THE MAASTRICHT summit of European Community leaders
Alvarez Emparanza.
held from December 8-11, ended, as expected in compromise.
Certain questions clarified
Agreement was reached on a schedule for European
The press conference enabled a certain monetary union, a harmonized social policy, and a joint number of questions to be clarified. The foreign and defence policy - with Britain retaining an opt-out participants are not opposed to European union, on condition that it is not just technocratic as at present, but tending towards a Europe of the peoples.
But even from this point of view, everything that removes powers from centralized states is viewed favourably by
Alvarez Emparanza, who prefers a European ECU to a diversity of currencies for example.
This immediately raises the question of the meaning of the sovereignty of those nations without states. Alvarez' answer is clear: "there are some levels of competence that we are not demanding: not an army, not a frontier and not a currency".
Can this really be the position of all CON-
SEU's members, when they see what is happening in the East?
The reply was guarded and the spokespersons replied that the Conference is not unanimous on everything, representing a minimum platform whose nodal point is the right to self-determination, allowing it to draw in as many nations as possible.
In November 1992, the third General
Assembly of CONSEU will take place in
Corsica with the participation of the
Amerindian nations, for, as J. L. Alvarez said, the "discovery" of the Americas is something of which states that like to consider themselves civilized should be ashamed. *
14
KUNT clause on the first two. CLAUDE GABRIEL
D OES the compromise reached
at Maastricht mean that "European construction" is going forward or backwards? Can we say that the projects of the Single Act and Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) have been finally compromised by an accumulation of obstacles which are both economic and institution-
The answer to such questions is of vital importance, since the failure of the EMU project worl be more than simply one episode among others; it would be a turning point in the whole political and economic situation in Europe.
The mass media have built up an atmosphere of suspense. Every time the preparations for Maastricht have hit a snag. many newspapers have concluded that the community project is finished. But, as soon as a new compromise is reached a few days later, by The Hague, Bonn or Paris, the same editorialists proclaim that an important step forward has been taken.
Only the British press, following the line of the Major government, have generally stuck to a consistently critical and sceptical approach.
Recriminations in the press
In the same vein, at the very moment when the French press was "fearing" that the new Germany would break up the European project to turn towards Mitteleuropa [Central Europe], the German press for its part was announcing that it was really the French commitment to Europe that was starting to waver out of fear of the new united Germany.
Thus national public opinion is shaped to suit diplomatic needs and the manoeuvres of politicians. At the very moment when the capitalist high command is, out of necessity, freeing itself from "national" hindrances and constraints, an appeal continues to be made to chauvinist fantasies to hide the real issues in the great restructuring underway.
But what are the real mechanisms at work behind this smokescreen?
When the Yugoslav crisis broke out, many editorialists expressed their vexation at the lack of a common Community approach and its inability to arrive at a serious intervention policy.
So many things are expected from this Europe. For some it should deal with national disparities and soak up unemployment: others see in it the road to an economic relaunch; others want it to become a new regional policeman.
First of all it is necessary to untie the tangle of divergences which have set the states and governments of the community against one another in recent months.
The list is certainly long, from the form of association of the Eastern European countries to the role of the future central bank, not to mention the weight of the European parliament, the powers of the Brussels commission, the need for a common diplomacy and the perspective of an integrated defence system.
The real points of division
However the question is: what are the real points of division, and what are in the last analysis only secondary contradictions? For example, it is not the events in Central Europe and the Soviet Union that have suddenly destabilized the project for Economic and Monetary Union.
Thee is no reason whatsoever why, in the present-day world, Germany would want to veer off on its own tack in pursuit of uncertain gains in the East, when a solvent market of nearly 400 million people has been in existence for a long time in the West. The two things are not even to be compared. And if the German economy can fight on two fronts, it is not in the slightest ready to sacrifice the advantages of the big integrated West European market.
A survey of the various hitches in the construction of EMU, and of the positions of each individual state at each hitch, makes it clear that there are no defined camps defending worked out and coherent
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Maastricht
December 23, 1991 • #219 International Viewpoint positions on Europe.
Whether one is talking about defence, the role of the Strasbourg parliament, the mix of "federalism" or "confederalism", the role of the ECU (European Currency Unit), the rhythms of and steps towards monetary union, the common agricultural policy and so on, different groupings and alignments of states and governments arise.
This diversity could be seen as yet another proof of the weakness of the Community, since it reveals the heterogeneity of interests. But is there anything astonishing about that? Things were no different at the time of the Treaty of Rome and the first days of the Common Market. However, in the end, the long-term interests of capital prevailed over inertia and sectoral considerations.
