We are opposed to the development of a more centralised European super-state, which will take ever less democratic decisions in upholding the rule of the wealthy minority over the vast majority of European working people.
The need is to build an opposition to the EU and the Euro which rejects the nationalist agenda of the Tory right. We need a position which recognises that to oppose the EU and the single currency is also to defend the working class against the ravages of the neo-liberal offensive and the global economy as it is reflected through the institutions of the EU, which are designed to increase the rate of exploitation and destroy welfare and social provision.
The Nice summit marked another major step towards by the European Union towards such a state. It further strengthened the character of the EU as a bosses’ Europe, designed to increase the profitability of the employers, increase the power of multi-national capital and financial institutions, maximise flexibility in the work-place, and run down welfare.
Enlargement will expand the EU from 15 to 27 member states. At stake in Nice was who will be the real decision makers in the EU under enlargement, the first round of which is due in four years time. If the structures had not been reformed, enlargement would shift the balance of power towards the smaller countries.
This was unacceptable to the big countries, who have long wanted a major shift in the other direction. And that is what they achieved in Nice.
Nice opened up a critical four year period for the EU - from now until the summer of 2004 - when the first round of applicants (Estonia, Slovenia, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary and Malta) are due to join. (Turkey has been granted applicant status but has not been accepted for negotiations).
A Super Summit will then be held (under the Dutch presidency) to promote a "deeper and wider" discussion on the future of the EU - to map out the next stage of integration. Enlargement on this scale will create by far the biggest single trading block in the world, with a population of nearly 500 million, almost twice the size of the USA. But it’s a difficult process, and success is not guaranteed - even given the massive political will behind it.
The Nice summit extended Qualified Majority Voting (QMV) in the Council of Ministers, the law-making body of the EU, into 29 new areas. Currently about two thirds of the Council’s decisions are subject to QMV.
Trade in services and intellectual property rights were brought under OMV. This could open the door to the liberalisation and deregulation of services throughout the EU within the framework of the World Trade Organisation and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). What could not be achieved in the form of the OECD’s Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) can now be smuggled in through via the EU.
The summit also agreed a radical reallocation of votes between the member states on the Council of Ministers, for implementation once the process of enlargement starts. These changes tripled the votes of the big countries, and mean that after expansion power in the EU would now be concentrated in the hands of the biggest and most powerful countries, most importantly Germany, France and the UK, the key European imperialist countries, who can run it in their own interests.
Nice also agreed a so-called Charter of Fundamental Rights. Whilst its provisions fall short of the existing situation in many of the member states, the significance of the Charter is as a fore-runner of a EU constitution - another essential requirement for the development of the structures of a super-state.
The proposed European Rapid Reaction Force is another strategic development. It is difficult to have a super-state without an army, particularly when it is a super-state which, after enlargement, will have external borders in the east stretching from Lithuania to Belarus, and Ukraine to Turkey and the Balkans.
Nice therefore agreed to form an EU Rapid Reaction Force, a forerunner of an EU army. Its relationship to NATO is complicated by the fact that not all EU members are members of NATO: Austria, Finland, Ireland and Sweden are not. And not all European members of NATO are members of the EU. Six are not - including Turkey which has the second biggest army in NATO.
Enlargement will not just change the size of the EU, it will change its social character. Although the EU currently has 62m people living below the poverty line, this will escalate dramatically with enlargement. The richest new applicant, Slovenia, has a standard of living roughly in line with Portugal, the poorest of the existing members. But EU membership will not drag the peoples of the east out of such poverty. It is more likely that the differences will be structured into the expanded EC, with the people of the east providing a cheap labour zone within it.
This means that the issue of the free movement of people within the EU after enlargement, under the Schengen agreement, will be writ large. The rich countries of the EU are unlikely to agree to open their borders to the poor people of the east. Right-wing populists and neo-fascists from Haider in Austria to the Vlaams Blok in Belgium and the Northern League in Italy are whipping up racism around the issue, talking of ’hordes’ of impoverished people streaming in from the east and taking all the jobs.
The EU and integrationism have little popular support in many of the member states, apart from the poorest ones which receive cohesion funds. The Danish referendum was a welcome shot across the bows for those who want a federal super-state - particularly since it rejected entering the single currency in the teeth of opposition from every major political party and all the mainstream media. Nor was the vote based on British Tory-type nationalism, but on a genuine fear of a loss of democratic control of the country.
But our opposition to the EU as a completely phoney and reactionary type of "internationalism" - the ’solidarity’ of Europe’s bosses, bankers and generals - by no means that we are opposed to the development of a genuine, working class internationalism. Our view is quite the opposite.
Common action, common organisation and common political opposition to the offensive of European and global capital have never been more important for working people.
With car manufacturers and hi-tech companies alike trying to play off workers in one country against workers elsewhere, and mounting a new continent-wide - even world-wide - drive for rationalisation and greater exploitation, we call for trade union and other grass roots organisations to act now to forge the widest possible international links.