m EUROPEAN ELECTIONS I
For a Europe of solidarity
International Viewpoint #256 May 1994
THE Appeal which we publish below was drafted specifically for the
European elections. The organisations and currents which have signed the
Appeal appear at the end.
GAINST THE A EUROPEAN UNION ECOLOGICAL, DEMOCRATIC AND EGALITARIAN EUROPE BASED ON PEACE AND SOLIDARITY
The last European elections took place in 1989. It was a time of euphoria for the various European bourgeoisies. It was said that the creation of the Single Market - at the time set for 1 January 1993 -would lead to the creation of millions of jobs and a way out of the economic crisis. In this way, Europe was to be able to face up to its American and Japanese rivals within the international capitalist order.
Five years later, the verdict is unanimous: the project is in crisis, and it has failed to meet its stated objectives. 1993 was a black year.
Two recent figures on their own sum up the human and economic disaster: 20 million unemployed (an official figure which should really be doubled to make up for legislative and statistical subterfuges) and 50 million poor.
As for European unification, it is at a virtual standstill. Through its institutional games, the true nature of the European Union has been revealed for all to see. Far from responding to the social and international aspirations of workers, women and youth, the EU is above all a supermarket, a super-bank and a super-power! The EU means both the dismantling of the Welfare State and the building of an imperialist fortress. It is waging a war on its own workers and youth, an economic war against its Japanese and Ame12 rican competitors, and an all-out war against the Third World.
This Europe is not our Europe. We fight it not in the name of nationalist navel-gazing, but in the name of a Europe which is ecological, democratic, egalitarian and based on peace and solidarity. Our struggle against the EU is part of the anti-capitalist struggle for another society — a socialist society. This will be a Europe of the work place and the free association of peoples, open to the East and in solidarity
The deep-going crisis of the EU and the social remobilisation underway in a number of countries places this alternative on the agenda. It will not come about through existing State institutions - either national or European — but through the mass activity of workers, women and youth. It requires the building and strengthening of working class and social movements on a pan-European level. It calls for a radical break with the paralysing orientation that social democracy and the Communist Parties have imparted to the working class movement.
The Fourth International and its organisations want to contribute to this process, in a way best suited to each country, by putting forward a political platform that favours the emergence of demands on a continental-wide scale. For a social Europe. One priority: abolish unemployment!
The millions of unemployed and excluded constitute a major human drama, a point of shame for our governments, and a waste of energy and creativity for society. Moreover, mass unemployment has persisted for many years and this is an obstacle to the necessary fight-back. It also constitutes a danger for the whole labour movement.
The bourgeoisie claims that we will never again reach near fullemployment for economic and technological reasons. Within social democracy and in sections of the environmental movement, the same song is being sung.
But this is false! It is possible to create millions of jobs that are socially useful and ecologically justified, by putting an end to the competition between 400 multinationals fighting over a market of
800 million "Westerners", and by reorganising the economy along different lines than that of the profit logic
- to meet social needs in our coun tries and of nearly 2 billion human beings in distress elsewhere in the world: food, access to water and land, basic infrastructure, health care, education, housing; followed by urban reform, public transport, renewable sources of energy, communication, and so forth. This will require the rehabilitation of the public sector and the intervention of the public sector on a pan-European level to replace a totally dysfunctional private sector.
To stop Europe's decline means co-operating with the East and the South. This means a generous project based on solidarity, a revival of civilisation on a global level.
Confronted with the problem of mass unemployment, we call for an immediate reduction of the length of the working week to 35 hours without a reduction in salary. On the pan-European level, we need financial aid for countries and enterprises to compensate for the glaring imbalances, through a "structural fund" built up through a tax on large fortunes and on the revenues of finance capital. This would clearly also require control by workers and the public authorities. This measure would advance the struggle to move quickly towards the 32 and 30-hour working week in countries with high labour productivity; this would be accompanied by a thoroughgoing re-organisation of work and life in society;
In addition, we struggle for an equal wage for equal work for women; against a reactionary family policy and for the establishment of individual and equal rights in the area of social security; for the widescale development of quality child care and other such facilities;
International Viewpoint #256 May 1994
- for upward harmonisation of the systems of social security, of norms of security and hygiene, and of working conditions generally;
- for youth: the right to free studies and guaranteed employment without discrimination or supervi-
— a guaranteed minimum wage and a minimum unemployment insurance payment in all the countries of
- trade union rights legally recognised in all the countries of the Union: the right to strike, right to workplace representation, right to conclude collective work agreements, the setting up of European workplace committees in the multiAn ecological Europe. One priority: break with policies that place the future of the planet in danger. End the race for profit, which does not take into consideration environmental costs, natural cycles and social needs.
