The European Union


Although it is almost twenty-five years since Ireland and Britain joined what was then the European Economic Community major vital questions still need to be resolved as to the direction, size and political nature of the European Union.
At one level the debate is polarized between Eurosceptics and Euroenthusiasts. The question of a single European currency illustrates clearly the extremes of views held. It is also clear that there are strong forces on the European mainland pushing for a single currency and all the other financial issues which stem from this as outlined in the Maastricht Treaty, notably the major points of an autonomous Central Bank and restrictions on national budget policies.
Furthermore critical political positions are linked to both extremes, in the main the ideas of a unified European foreign policy and a European army. Both of which would absolutely put paid to Ireland's traditional neutrality. At the other end of the spectrum sceptics fear the growth of centralising tendencies within Europe as seriously eroding national sovereignties and therefore the emergence of a European super state. Underlying this throughout Europe is the fear of a Europe dominated by Germany.
The Workers' Party understanding of a developing European Union is rooted in our political tradition which originates with the philosophy of the French Revolution as brought to Ireland by Tone and his comrades . It is possible to sum this up in a single sentence -- A Europe of equal citizens.
This Ard Fheis supports the idea of a citizens' Europe that stresses equality challenges dangerous nationalist fundamentalism, as manifest in the former USSR and Yugoslavia and Northern Ireland, and at the same time ensures that debate about the future of Europe must be conducted from the viewpoint of citizenship rather than institutions. This is an important distinction.
As socialists we can only view social institutions as arising from the needs of citizens and subject to democratic political control to ensure that those needs are met. We are therefore in conflict with the current European institutions and the directions in which the Maastricht Treaty would take us. This is not to say that important legislation has not resulted from our membership of the European Union. Indeed there have been significant changes in the economic status of women, for example, as a result of EU legislation.
Parties in Europe, such as The Workers' Party, are in conflict with the present Union on ideological grounds that embrace political, economic and social issues. Among these we can list: the Parliament and the Commission, foreign policy and neutrality, the role and nature of the Regions, a single currency, budget policies, industrial development and job creation, the Common Agricultural policy, the social chapter, cultural diversity and the Union -- in fact as socialists we would be proposing alternative strategies and programmes in virtually every field.

EUROPEAN WORKING-CLASS UNITY
As that is the case, this Ard Fheis states that one of the most important political initiatives we could embark on is to help with the creation and development of a European wide coalition of socialist, workers and communist parties. This is a matter of growing urgency considering the changes due before the new century. It is also obvious that it is no easy task given the events of the past decade. Without such a coordinated class approach to the European Union we will be unable to offset the worst of proposed legislation.
This Ard Fheis strongly supports the existing linkages which have been forged by the Party with other socialist parties in Europe and urges that a comprehensive set of proposals be prepared seeking (i) a new European Socialist Coalition and (ii) a date and venue for a preliminary conference of the invited parties ( and observers). As there is obviously considerable planning involved in such a proposal, this Ard Fheis would suggest that a small number of parties should be engaged, as soon as possible, in the preliminary stages of planning and development of the proposed Coalition. The need for such a strong, active Coalition is clear when we consider that the Union is now being shaped by the Maastricht Treaty, which came into effect on November 1,1993.

MAASTRICHT
This Ard Fheis notes that in June 1992 that the Party called for a renegotiation of the Maastricht Treat and called for a No vote in the Referendum. The reasons that we advanced then are still valid. This Ard Fheis also welcomes the similar stand taken by other workers, socialist and communist parties.
We agree with the statement made by Carlos Carvalhas, General Secretary of the Portuguese Communist Party . &Maastricht is not the Treaty that can contribute to the democratic and participated development of Community institutions and policies, to serve the workers. Rather it is Treaty of Europe of big capital and financial speculation interests, of power which is distant from the people, a Europe that diminishes the role of smaller countries and secondarises workers and social policies."
This Ard Fheis also agrees with the comments made by Nicholas Hildyard, coeditor of the British magazine "The Ecologist" Madrid, December 1995.
"I want to talk about how Maastricht and the Single Market have centralised power in the hands of transnational institutions whether corporations or bureaucracies that owe no allegiance to any one place or ordinary people. ... I want to talk about democracy. I want to talk about a democracy which rejects racism. That rejects chauvinism. That rejects the free market... "
These comments, plus our own review of Maastricht, point to the enthronement of negative values at the heart of the European Union. The displacement of these values -individualism, corporate greed, monetarism, exploitation, cheap labour - this is what opposition to Maastricht must mean. And there is growing concern throughout Europe that the central implications of the Maastricht Treaty mean an assault on democracy and the transfer of power, in particular economic and monetary power, to nonelected institutions. We can build on this disquiet to create a Europe of equal citizens. This Ard Fheis reaffirms its commitment to a Europe united from the Urals to the Aran islands. It must, however, be a democratic Europe. We must oppose a procedural interpretation of democracy, insisting on real power for workers' and people's organisations at local, national, regional and European levels.