It is all the more the case now that the present differences favour pragmatism and compromise. The heart of the affair is to be found elsewhere, in the reorganization of the determinant sectors of capital and in the search for a way out of the cri-
The problem is thus not so much that the "Europeans" have been unable to reach an agreement on Yugoslavia and undertake a vigorous intervention there. The Yugoslav imbroglio in any case makes any policy of external intervention, including by each state taken separately (assuming that the individual states have such policies) risky.
### Common response considered
While it is clear that the European partners do not all have the same interests, it is above all remarkable that, for the first time - and moreover faced with a military conflict in Europe — a response and a common military intervention have been considered. The fact that there has been a debate on this question is a significant sign of the tendencies at work.
The same is shown by some of the debates on "European defence". The fact that the recent NATO summit ended in a compromise, recognising the link between NATO and the EEC, confirms the long-term tendency towards a new European militarism.
At the same moment, furthermore, Madrid announced that it would get involved in the project to set up a joint Franco-German force, while, a few weeks later, Belgian troops participated in manoeuvres alongside troops from this famous Franco-German brigade.
It is very hard for the Americans to demand that Germany take a growing political, and above all financial, part in world defence and at the same time oppose the progressive crystallization of a
European defence system.
The concentration of a European military-industrial lobby is little by little becoming associated with a European defence doctrine and with specific real political and diplomatic interests.
This perspective can go hand in hand with the maintenance of a revised Atlantic Alliance and the preservation of a central role for American military forces. The world is no longer to be kept in line by a single hegemonic power, but capitalism has, more than ever, need of a multiform repressive capability.
The decisive change is thus elsewhere - it is in the relationship that is being progressively established between European political institutions on road to integration and a part of the "Western" defence system.
This new layering of responsibilities is the outcome of two things: the relative political and economic weakening of the United States (despite the Gulf War, one of whose aims was to re-position this country within the imperialist camp and the rise of all kinds of perils in Eastern Europe and the Third World. No unchallenged policeman
The EEC has its own interests and special responsibilities in this second area. Neither France, Germany nor Britain taken separately can play the role of unchallenged policeman in Africa, the Indian Ocean or Eastern Europe. Thus, a sign of the times, it is at this precise moment that the objective possibility of European military integration, capable of rising to the challenge, has arisen.
Such a transformation doubtless needs much time. But on this point, as on others, a definitive halt to progress in this direction will not come from internal economic or political contradictions. Only social struggles, with the entrance onto the scene of militant political and social movements, can put a spanner in the works of the bourgeoises European integration.
There are two kinds of problem involved in getting EMU off the ground. The first is that of the opening of markets and the restructuring of European enterprises in the framework of the Single Act.
WESTERN EUROPE MAAST feRGusor The second is that of the institutions, of the type of political community and the extension of the prerogatives of these into defence and diplomacy.
Between these two levels, the monetary question plays a pivotal role, being both necessary for the "big market" and a decisive step to the establishment of effective supra-national institutions.
It is here that the major present obstacle arises. This is the decisive moment when the inequality between the advances in the internationalization of capital and the political processes will make itself felt This desynchronization has been underlined many times, notably in relation to the enormous difficulties of replacing the present "national" states with a protoEuropean state.
Loss of discipline in EMS
Besides social resistance and political struggles, the only factor that could provoke a prolonged failure would be monetary disorder due to the loss of discipline
Monetary System (EMS), the result of the failure to establish a single currency in time. This eventuality
We have already pointed out that we are now in a sprint: the present period - of free circulation of capital, and relative parities under review - cannot last long without the establishment of definitive within the EMS or without a homogenization of discount rates - that is as much as to say, without a decisive step towards a single currency.
Given the growing internationalization of the European economies, the EMU would have immediate advantages over the present transitional period. It would, for example, allow stable exchange rates, thanks to the ECU becoming the "single
Currently, the EMU's proponents calculate the cost of exchange transactions at 0.5% of the Gross Domestic Product of the Community. Exchange stability would appearance of speculative and other antic 15 be an anti-inflationary element and the dis-
International Viewpoint #219 • December 23, 1991
WESTERN EUROPE pations of exchange variations would make it a safer bet to place savings in Europe.
Furthermore, the institutions of the future Europe have as much need of the ECU as single currency, as the ECU has need of a "European state", in which the ruling classes and business have confidence, to really play its role. A currency will not be accepted by capitalists unless it is backed up by a reliable state apparatus able to oversee the regulation of the system.
Monetary and institutional questions are thus one single problem with two unknowns. This is the real gordian knot of the moment, rather than the Yugoslav crisis, exports of Czechoslovak meat or the Austrian and Swedish applications for EEC membership.
