The Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) which is being prepared by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) will increase even further the power and privileges of trans-national corporations (TNCs) by undermining national regulations.
The Ecologist magazine (January/February 1997) quotes World Trade Organisation Director-General Renato Ruggiero boasting, "We are writing the constitution of a single global economy " The MAI would compel countries to treat TNCs as favourably as domestic companies without being subject to commitments that had previously bound them including the employment of local managers and compulsory purchase of domestically provided goods and services.
Many TNCs are attracted to countries through public subsidies, tax holidays and the waiving of customs duties.
In return some countries imposed performance requirements on them which included an obligation to meet employment goals such as equal opportunities tor women and minorities, pay a living wage and re-invest in the community.
These would be banned under the MAl as anti-competitive.
Capital flight
Obligations to retain investments within a country for a certain period would also be barred allowing corporations to use even the threat of corporate flight to low wage areas to undermine the bargaining power of Unions.
Standards to protect workers and consumers are absent from the MAI even the customary token mention they receive in other trade and investment agreements like NAFTA and GATT.
George Monbiot, writing in The Guardian points out that the far-reaching nature of these provisions reduce national parliaments to rubber stamp bodies and the status of elected representatives to that of filing clerks.
So this is living in a democracy? The decisions that matter are taken by unknown, unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats and company directors. THINGS are not going entirely to plan for Europe's bourgeoisie. After welcoming the victory of Tony Blair as Britain's man most likely to enter the European single currency, the wheels have come off the wagon with the shock electoral victory of Lionel Jospin's Socialist Party in France.
French President Jacques Chirac's gamble on calling elections a year early back-fired spectacularly.
The first round of voting brought a foretaste of the disaster pending for the right wing alliance, and triggered the resignation of Prime Minister Alain Juppé.
Chirac now faces five years as President with the government controlled by a leftwing alliance of the Socialist Party, Communist Party, Greens and smaller left organisations.
French capitalists certainly seemed convinced that the left could win: panic selling on the stock-exchange with the inevitable drop in the price of shares and bonds was the response to the likely formation of a Socialist Party-led government elected on a platform of cutting unemployment and seeking a reinterpretation or renegotiation of the Maastricht Treaty.
A victory for the right depended on them winning votes from the far-right Front National, which won 15 percent in the first round. But that failed to materialise, not least because the FN was itself divided over election tactics.
FN leader Jean-Marie le Pen favoured contesting the second round where it is eligible to stand. This will split the right wing vote and gave extra seats to the left, which has overturned the right wing's 200-seat majority.
However Le pen was not without his critics. Former Gaullist Bruno Megret, who scored 35 percent in the first round, wanted the FN to step down in favour of the traditional right-wing parties. But even where the FN was not standing many of their supporters abstained: some even voted for the left.
The elections are a clear rejection of Juppé's government's attempts to meet the Maastricht fight against austerity in Europe. * How workers are fighting back * A socialist answer inc postage from London N4 2UU criteria for monetary union. They reflect, at a Parliamentary level, the massive campaigns by French workers over the last few years against attacks on living standards and the welfare state. Despite the undoubted commitment to Maastricht by Juppe and President Chirac the right-wing government has been unable to impose its policies. It has frequently had to retreat in the face of determined opposition. The Socialist Party coalition has had to partly reflect that hostility. SP leader Lionel Jospin has been pushed into calling for a change in the Maastricht criteria so that monetary union is accompanied by measures to reduce unemployment. The 'social Europe' envisaged by both the Socialists and the Communist Party (which is openly opposed to a single currency) is profoundly at odds with the Europe of the Maastrich: Treaty. Indeed the left majority in the National Assembly now depends upon the backing of Communist. deputies, suggesting that Jospin could be forced even further into A new Socialist Outlook pamphlet setting out all you need to know on the background to the Euro-marches and the * The bosses' strateg; for a single currency and a * Why Maastricht is driving a fresh offensive against jobs, living standards and welfare rights across Europe All in easy-to-read A4 format, for just £1.20 Socialist Outlook, PO Box 1109, A wave of opposition to Maastricht austerity brings a wave of triumph from the grey man with red support opposition to the EMU process.
