Red Alert! - top Eurocrat leads neo-liberal challenge at Nice summit

Red Alert! - top Eurocrat leads neo-liberal challenge at Nice summit

European UNION Commissioner Pascal Lamy and the transnational corporations close to the Commission have good reason to believe that the Inter-Governmental Conference [IGC] to be held in Nice 7-8 December will modify Article 133 of the Amsterdam Treaty. If this happens, the struggle against corporate-led globalisation will receive a serious setback.

Although treaty revisions may sound technical and boring, the implications are of the utmost gravity:

Article 133 covers the relations between the Commission and member countries with regard to international trade.

Trade, according to the Treaty, is an area of "mixed competence" between the Commission and the 15 member states, at least in the crucial fields of services, intellectual property and investment.

This means that national parliaments have to approve Agreements concerning these subjects and member country governments can veto them.

A 1994 judgment of the European Court guarantees mixed competence in these three areas [services, intellectual property, investment] whereas industrial goods are governed by the "qualified majority voting" system which gives broad powers to the Commission.

The French government which until recently opposed any changes is now proposing to modify Article 133.

Since July, Commissioner Lamy has undertaken a campaign to obtain broad powers and qualified majority voting for services [including health, education, audio-visual, transport, environment and all public services]; intellectual property [including Genetically Manipulated Organisms] and investments [along the lines of the failed MAI].

In September, he announced to a French Parliamentary Commission that "only France and Spain remained to be convinced" of the need to change in Article 133 to give the Commission far greater power.

We have now learned that the French government is espousing the "socialist" Commissioner Lamy's cause.

The preparatory texts for the IGC, under the French Presidency, no longer even suggest that Article 133 should be left as it is; that member states should retain the veto and national parliaments the power to ratify future trade agreements.

The texts now circulating propose three "options", each of which would significantly extend the powers of the Commission, and dramatically reduce democratic space and citizen involvement.

The differences between the "options" France is now proposing concern mainly points of detail.

Option A has two variants: the first places only services and intellectual property under qualified majority voting; the second adds investment. This doesn't matter greatly, since the services agreement in the framework of the World Trade Organisation [GATS] protects the investments of foreign service suppliers anyway.

Option B proposes that member states can change Article 133 by qualified majority voting, in order to include the three presently excluded areas of services, intellectual property and investment.

Here is a question for legal specialists: since the European Court says that Article 133 does not apply to these three areas, and that any decision concerning them has to be unanimous, how can this decision be changed by qualified majority voting?

This sounds suspiciously like a conjuror's trick.

Option C consists in a Protocol of 8 articles and 19 paragraphs in all which would apply only to negotiations within the WTO, which is, of course, by far the most important forum for trade negotiations. In this case the Commission would have far greater powers than today-not just over the three areas of services, intellectual property and investment but over all the Agreements overseen by WTO - more than two dozen all told.

The Commission's negotiating mandate would be set by qualified majority voting, and the Commission would represent all member states in the Dispute Resolution Body.

Commissioner Lamy wants trade liberalisation across the board; what he is asking for can be compared to the fast-track powers which the US Congresss refused for President Clinton.

If any of these changes to Article 133 - whether Option A, B or CC - are accepted, the door will be open to neo-liberal doctrine and corporate demands with which both the Commission and Lamy agree wholeheartedly.

The structures of European government will become even more opaque, centralised and anti-democratic.

There is still time to stop the revision of Article 133. Our governments must not be allowed to hand over their sovereignty in this area, however desirable it might be to have qualified majority voting in other areas, for example social policy, where a single government like the UK can block policies which would be advantageous to citizens.

The gains of the past 100 years at least, including our social rights, our public services, health-care and education systems, are all at risk. We must mobilise against any changes to Article 133 and prevent France from capitulating in Nice.