LAST FRIDAY the whole of Europe's bourgeois political leadership arrived in Birmingham to deal with the Maastricht crisis caused by the semi-collapse of the Exchange Rate Mechanism.
In the British media the conference was completely buried by the pits crisis. John Major used the post-conference press conference almost exclusively to explain the government line on pit closures. But the reality was that the conference itself was at best a public relations exercise, at worst a fiasco.
Dilemma
Capitalist Europe has found no way out of the Maastricht crisis; and the Tory government has found no solution to its 'in or out dilemma.
The conference declaration talked about 'making the EC more open' so that the citizens of the various countries can 'understand' it; and respecting the history culture and rights of TEN MILLION Italian workers individual nations.
But the Maastricht crisis doesn't stem from a lack of understanding; it arises directly from the irreconcilable contradictions between Britain (supported by Denmark) and the rest of the EC. creates, literally, a single movement of labour and capital in the EC. But Maastricht P goes much further - towards? building a single political entity in Western Europe.
Economic union and a single defence and foreign policy are keystones of the treaty. That's why the collapse of the ERM would signal the complete defeat of the Maastricht process, and withdrawal from the ERM is such a blow to the Maastricht timetable.
The Birmingham conference of course did nothing to resolve this tangle. Britain and Denmark demand a wideextension of 'subsidiarity', an arcane notion which means in short the Major - not only waving but drowning return of decision-making on key issues from the EC to the member states.
Thwarted
But despite all the pretence, subsidiarity' can only go so far. The 'core six' nations of the EC (Germany,France, Italy and the Benelux countries) will not allow the move towards monetary and foreign policy union to be thwarted by the 'subsidiartity' con. Which leaves Denmark and Britain in a complete fix.
Denmark is in a fix because without a considerable reworking of Maastricht there is nil chance of getting the treaty through a second And the Tories are in a fix because with the Maastricht treaty they can neither afford to be in, or out, of the process of Help Build Socialist Outlook European union. To be on the inside means to bow down to the deflationary diktats of the Bundesbank, further worsening Britain's economic collapse; to be on the outside means to undermine equal access to Britain's main export market.
While the pits crisis hogs the headlines, Major's Europe crisis is just beginning.