NEUTRALITY
While seeking greater unity and harmony among the peoples of Europe this Ard Fheis absolutely rejects the efforts being made to end the Republic's historical and traditional policy of neutrality. Indeed we are convinced that it is in the interests of the European Union to support Irish neutrality as an important European contribution to world peace and better relations with the exploited countries of the Third World. Ireland should continue to play a peace-keeping role within the United Nations where we have gained international respect as opponents of imperialism and oppression. The common defence policy proposed under Maastricht will incorporate existing nuclear weapons into the system and extend the possibilities of a nuclear confrontation. Our neutrality must be seen as a contribution not only to the United Nations peace-keeping forces but also as an important voice in calling for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons and the phasing out of all military power blocks.
However our neutrality is being sold out at another and equally critical level. Maastricht imposes a common foreign policy on EU members. This would deny Ireland, for example, the right to condemn the exploitation of Third World countries by some European powers or by the United States working through some European based American multinational. It is both politically and morally wrong for any Irish Government to willfully abandon a policy which has contributed to alleviating distress and suffering in many parts of the world.
This Ard Fheis opposes therefore any move either to manoeuvre Ireland to join NATO, the WEU, or the sinisterly misnamed PFP. We recommend that the OESC, being a truly European wide organisation of States, is the appropriate forum for conflict resolution and the building of peace within Europe.
This Ard Fheis states therefore that at all future bilateral and multilateral international meetings the Party seek support for Ireland's neutrality.

