises hammered out between federalists and confederalists. The main motivation behind giving the EU a constitution in the first place was to deal with expansion - specifically the entry of 10 new members on May 1. The EU's big four - Germany, France, Britain and Italy - were concerned that the whole edifice could become hopelessly unwieldy, prone to endless delay and hence open to blackmail by small states. That explains the complex new system of voting on the council of ministers. It reduces the powers of small states: blocking would require a minimum of four votes. The same is true of the reduction in the size of the EU commission from 2014 - the big countries keep their commissioners, but from then on two-thirds of the states will have to make do with members on a rotation basis. As a consolation Germany is limited to 96 MEPs and the number granted to micro-countries like Malta and Luxembourg is raised to six.
The constitution is neither the "gateway to a country called Europe", as claimed by Michael Ancram, nor is it merely a "tidying up exercise" as maintained by Jack Straw. The EU is a unique hybrid - in part a means of coordinating fractious and unevenly developed states and bringing about economic convergence; in part a supranational organism linking and directly operating upon 450 million citizens. The EU already has the European Central Bank and euro currency, a council of ministers, the European commission, an elected parliament and a whole series of other institutions.
The burning question posed by history is whether or not those below, crucially the working class, can pursue their own agenda and create an EU which embodies extreme democracy. Obviously at present it is the forces of capitalism which hold the initiative. Continental unity has been fashioned in the overarching interests of big capital and its vampirish needs. Compared to the US in the 18th century, European unity has 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 six-strong 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.
Whatever they exactly think of the pros and cons of the new constitution, the EU's heads of government and bureaucratic elite of commissioners believe that without it there is a distinct danger of the whole project running out of momentum and sinking into paralysis. Agreement in Brussels is, however, only the first hurdle they have to clear. Now they must get 'yes' votes in 25 national parliaments and after that as many as 10 referendums. If just one of them registers a 'no', the EU might have to hobble on with its existing institutions or begin again the whole process of negotiation. A knotty problem, underlined by the paltry turnout for the June 10 elections to the European parliament - 44.2% overall - and the high scores recorded by hard-right Europhobic parties - eg, UKIP, Belgium's Vlaams Blok, Le Pen's National Front in France, Transparent Europe in Holland and the League of Polish Farmers.
Those saddled with having to hold a referendum now include the UK government, of course. Having flatly rejected all such demands, Blair performed his sudden and humiliating U-turn in April. Tarnished by the war against Iraq, the failure to find WMDs and the quagmire of occupation, under growing pressure from the 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.
Huff and puff as they might, Michael Howard and the Tory press will not get an immediate referendum. Blair will play a slow game - wait for toilettage (fine-tuning the constitution in all the EU's legally recognised languages), the queen's speech in November and then the next general election in May 2005 (?). The electoral commission insists that there should be no confusion between a general election and a referendum on the EU constitution. So there will probably not be a UK referendum till sometime in 2006. Nevertheless Blair has had a high-risk strategy forced upon him - not least because of the rightwing press, the very idea of an EU constitution is at present deeply unpopular with a large swathe of the British electorate. Over 50% of those recently polled say they oppose the EU constitution; a mere 23% support it.
Not only rightwing, little Britain nationalists object to the constitution virtually as a matter of principle. Many left reformists equally loath everything European and protest against any further perceived diminution of sovereignty. Tony Benn, Labour Against a European Superstate and the Morning Star's Communist Party of Britain willingly line up alongside the Tory front bench and the most obnoxious elements of the far right, including UKIP, the British National Party, etc, in demanding an outright rejection of the very idea of an EU constitution. A reactionary perspective which, it hardly needs saying, owes nothing whatsoever to internationalism.
Not that the Respect coalition and its leading revolutionary component are noticeably better. SWP leaders, such as Chris Nineham, heroically dismiss the EU and the constitution as "boring" and a "non-issue". An approach which combines dogged self-deception with an anarchist contempt for politics.