If the left attempt to put their policies into practice there would be no chance whatsoever of France being able to meet the criteria for monetary union.
Indeed, French opposition combined with Chancellor Kohl's current problems in Germany could now call the possibility of European monetary union into question Hence the hostility of the stockexchange to even the prospect of a government or tne leit.
If the left are the winners of the election the second biggest winners were undoubtedly the Front National. Their average score of 15 percent was their best ever - and in a number of seats their poll was much higher.
The FN was the only clearly anti-Maastricht party, which explains some of their support. They also attract support because of their racism, which has been legitimised by the government's adoption of ever harsher measures against imGet the facts, from International Viewpoint, monthly publication of the Fourth International, carries all the background information you cannot find in the bourgeois press. IVP's normal selling price is £2 per month, but British readers can subscribe jointly to IVP and Socialist Outlook for just £30 per year. Send your details and a cheque payable to Socialist Outlook to PO Box 1109, London N4 2UU. migrants.
But the FN also attract support because in some towns where they have influence they do try to provide solutions to the problems faced by workers and small business people (so long as they are white, of course).
Some of their highest scores, in fact, were in areas with few immigrants where the main issues were unemployment and the effects of the government's attempts to meet the Maastricht criteria, rather than immigration.
An incoming left government has to face up to the problem of the FN.
It has to learn that there must beno compromise with the FN on racism and immigration controls. Concessions to le Pen only strengthen him.
However, the left has to take note that many people vote FN as a protest against government attacks on their living standards and deteriorating conditions of life.
The left has to tackle these economic and social issues if it is to halt the rise of the FN.
on the March to Amsterdam Geoff Ryan ACCORDING to the World Economic Forum Britain now has the strongest pertorming economy in the European Union.
It attributes this to sweeping privatisation, deregulation and labour flexibility. Other European economies are condemned for failing to tackle a "growing welfare burden and inflexible rules on hiring and firing staff".
These conclusions were rapidly endorsed by Tony Blair. This was hardly surprising since Labour's pre-election Business Manifesto had said much the same thing.
Blair's vision of European unity involves fundamental attacks on workers throughout Europe. A stiff dose of British 'flexibility' is Blair's recipe for European workers.
European capitalists need to get tougher on their workforce if a single currency is ever to become a reality. For Blair the main problem a Socialist Outlook pull-out on th for European Competition, Sir David Simon. As former head of BP Simon knows all about how to deal with Labour governments: during the Wilson government in the 1960s BP continued to export oil to Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) despite it being illegal.
The new head of Gordon Brown's welfare "reform" taskforce is Martin Taylor, chief executive at Barclays Bank. He can also chip in a few ideas: Barclays was one of the main props of the apartheid regime in South Africa, and is busy making its own workforce more "flexible" by axing up to 20,000 jobs..
Labour's vision of Europe involves more than a massive attack on living standards and workFor Blair the main problem with the other European leaders is that they have not yet spite the supposed liberalisation of the 'primary purpose' rule, will remain thoroughly racist. Defence matters will continue to be decided where they always have been - in Washington. Blair has made it very clear what sort of Europe he wants: we have to be equally clear in our policies. As socialists we are opposed to the Maastricht single currency criteria, but for totally opposite reasons to Blair. Blair wants a Europe in which workers' living standards and rights are reduced to the lowest posbeen able to inflict the sort of crushing defeat on the working class that the Tories managed much further. After all, why should we stop at a common currency? Why not common rates of pay, common holiday entitlement, common welfare benefits etc.?
This is an argument that is going to become ever more important after the Euromarches are over. The campaign against Maastricht cannot stop there. We are totally opposed to a single currency without:
* common rates of pay for the same job * the same holiday entitlement * common social security benefits * common pensions * a common retirement age for men and women * the same trade union rights throughout the EU.
All of these should be at the highest existing levels.
This is a programme that not only provides an alternative to the pro-Maastricht position of the TUC and Blair's desire to reduce European workers to the level of those in Britain.
It also provides a clear alternative to the xenophobes of the Tory Party, and helps expose the motives of the other European governments who have seen the single currency as a way to level down, not level up workers' rights and living standards.
It will allow us to build on the success of the Euromarches in bringing workers throughout Europe together in common actions.
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