It might seem that the major contradiction between the economic and financial domain, on the one hand, and the monetary and political domains, on the other, is insurmountable. increasingly complex intertwining of European industrial and financial interests and the establishment of the big market mean that a definitive failure of the EMU project would have gigantic consequences on the economic and social planes.
These consequences would then change the relation of forces between the classes on the continent. This would leave the system in mid-stream. While having broken away from past forms of protectionism and national economic policies, the transformation into something else coherent would not have taken place.
A new era of conflicts and struggles
Such a failure would open the way for very deep economic disturbances which could lead to a new era of conflicts and mass struggles. We should be in no doubt that the ruling classes and the governments are well aware of this. The existence of political will is thus one of the facts in this matter and explains the current pragmatism and compromises.
What the French press interpreted as the anti-European obsession of Margaret Thatcher on the monetary issue in fact turned out to correspond to a more accurate grasp of the rhythms and difficulties. The "Mitterrandian" dream of a rapid advance towards a federal Europe equipped with a single currency has had to bide its time. The French president has himself had to concede a longer term approach to monetary union to the Ger-
The present British position is not thus based on some ideological tendency to "Atlanticism", the defence of national sovereignty or other such nonsense. It is above all the present structure of British capitalism that explains the specific European policies of London (see box). And the change from the Thatcher to the Major era expressed a slight adjustment of the hands of the Downing Street clock, precisely as a function of the tendencies at work in the processes of British industrial alliances and restructurings.
All the countries of the Community are thus confronted by the same problem: to at one and the same time open up their markets to foreign competition, while at same time defending their own "national champions".
Two processes are running alongside (..e another: the international reorganization of capital on the one hand, and the specific reorganizations on the European plane (including the EFTA countries as nature of this process makes the industrial restructuring process in Europe an extremely complicated process to follow. Alliances, fusions and takeovers cross and inter-cross between Europeans, Americans and Japanese, sharing out areas of different interests according to branches and products.
It has often been pointed out that there is no ready formed European industrial fabric properly speaking. However, in some important branches things have advanced a long way. These include banks and insurance, aerospace, aeronautics and air travel, and to some extent arms, energy and electricity, distribution and partly also the food industry.
Sectors of straightforward competition
There are also sectors where, for the moment, the big European market allows a straightforward competition between European partners, who can devour each other joyfully without the direct intervention of the Japanese or Americans; this is true for example of road transport and, for the moment, railways.
On the other hand there are two major industrial sectors where, while a European alliance would be of vital strategic importance, a failure has already been recorded. The first of these is cars, a sector which is struggling to escape the Japanese embrace and will lose more and more ground to the latter.
And then there is electronics, where dependence on Japan for micro-processors and the new alliance between Macintosh and IBM sounds the knell for European hopes in this field (Bull, Phillips, Olivetti). It also seems that the "battle" over high definition television, conducted by means of specific European protectionist meas-
The wide-ranging global restructuring now underway weighs without doubt on the EMU.
For the restructurings that have been taking place over the past ten years are not only aimed at concentrating European capital and overcoming the competition between the "national champions" to form a new European industrial fabric on the basis of sharing out the big market. They have also and above all been aimed at winning control of a part of the world market.
Now, on this level, for each type of product, it is necessary in one way or another to conquer a part of the American market — the European market being insufficient - and it is necessary to very rapidly establish oneself among the three leading groups in the world.
From a national to a global approach
It is also necessary to go from a fundamentally "national" industrial approach to cope with global challenges; between these two "European industry" is a simple "potentiality". Starting from this point, the big groups can oscillate between a doctrine of European protectionism (as for example, with the positions of Peugeot towards the Japanese) and a doctrine of generalized free exchange.
It seems however that the present outcome of these multiple fragmented strategies of capital is to reinforce the perspective of EMU. There have been repeated appeals from big European firms for a speed up in reaching a monetary agreement as well as to Brussels for aid to foster competitive European industries.
In the background, despite all the nonsense talked on this subject by liberals trying to justify austerity, is the ever more important role of the state. This latter is all the more needed since it alone can contin-
Britain's stake in the US economy
BRITAIN controlled $120bn of investments in the United States in June 1990.
