EU: reasons to be cheerful. posted by Richard Seymour

I was asked by a commenter to post some material on why the Left should have opposed this constitution. Now, I'm hungover and lazy and ever-so-slightly bad tempered at the moment, so it's just as well others have already done the work for me.

The best piece so far has come from the formidable and witty Apostate Windbag , from which I excerpt:

1. Articles 111-69, 70, 77, 144 and 180 all identically repeat that the Union will act 'in conformity with the respect for the principles of an open economic market where competition is free.'

2. There are numerous clauses that specifically correspond to demands made by certain employer organisations.

3. The ECT demands unanimous voting for any measures that might go against corporate interests. This is the certainly case for measures against tax fraud, or taxation of companies. Such legislative movement in this regard requires a unanimous vote as, above all, "[it is] necessary for the functioning of the internal market and to avoid distortion of competition." (111-63). Thus, any future proposed duty imposed on corporations would be subject to unanimous voting - something the Ouistes regularly trot out as being reduced under the ECT.

4. Shockingly, the ECT demands all states' subservience to NATO: '[M]ember states shall undertake progressively to improve their military capacities.' (1-40-3). Article 1-40-2 says that European defence policy shall be compatible with members' NATO obligations, a direct recognition of the superior judicial status of that military organisation. Furthermore, the article continues with even greater precision that "participating member states shall work in close collaboration with NATO". Even in situations of "internal serious disturbances affecting public order, in cases of war or of [...] the threat of war", member states are obliged to work together in order to avoid "affecting" the functioning of the "internal market"! (III-16)'

5. Perhaps most disturbing in the ECT is clause 17 of the third section, regarding the question of the break-up of public services: It is permitted that a member state can be in favour of maintaining a public service. But public services have: "the effect of distorting the conditions of competition in the internal market, [and] the Commission shall, together with the state concerned, examine how these steps can be adjusted to the rules laid dawn in the Constitution. By derogation of common law procedure, the Commission or any member state can apply directly to the Court of Justice which will sit in secret..." (III-17)' Thus the constitution from the start commits member states to the ultimate elimination of public services.

I also mentioned the anti-democratic aspects of the Treaty a couple of days ago, and Doug Ireland has more:

[T]he Constitution was anti-democratic, for it kept real power in the hands of the unelected European Commission (whose members are appointed by their national governments) rather than giving it to the elected Europarliament in Strasbourg. The EU’s presidency, currently a rotating one, was given a longer term — but the president, too, would have been appointed by the commission. The 300-page Constitution — the longest ever in the world’s history, and written in obscure legalese incomprehensible to the average voter — would have irremovably enshrined matters of policy, including conservative economic policies, that would normally be decided by democratically elected governments. And it could only have been amended by a unanimous vote of all 25 EU countries — another boon to the multinationals, which also easily could have purchased a veto from a small country’s government-for-sale.

The European Parliament, the only elected body in the entire EU apparatus, has no executive powers and only limited veto powers. The unelected EU Commission, by contrast, combines executive and legislative powers - thereby thwarting even the bourgeois-democratic norms of popular sovereignty and separation of powers.

There's a good brief on what this means for the European Left here , and a another here . Meanwhile, Serge Halimi of Le Monde Diplomatique sticks it to the neoliberalisers .

A note on right-wing opponents of the Treaty in Britain. I saw the garrulous loud-mouth Peter Oborne on the BBC this morning claiming that the conservative opponents of the Treaty didn't see enough Anglo-Saxon free-market in it, they thought it was too protectionist etc. Bullshit. What's more likely is that the anti-EU Tories are split between small businesses and their supporters who want more protectionism and feel threatened by open EU markets because of cheaper competition in the new, smaller states, and those who want the same free marketeering and militarism, but want the axis of such policies to be an Anglo-American one. Fortunately, the French Left have shown how we in Britain can turn an anti-EU vote (should Blair stupidly push a referendum) into a 'Non' to Blairism .