step towards unified European state, the biggest step in the history of the EC. There was bound to be a big reaction against this.
Capital in Western Europe is still organised on a nation-state basis; the development of pan-European capital is still very limited, and important sectors of capital still benefit from national protection and thus feel threatened by the loss of that protection.
Big multinational enterprises, includ ing ÜS firms, could benefit from pan-European unification; but many smaller firms feel threatened. Many sectors of industry throughout Europe are worried by a single market, fearing that their nationally-protected markets could be blown away.
In addition the recession has meant mounting pressures on each government towards protectionist measures.
Politically the whole Maastricht operation has been badly handled. There is nothing in it that could mobilise mass support, for example new commitments to democratic rights, defence of the enTop Eurocrat - Jacque Delors Leading the opposition - Tebbit Covering costs of unification - Kohl vironment or new social rights: in reality the Social Chapter is very weak.
In fact many sectors of the masses in Europe feel threatened by the attack on social conditions which is implied by economic convergence.
Monetary union has been undermined by the enormous waves of currency speculation torpedoing the ERM. This has been caused by the complete liberalisation of capital markets in the 1980s and of course the fantastic economic crisis shaking the capitalist world.
It has also been undermined by high German interest rates, a product of the need to finance unification. This incidentally was a reflection of the very rapid gobbling up of the GDR by West Germany; they felt they had to do this very rapidly because of French and British opposition to unification.
This begs the question of whether there was a deliberate attempt in some quarters to undermine the ERM. This we don't know: what is certain is that the American banks made a killing from the financial crisis, and they are known to be against the ERM. How do you explain the budgetary and social welfare cutbacks in Italy. Are the strikes against them the first 'anti-Maastricht' strikes? Of course the cutbacks in Italy are connected to preparation for European monetary union. Budget deficits have to be reduced to 3 per cent of GDP according to the Maastricht rules, and this is impossible without massive reductions in state spending.
But the cutbacks in Italy are not just about Maastricht. They are also an attempt to preserve the unity and integrity of the Italian state, under threat from the right-populist Northern Leagues. The Leagues are campaigning against what they see as huge subsidies from the industrial north to southern Italy.
The Italian budget deficit is not just caused by the huge size of the Italian welfare state, which of course is a massive historic gain of the working class. It also arises from a hugely bloated state apparatus. Tens of thousands of state agencies exist for no good reason except to provide employment to hangers-on of the Christian Democrats. This is the corrupt clientalist structure which has enabled the Christian Democrats to stay in power in the post-war period.
But having said that of course the Maastricht preparations do involve vast attacks on the rights of Italian workers. And it is very positive that the European left has generally understood what Maastricht involves; for example in Italy the Party of Communist Refoundation has played a very active role both in mobilising against welfare cutbacks and in fighting ratification of the Maastricht treaty. Will the Tories be compelled to make cutbacks of a similar scale? It's not at all clear that the Tories will be able to go into monetary union. Certainly the Tories won't be able to reduce the budget deficitsufficiently to meet the Maastricht rules in the foreseeable future. This could only happen if there was a sustained economic growth.
But in any case there will be massive pressures for social welfare cutbacks in Britain with or without Maastricht. The present government knows that confidence in the pound will not be restored without demonstrating to international financial markets they can make 'tough' economic policies work. If the GATT trade talks fail, will it lead to an international trade war? There's no doubt about that. There is a really bitter conflict going on in these talks between the major trading blocs, especially between the US and Europe over farm subsidies.
But there should be no illusions; if they do stitch up a deal for GATT there will be no return to a free trade regime internationally, but just a stabilisation of what is increasingly managed trade between blocs. Even a successful GATT outcome cannot revitalise the world economy. Bogey figure of Tory right - French president Mitterand How should the left respond to the Maastricht crisis? It should respond at several levels. In the first place of course it must continue to fight Maastricht and the attacks on state spending it implies. This also means fighting not only attacks on welfare rights, but all the reactionary aspects of 'Fortress Europe - for example the barriers erected against immigrants and asylum seekers and the tariff walls against eastern Europe and the third world. But the left must advance an alternative programme to Maastricht. We have to argue in favour of stepped-up state spending and in favour of economic expansion to combat these monstrous levels of unemployment -30 million unemployed in Europe. Maastricht-style deflation will not get us any of these things.
But in the end a new leap forward in the productive forces does indeed mean a deepening integration of the national economies. What the Maastricht crisis shows up is the extreme difficulty that nationally-based imperialist states have in making a new leap forward, to create a new European-wide capitalist state.
As internationalists we are not for defending national sovereignty. We must put forward a programme for the integration of European economies in the interests of the mass of the population - workers, women, youth and immigrant workers.
This is what Trotsky meant when he advanced the slogan of a 'United Socialist States of Europe'. We can explain this is many ways, the words are not the key thing.
The main point is to popularise the idea of an alternative Europe, the way Tony Benn explained it in his 'Europe Bill' in parliament.
A Europe which guarantees social and democraticrights: the right to work, the right to social welfare benefits, equality for immigrants and women, defence of the ecology, economic growth, breaking from imperialist exploitation of the third world Europe has enormous resources to guarantee all these things. But it means taking a very different road from that envisaged in the Maastricht treaty.
No. 31 7 Nov, 1992
- Features.