TOWARDS A SOCIALIST EUROPE

DEMOCRACY
A European socialist programme must be comprehensively democratic. Therefore the present democratic deficit must be eliminated. If Maastricht is fully implemented neither the national parliaments nor the European Parliament will have any real say in major issues ranging from economic and monetary policy, foreign policy through to regional development policy. In other words powers surrendered by national governments will be exercised by a cluster of institutions which are largely democratically unaccountable. Instead of a peoples' Europe we are faced with a massive extension of bureaucracy serving the interests of multinationals.
This Ard Fheis therefore calls on the Party in negotiations with other European parties to press for a Campaign for Democracy in Europe aimed at diminishing the power of nonelected bodies and securing the transferring of more powers from the Commission to the Parliament.
MONETARY AND FISCAL POLICY
The major debate taking place around the issue of a single European currency breaks down into three separate but closely related debates: namely the desirability of full economic union; the consequent necessity or desirability of monetary union; and the nature and powers of any European Central Bank. The Ard Fheis recognises that publicly these debates have tended to polarise between 'centralists' and 'nationalists'. Socialists cannot however avoid these issues simply by pointing out, even though quite correctly, that the proposals are an attempt to enthrone capitalism and its value system as the permanent framework for Europe.
The Ard Fheis further recognises that the debate on EMU has often not been on the central policy and ideological decisions involved but on the practical issues like the conditions for joining the single currency or the proposed restrictions like the 3% restriction on budgetary deficits.
A single currency will impact dramatically on the poorer regions leading to outflows of capital, increased unemployment, lower wages and therefore falling tax revenue. Health and education cutbacks would follow on from this. We can already see that the preparations for a single currency have led to attacks on the living standards and social benefits of workers from Germany to Spain to Ireland.
A condition precedent therefore to the introduction of a single currency is the establishment of a considerably larger and genuinely locally managed Social Fund to offset the expected downturn in the economies of the poorer regions.
Such demands will face strong opposition from proponents of the Maastricht Treaty who are not only fully paid up monetarists but who are also determined, through the 3% Budget rule, to ensure that the State does not interfere with "free competition or the principles of an open market economy." In effect the main beneficiaries of a single currency ( and other monetary and fiscal proposals ) will be the multinationals and the population of core Europe.
If and when a single currency is achieved a European system of central Banks will come into operation. Governed by nonelected officials, its deliberations will be secret. National governments will be compelled to follow the monetarist and economic policies laid down by the Central Bank. As noted earlier this will include an obligation to maintain budget deficits not exceeding 3% . When this absolutely arbitrary and socially punitive decision is understood in the light of Article 73b which removes "all restrictions on the movement of capital between Member States and Member States and third countries..." it is clear that the gap between core Europe and the periphery states will widen dramatically. It has been suggested, reasonably, that this will provide increasingly fertile ground for the far Right.
The problem for Socialists then is that the political balance of power lies with the proMaastricht forces. To defeat the monetarist policy in the Treaty will require the mobilisation of all democratic, social democratic and socialist forces throughout Europe, this Ard Fheis therefore calls for immediate discussions with the fraternal European parties to explore avenues for the creation of the broadest possible opposition to the monetary and fiscal programme contained in the Maastricht Treaty.
FULL EMPLOYMENT
Current European statistics (March) give the unemployment rate as 10.7% or 18 million. There is reportedly 148 million employed out of a total population of 301 million over the age of 15.
This Ard Fheis endorses the Party's support for and presence at the massive Paris Unemployment Demonstration of May 11. As on earlier issues the Ard Fheis calls on the Party in all future bilateral and multilateral European meetings to place the demand for a European Programme for Full Employment on the agenda.
Obviously such a demand will only receive support from parties on the Left who recognise that the State must play a major dynamic role in real job creation. The entire thrust of both Maastricht and the nature and role of the multinationals in Europe militate against this proposal . Maastricht because of its monetary and fiscal policies; the multinationals because of their manipulation of national wage structures within the Union and in the Third World and the negative direct and indirect influences they exercise on many national economies.
This Ard Fheis therefore recognising that the development of a European Programme for Full Employment requires not only a comprehensive set of specific job creation proposals but would also have to be supported by a monetary and fiscal enabling programme, calls on the Party to seek the early establishment of a European Full Employment Working Party drawn from those parties with whom we will be in contact in relation to the creation of a European Socialist Coalition.
OTHER VITAL EUROPEAN ISSUES
There are a number of other critical issues which must be discussed in depth with our fraternal European parties. These include the Common Agricultural Policy, Fisheries, Transport, Energy, Tourism, Social Chapter, Civil Rights and Justice, Health and Regional Funding. There are undoubtedly others which will arise in the course of discussions.
IDEOLOGICAL CONFLICT
This Ard Fheis reaffirms its commitment to socialism as the only way forward for the citizens of Europe. We reject the prevalent notion, peddled by social democrats and others, that this means the role of socialists in government would be to manage the "market economy" better or more humanely than the capitalist parties.
There are fundamental and irreconcilable differences between the form of life advocated by socialists and that which exists under capitalism. Socialists understand the individual as a citizen in society; capitalists understand the individual as a unit of production. From these conflicting ideological premises come two diametrically opposed world views.
Philosophically, politically, economically, socially, socialism accords the individual an identity which is superior, in every possible sense, to the crude economic reductionism of capitalism.
This ideological conflict, this fundamental conflict about the human condition, will not be erased either through the social fear which capitalism cultivates nor by the apocalyptic horror stories of the end of ideology, of history and of politics.
The immediate future of the European Union is being shaped by the Maastricht Treaty. It will not however remove the sources of conflict ; indeed if anything it will lead to increased tensions between regions and classes. Unfortunately it has already encouraged a growth of neo-Nazism while socialist, workers and communist parties struggle to achieve cohesion. In this situation it is vital that we make our understanding of Maastricht absolutely clear to the workers of Ireland and the rest of Europe and to the fraternal political parties.
This Ard Fheis therefore states that the Maastricht Treaty is devised by capitalists in the interests of capitalism. For The Workers' Party of Ireland, this Ard Fheis declares, that wherever there is conflict between the forces of capital and the forces of labour we stand, as James Connolly stood, with the workers of all countries.