This is more than a third of total direct foreign investments in that country - the
December 23, 1991 • #219 International Viewpoint ue to assist and organize research and certain investment projects which require gigantic sums — see the parallel role of the Miti (a public body
WESTERN EUROPE which coordinates the research and development total for Europe being $268bn. Between 1980 and 1990, while the total of forpolicies of the enterprises) in Japan.
eign investments increased some 4.8 times (the European figure being about
At present — a little in the manner of the same), British investments went up 8.5 times.
two firms assuming in common the risks
In 1989, four of the ten biggest investment operations were carried out by Britof a research project or the launch of a ish capitalists, and 28 of the 109 investment operations of more than $100m.
new product — the European states must
Since 1987, new British investments represented 40% of the total of new forintervene together to support certain big eign investments. These British investments are going first of all into manufacindustrial projects.
turing (36.3%), notably chemicals (39% of British investment in manufacturing).
This is the role of the programmes of public aid for common research: Race,
British assets in the US made up 16.7% of foreign sales (32.2% of European
Esprit, Eureka and so on. But this is also sales). British subsidiaries employed the most people (734,000) in 1989, a third the case for deals such as Airbus, the Ariof the jobs in European firms. However, since these investments are mainly in ane-Espace company and the Hermes prothe traditional sectors, they are dependent on the American economic cycle.
This is one of the reasons why there has been a slowdown in British investment ne real challenge is now the "tutur in the USA since 1990. * oducts such as high delinition televi sion, biotechnology and genetics, high speed trains, the "intelligent" car, telecommunications and multimedia prod-
UcIs.
Creation of proto-state necessary
The need for the organization, assistance and taking in hand of a part of the risks by the public authorities argues in favour of the creation of a proto-state capable of financing and coordinating these needs. This is something from which British capital cannot escape, and this is no doubt also the conviction of
Major, who must however manoeuvre within his own party and also face the challenge of the upcoming elections.
The EMU was objectively presupposed in the Single Act. It is not possible to allow capital to circulate freely without very quickly posing the problem of a common currency. Without that, the slightest important imbalance in the EMS, with the present disorder, could bring on monetary chaos, amplified by speculation.
A failure with the EMU would thus mean a sharp retreat from the big market, and, consequently, an anachronistic return to strict national protectionism. The Treaty of Rome would be thrown into ques-
On the other hand, the EMU represents an important link in the policy of "exit from the crisis". This, as a consequence of the Single Act, combines industrial, monetary and institutional restructuring.
In the last instance, that is to say at the political and social level, the carrying through of this project would form a new non-economic element, useful for a possi-.
ble exit from the long wave of recession.
It is thus a major issue for the European bourgeoisies and states.
Two tendencies cohabit, that of growing globalization and that of the formation of a specific European political and economic entity. A point of equilibrium between a new free exchange regime and new forms of protectionism must thus be found in the framework of the hypothetical exit from the crisis. This is what is at stake in the current negotiations in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).
Three neo-protectionist poles could emerge inside the OECD: North America (North American Free Trade Agreement - NAFTA); Japan-Asia; and Europe. But it would be a mistake to believe that they would be simple replicas of the old systems for "defending" national econo-
Trade wars to take new forms
Trade wars will take new forms, since the unequal and combined development in the OECD countries takes place in different ways according to the branches and products, with Japanese, American or European hegemony according to the
Thus none of the three poles will have an absolute hegemony, a fact that will have political and military consequences.
However it would be a mistake to see the feverish behaviour of capital as a Brownian motion in which it is impossible to predict the future "rationalities". That the economy is increasingly globalized, and that the movements of capital are more and more complex is one thing; but the system needs a point of equilibri-
This will not be engendered purely and simply by the economy. The political and social dimension, imperative for finding a way out of the current crisis, has to find a form in a new socio-political system that is adequate to the global development. The EMU and its politicoinstitutional dimension can precisely be a part of this solution for the European states.
One must thus avoid a series of errors. That, for example, of taking desires for reality, and interpreting the inter-imperialist contradictions as the final avatar of the crisis of the European system.
The most urgent task without doubt is to provide the workers movement and the anti-capitalist left with an alternative to the Europe that is little by little taking shape.
The new reality means that any strategic retreat into the national framework, out of conservatism or the illusion of self-defence, would be an impasse. Very quickly, its tenants would finish by falling back on the region or on the "nation" on the city or the enterprise.
### Challenge of new internationalism
The micro-strategy would become the uncertain refuge of all those who do not feel capable of matching up to the challenges of the new internationalism. Starting from the daily struggles and all forms of social resistance which will certainly develop in the coming years, it is necessary to sketch out the contours of an alternative Europe, or at least, the first elements of a counter-offensive.
Starting from immediate necessities, whether economic, social or political, it is necessary to build a new coherence, which combines the right to self-determination of all working collectives or of life and an audacious anti-capitalist project without
The Maastricht summit will remind us how far behind our enemies we are. *
OCo 17
The fading consensus
International Viewpoint #219 • December 23, 1991