- for an upward harmonisation of environmental norms and a high level of consumer protection;
- for a policy based on the development of renewable energies;
- for a policy of public transport, telecommunications and energy.
They should be affordable, outside the logic of the market, deliberately oriented towards user needs, and respectful of the environment;
- an agricultural policy that discourages the massive use of pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilisers.
A Europe of citizens.
One priority:
in all fields, assert the demand for equal rights.
- against ethnic purification, racism and xenophobia in all forms;
- equal rights for immigrants from outside the EU, including the right to vote and to stand in all elections;
- right to asylum through a generous interpretation inspired by the Geneva convention;
- freedom of movement within the EU;
- equality of social and civil rights for women; parity for women;
equal representation of men and women in all elected official (State)
institutions;
- democratic right to cultural, religious, national, political and ideological expression;
- for the recognition of the right to self-determination of peoples and the democratic rights of national and ethnic minorities;
- for a European confederation of peoples. A Europe based on solidarity. One priority: immediately stop the human disaster which affects the South and threatens the East.
— against the ethnic division in Bosnia, which is favoured by the EU. Humanitarian aid, not bombs;
- cancellation without condition of the debt of the countries of the
South and the East, to stop the mad race towards "structural adjustment";
— a break from the market logic imposed by the IMF and the World
Bank. Radical reform of UN. All vital questions for humanity (war and peace, the survival of the planet, economic and ecologically-sound development, transport and communication and culture) must be publicly debated and decided by the
General Assembly;
- bilateral trade ana develooment contracts to respond on a priority basis to the social needs of populations, in co-operation with
NGOs, and in favour of development based on the best local conditions, and by working against the law of profit by opposing the unfettered competition between countries of the South for access to the world market.
A Europe of peace.
One priority:
struggle for Europe to become a demilitarised zone.
— elimination of nuclear weapons and nuclear military units, as well as of all military units at the forefront of repression, hostagetaking, terror and torture (eg. rapid deployment forces, paracomman-
— a radical reduction in the military budget;
— against a European army, for the dissolution of the "Franco-German brigade", of the UEO, and for a withdrawal from NATO.
- withdrawal of American troops and the dismantling of American bases; withdrawal of the fleet of American warships from the Meditteranean, from the North Sea and the Baltic Sea.
Europe will not be built behind people's backs and in a social graveyard. This democratic and social struggle will be waged against the EU and its current institutions, and against Big Capital, of which the EU is the cutting edge. The Europe we want will be built "from below". This means strengthening networks between social movements - trade union, anti-racist and anti-fascist, feminist, Third World solidarity, and so on - on a pan-European level.
In this area, the trade union movement has a specific responsibility, for the development of co-ordination between workers on the level of their branch of the economy and of the multinationals, and for the organisation of common campaigns against unemployment, for the radical reduction of the working week, against the Maastricht criteria, and so forth.
We need a strong left-wing political alternative before it is too late, and on a pan-European level, through a convergence between the radical left and the radical wing of the ecology current. Without this alternative, there will be no future for the struggles of workers, women, youth who - whatever their nationality — are mobilising against injustice, and rebelling against unemployment and misery, racism and war.
We plan to contribute to the building of this alternative with all our might. *
The following European sections of the Fourth International have signed the Appeal: Socialist Workers' Party (SAP/POS, Belgium); Socialist Workers' Party (SAP, Denmark);
Revolutionary Communist League
(LCR, France); Socialist Workers' Party (SAP, Netherlands); Revolutionary Socialist Party (PSR, Portugal); Socialist Party (SP, Sweden).
Other signatories include:
The editorial board of the Fourth
Internationalist journal Bandiera
Rossa (Italy);
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