As for Respect's pinched and belated manifesto, on which it fought the June 10 European elections, it was not only foisted upon the membership without any semblance of debate or consultation, but what there was of it consisted almost entirely of bland platitudes and negative statements. Diplomatically it carefully steered around the thorny question of withdrawal. However, a European constitution was opposed per se. Supposedly it "would set in stone" the EU's treaties. Respect was also at pains to defend existing "elected parliaments" along with the veto rights of smaller countries and warned against decision-making being "handed over to an unelected bureaucracy" - gallantly ignoring the fact that it is the elected council of ministers which actually constitutes the EU's central executive (Respect Manifesto for the European election April 22 2004).
It is quite legitimate - indeed it is vital - to highlight what we revolutionary socialists and communists are against in the EU - lack of democracy, the neoliberal agenda, the stability and growth pact, plans for an even more restrictive fortress Europe, etc. However, socialism is not an 'anti' movement: it requires a positive programme. We must say, even if it is in broad outline, what we are for, and that certainly includes constitutional demands.
There is nothing mysterious, standard, let alone necessarily democratic about a constitution. The complaint heard from some French and Italian comrades - that the EU constitution is not a "real constitution"; rather it is only an "intergovernmental treaty", because it was bargained over and agreed in its final form by the EU's heads of government, not the EU parliament - testifies to a peculiar kind of muddle.
Applying such restrictive criteria would mean discounting virtually all constitutions presented to us during the long course of class history - from theocratic ancient Ur to the dual kingdom of Sparta, from emperor-mandarin Ming China to autocratic Tudor England, and from the merchant republic of Venice to post-revolutionary USA (its 1787 constitution being agreed by an all-male electorate in each of the 13 separate states, not the American people taken as a whole).
The plain fact is that a constitution is simply a state's system of fundamental laws or conventions - any state, that is, even the most primitive, peculiar or undemocratic. My battered Oxford dictionary defines a constitution as follows: "Mode in which a state is organised; body of fundamental principles according to which a state or other body is organised". The EU might not be a fully fledged state, but it is certainly an "other body". And it should almost go without saying that, all things being equal, Marxists favour written over unwritten constitutions, simply because they tend to be less opaque, more open to scrutiny and thereby progressive change.
Hence the EU constitution cobbled together in Brussels, systemising as it does the Rome, Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice treaties and main laws - ie, the EU's unwritten constitution - and putting them into a single document presents the left and the working class movement with an unsolicited opportunity.
Saying that implies neither constitutionalism nor constitutional illusions. But it does suggest the burning necessity of engagement with a view to winning progressive change. No serious revolutionary would ever be so light-minded as to reject the struggle for such reforms, no matter how minor or paltry, all gains are worthwhile - if they increase the fighting capacity of the working class. Sometimes the state will, of course, give concessions in order to dampen and divide. But Marxists distinguish themselves under all such circumstances primarily by keeping in view the "ultimate aim" and by assessing every manoeuvre, every alliance and every reform, demanded or gained, from the point of view of the global revolutionary struggle. Only then is it possible to guard against opportunism and the sacrifice of one inconvenient 'shibboleth' after another.
Constitutions are the result of protracted and often bitterly fought struggles - sometimes between rival exploiters, patriarchs, established and aspirant national elites, etc - but fundamentally between antagonistic classes. On the one side monarchs, aristocrats, bureaucrats, capitalists - and, of course, their hirelings and dupes. On the other side peasants, artisans and workers - and, yes, their allies and recruits. For all their pretentious language and dubious claims on god, history and destiny, constitutions - written and, yes, unwritten - are nothing more than a photographic record of the result of victories scored by the masses and their defeats. Constitutions, albeit in a refracted manner, thereby show the actual material balance of the contending class forces in a society.
Constitutions can be fictitious when severe social contradictions cause law and reality to cleave apart. A classic example of this kind being the constitution of the Soviet Union, purportedly written by Nicolai Bukharin and introduced with much fanfare in 1936 by Stalin himself. It guaranteed a basic list of democratic rights - "freedom of speech; freedom of the press; freedom of assembly; including the holding of mass meetings; freedom of street processions and street demonstrations" (Constitution of the USSR Moscow 1969, p102).
