Capitalist offensive in Europe

CAPITALIST OFFENSIVE IN

EUROPE

The one thing that didn’t become an European elections was Europe itsel+. Traditionally these elections have been used in Ireland to measure the strength of oppposition to partition and the balance of forces between various parties. They also offer a chance to register a protest vote and Build campaigns. The capitalist parties have used them to reward the faithful with rich Guro-salaries and a5 a retirement ground.

issue in the All this is not too surprising. The European Parliament is 4a largely impotent talking-shop, and all attempts to popularise Europe and build a pan-European Patriotism ( in reality a European failed utterly. issues for Irish workers.

chauvinism) have Yet Europe and 1992 are important They herald a new attack on the rights of workers throughout Furope.

The elections were an attempt to give legitimacy to this new offensive. The results show that to a large extent this atteapt failed. The conservative architects of Europe suffered setbacks. The socialist parties gained - but ost of their leadeships offer no resistance to the bosses’ Europe. The result was.a crisis of leadership, with a proportion of the vote going to the extrese right, to the Greens and to far left parties

CAPITALIST NEEDS

The project of the Single European Act (SEA) and the 1992 deadline is to answer the needs of the biggest European corporations. They need to face up to competition from the i and Japan and the crisis following the 1787 stock market crash. The answer they have put forward is an econoeic restructuring around a single sarket. For the working class this means; redundancies, wages freezes, deskilling of jobs, privatisation - with attacks on the social needs of workers and on public sector workers and a constant drive to lower wages and conditions. Europe today is riven by national and regional inequalities. The new offensive will make that worse. The Europe of today holds 44 willion poor and [6 aillion uneaployed. The bosses plan to increase these numbers. Aesources will flow froa the poor to the rich and Ireland will become ever more arginalised, its population acting as a reserve army of labour for European capital.

EURI-PATRIOTISH

The bosses tried to sweeten the pill with a glossy campaign aised at developing a European patriotise - made uglier in many Countries by a growing discrimination against immigrant workers - and by compensatory financial mechanisas aimed at defusing protest. In the elections they were set by cymicisa and hostility.

The problem for the bosses is that the workers have heard it all before. Economic rationalisation and “Free Market’ policies have been in place in ast national economies for over a decade. All the policies to develop European sechanises have been in response to the inertia of the national econpaies in Europe. After each crisis the inertia returns anew, with the

PAGE 12

rights of working people further eroded.

Also in practice the big companises follow their own interests. Sometimes this is a single European market, but often the solution is alliances or mergers with Japanese or US capital. In fact, the bourgeoisie does not believe its om speeches on the virtues of economic liberalism. [he bosses know very well that inernational relations do not boil dom sieply to market relations. They need a COMO Currency, a diplomacy, an arry, a state. Without such instruments, Europe can only become a huge free-trade zone open to pressure froa all directions.

Against this background the mainstream conservative parties, seen as the architects of today's Europe, suffered most in the elections, and there was a distinct swing to social = democratic forces, aost marked in Britain, But Social Democracy is increasingly presenting itself as the most coherent and determined chaapion of Europe. fhe social democratic leaderships have presided over the failure of reformisa in their om Countries and turned away from leading fightbacks by the working class. Now they hope a capitalise organised on a Europe-wide basis tan provide an economic expansion and

that they can avoid conflict by looking for European codes on unesployaent, workers Fights, social conditions and so on. But their total and unquestioning submission to the capitalist logic of the SEA leads thes to accept and organise the social attacks implied in the 1992 project.

PROTEST

The large vote for Green parties is an indication of the radicalisatim of many voters. The Greens are against the SEA, denouncing the threat the free market presents to the environment and the logic of the European ares policy. The weakness in their position lies in their refusal to take a Clearly anti-capitalist position and turn towards the working class, Why separate an ecological commiteent from class commiteent, When the profit sotive is at the root of the evils they are denouncing?

The traditional policy of the Communist parties has been to link with the sost reactionary forces of the right against the FEC in the nase of national unity, fm example of this sort of campaign was the Erotty candidacy in Dublin.

In teras of revolutionary potential, the real focus of opposition to the EEC lay with the Sinn Fein campaign. Yet they had even less ispact in the European elections than in the local governeant elections in the North and in the General election in the South. On top of the overall probless of their election intervention came the issue of Europe and the failure of the Sinn Fein leadership to sake this an issue which sotivated their organisation and supporters and. was Seen aS a dynamic part of the struggle.

INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE

in order for this to be possible it is no longer enough simply to stand by the demands of national self - determination. Self —teterminatio. «is the «basis for a non-exploitive relationship asong nations tut, faced sith an international offensive by imperialisa we need a internationalist response that is capable of uniting struggles in many countries.

The basis of such a prespective was outlined by the Fourth international in its sanifesto for the European Elections: "We are for a Europe without frontiers, that develops comradeship between workers, brings dow artificial barriers between the peoples and frees oppressed nationalities from the straightjacket of the old state. We are for a Europe that opens up new and broad horizons for the development of material wealth, of technological resources and of How Europe’s major parties fared Seats % husan capacities, which are today fragmented and confined in narrow nation states. we are for a Europe rid of all] inequality between gen and worsen. We are for a Europe that upgrades social gains (in wages, jobs and social protection) to the gost advanced and proantes equal rights to jobs, health and education - the mast basic of fuaan rights. We are for a Europe oriented tomards the future, capable of overcoming regional inequalities, of foreseeing the damage caused by the race for profit and unbridled pillaging of natural resources.

We are for a Europe of peace and disarmament, which uses the resources today squandered om military budgets to satisfy real needs, to carry out research and to protect the environment. We are, finally, for a Europe that overcomes - rather than deepens and consolidates - the split that has divided it for aleost 5) years between an laperialist “West’ and a bureaucratic and Stalinist ‘East’ *, fs the class struggle in freland develops and seets the new international offensive of imperialism, 50 the ideas contained in the call “For a United Socialist States of Europe! will become gore central to revolutionary militants.

JEN NORTH.

Labour Conservative 32 (45) 35 (29) CemiAliance 0 (0) 6/19) Greens 0 (o) 4 (0) @ [4 i | itmty 27 (28) 40 (35) cD 27 (26 ~~ Gc 22 (27) 23133) CT Las J ae ol Sociatists” 14 (12) 18:18) Soc Dem 5 (7) 710) Lib'Rep 4 (5) 4 (6 Communists 4 (3) 6 (5) 4 a 6 7 Others 9 (5) 26(21) CO» Christian Cemocram, Soc Oam = Social Democrats, Prog Gem = Progresunes Democrai, Uivran = Libera! & Republican, EP = Extnete Pagee * Cartee Aight (Franca) includes, for 1980, beri ihe Giacard.and Vel liste,“ Sociafate {Raby} chien Social Gemocrate emats 2 (2), 6 (07%) Aasuite 2s aupected yextentay afersoon eth Tmmat counting SompeniEe

PAGE 13