Suffice to say, these freedoms were worthless: they were always trumped by the constitutional position of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union as the "leading and guiding force" in society (article 6), the obligation to "uphold the honour and dignity of Soviet citizenship" (article 59) and the obligation to "safeguard the interests of the Soviet state, to enhance its power and prestige" (article 62). Hence those obeying the commands of the Soviet bureaucracy, ritualistically and unenthusiastically, exercised the constitution's freedoms as collective unfreedoms; opponents, real or imagined, were terrorised into silence, were imprisoned or were simply butchered.
Law and reality
But usually law and reality broadly coincide, even in abnormal circumstances. The monocratic constitution of Nazi Germany was much less fictitious and therefore far more honest than the Soviet Union's. Using the law Hitler banned the Communist Party; then dissolved all other opposition parties; he nationalised Germany's state governments; had the Reichstag abdicate its powers; outlawed the trade unions; got "unconditional obedience" from the army; and finally, in April 1942, secured absolute power for himself. William Shirer, a mainstream American historian, comments: "Not even in medieval times nor further back in the barbarian tribal days had any German arrogated such tyrannical power, nominal and legal as well as actual, to himself" (W Shirer The rise and fall of the Third Reich London 1960, p1,036).
The trouble with the SWP, and Respect in turn, is that they ignore Marx's historical materialism and seem instead to have fallen totally under the unedifying spell of little Britishers, right and left, who claim that constitutions - specifically written constitutions - are nothing but a dastardly foreign plot. Hence for them a constitution is not a field of struggle, but a fixed abstraction, an unmitigated evil, an attack on national culture and democratic rights. The SWP's Charlie Kimber can be cited, when, in the context of the debate with us over the euro, he wrote that no European institution has "delivered substantial reforms for workers" (Socialist Worker August 24 2002). Logically this cannot be taken to include the EU constitution too.
Yet the fact of the matter is that most sections of business in Britain noisily objected to Giscard d'Estaing's inclusion of the EU's existing charter on fundamental rights in his draft. They feared it would give workers in Britain extra rights. That is why, in May 2004, Gordon Brown solemnly promised the British Chamber of Commerce that the government would put in place one of its red lines in order to keep workers in this country in a position where they enjoy less rights than those in Italy, France and Germany. The pledge to maintain Tory anti-union laws was repeated by Tony Blair at a high-profile Downing Street press conference on June 15 - that is, just before he travelled to Brussels: "We are not prepared to have anything that takes away our ability to make sure our industrial laws in this country remains as flexible as they are now," he is quoted as saying (Financial Times June 16).
More to the point, no constitution, European or otherwise, has ever seen ruling classes willingly deliver anything substantial for workers. But sometimes they unwillingly deliver: not, it should be stressed, out of tender concern for fellow human beings or due to pangs of conscience. Social reforms are in general not brought about by the weakness of the strong, rather they are brought about by the strength of the weak. And that was exactly the case in Italy, France and Germany.
Constitutions are sites of class struggle and record in laws, conventions, etc, the ever changing balance of class forces. The EU constitution certainly embodies working class victories as well as defeats in its many and various articles. None of these articles come out from airy good intentions; instead they reflect the historic organisation of the working class in powerful trade unions and parties, bitter experience of capitalism's complicity in the horrors of fascism and the continued but tenuous hold of a declining capitalism, a hold maintained not least through the lie that capitalism and democracy are virtually synonymous. They are not. In fact, as we have exhaustively shown elsewhere, capitalism is democratic only to the extent that the weak have made themselves strong.
Under capitalism there is a wide spectrum of constitutional types. For the sake of simplicity we can list them as: nakedly autocratic, concealed autocratic, liberal monarchical, liberal republican, radical republican and dual power. At the one extreme the working class is either yet to stir or has suffered a crushing defeat. At the other, though, it stands on the threshold of state power. The EU's constitution inhabits neither extreme: it is a confederal mix of the liberal monarchical and liberal republican.
All constitutions - including the one proposed for the EU - are actually different forms or manifestations of the class struggle and, far from being "set in stone", they are, on the contrary, made and constantly remade. Take the unwritten - ie, labyrinthine, partly inherited from feudal monarchs, partially legislated by parliaments, partially judge-made - British constitution. Walter Bagehot emphasises in his classic study that, though it has "continued in connected outward sameness", in actuality it is "ever-altering" (W Bagehot The English constitution London 1974, p1). It is hardly "set in stone".
Britain was unmistakably capitalist in the 19th century. Nonetheless the lucrative business of government remained a virtual monopoly of the landed aristocracy. The constitution reflected continuity, but also ongoing change. Capitalists and the upper-middle classes gained the vote in 1832 - after threatening bloody revolution. Workers decisively moved onto the political stage in the 1840s with Chartism and began to make a subservient democratic breakthrough from the 1870s onwards.
Only in the 20th century did the working class once again emerge as something like a class - even then this was mediated in the form of bourgeois Labourism. Women virtually formed an oppressed sex-class till through struggle - respectable and revolutionary - they secured voting rights (equal to men in 1928). After World War II the working class made substantial reformist gains, in the form of the social democratic state, which was rolled back, but not abolished, by the Thatcherite counterreformation following the Tory general election victory in 1979 and crucially the defeat of the miners' Great Strike in 1985. Tony Blair introduced a new national settlement within the UK after 1997 - a Scottish parliament, Welsh assembly, the Good Friday agreement in Ireland, etc. This coincided with the deLabourisation of Labour.
Because it is multinational and continental in proportions, the EU constitution should be viewed as a higher field of the class struggle. Revolutionary socialists and communists must actively engage. A modest, but nonetheless welcome, start was made over May 22-23 2004 when 100 representatives from a wide range of leftwing organisations from across Europe got together in Rome (unfortunately the SWP decided not to send anyone).
The EU constitution should certainly be carefully studied and both our main disagreements and demands popularised through imaginative education and campaigning work. It is also an eminently worthwhile exercise to distinguish between what should be kept in and what should be deleted. Drawing up an alternative draft on that basis and deciding what should be added obviously necessitates long and painstaking international exchanges on the left. But to counterpose these two approaches, as some have done, is obviously mistaken. Combine both.
As a matter of urgency we must challenge and quickly overcome those in our ranks - eg, the SWP and Socialist Action - who say Europe and the EU constitution are "non-issues". That comrades from Italy and France strenuously fought for the London European Social Forum - October 15-17 2004 - to include the EU constitution as a major theme showed the right spirit. Eventually the ESF's programme organisers agreed, albeit reluctantly, to two or three lines of discussion on Europe, one of which would possibly touch upon the EU constitution. Criminally complacent and totally inadequate, of course.
Democratic unity
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. Where the member-states have been 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 another social content.
Capitalism has proven itself incapable of uniting Europe democratically into an effective "counterweight" to US imperialist hyperpower. Reliance on the market, an unelected bureaucratic elite, tortuous, makeshift deals by member governments and an essentially powerless EU parliament has produced nothing more than quasi-unity. No wonder Europe's masses show little enthusiasm for the EU and its essentially meaningless elections. Clearly the historically long overdue task of uniting Europe falls to the working class - as envisaged by Marxists such as Fredrick Engels, Karl Kautsky and Leon Trotsky.
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').
Given the relative economic and military strengths of competing countries in today's world, the varied levels of working class organisation and consciousness, and the likelihood that the tempo of the struggle for socialism will proceed unevenly in the future, one must conclude that the only serious hope of withstanding the concerted might of US counterrevolution lies with securing a united revolutionary Europe. From here socialism can both be defended and the flame rapidly spread … first into Russia, India and China, then into Africa and South America, and finally to the US itself.
That strategic perspective helps explain why we communists are far from indifferent about the EU constitution. Where they have made their shambolic bureaucratic-bourgeois Europe from above, the working class must make its democratic Europe from below. So 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". An almost laughable case of pandering to left nationalism. One might just as well suggest pulling the working class out of Britain.
The EU is a quasi-democratic "bosses' club". There is no difference here. But, instead of joining with Michael Howard and the Tories, the Murdoch press and UKIP, the BNP and the national socialist left, communists take up the weapons of organisation and democracy. We have 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 the Brussels constitution. Abolish the council of ministers and sack the unelected commissioners. For a single-chamber, executive and legislative, continental congress of the peoples, 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 constitutional right to organise and the constitutional 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 for 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. Full citizenship and voting rights for all those who may wish it and who have been resident in the EU for at least 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.