Democrat October 2004 Editorial by John Boyd (Number 83)
EU versus USA?
Or is it imperialism on the rampage?
In many quarters there is talk about strengthening the EU to act as a bulwark against the military might of the USA. One example put forward is that some EU member states objected to the invasion of Iraq and stood up to the USA and Britain. That is not the case now. All big EU states have fallen into line with Britain and the USA. For one minor reason, they want some of the pickings of reconstruction and to get at the oil and other resources.
More importantly the EU, as a temporary collective of six broken empires, wants to pick over and exploit the `third world' countries, especially on the continent of Africa. The declared policies of Mr Mandelson, as EU Commissioner for trade and development, is to `encourage' these undeveloped countries to open up to `competition'. In other words let foreign investment in, exploit the country, keep wages low, and remove any social protection. That would turn them back into virtual old style colonies.
Euro-police and Army
The EU has put in place a police force to go anywhere in the world with light arms to put wrong matters right, but really to soften things up. After this the EU rapid reaction force can go in with heavy armour. The rapid reaction force is to become the European Army of 60,000 troops. That all adds up to plain old fashioned imperialism. Instead of nineteenth century gunboat diplomacy, aircraft carriers, air troop carriers, Eurofighters and Galileo satellite guided missiles would be used.
EU military-industrial-complex
To back all this up, as indicated in global war plans in this issue, an EU military industrial complex is being further developed at a gigantic cost. From this complex itself, huge profits will be made. There is no way the EU complex can compete with the US military-industrial-complex. Without doubt more bogies and terrorist threats will be engineered to justify military interference in other nation states and the expenditure on the complex.
No coincidence
This latest re-introduction of building up the EU against the USA into the debate about `Europe' has of course come at precisely the same time as we all face the question of the EU state Constitution. The coincidence would not fool a six year old! Alongside this goes the argument that nation states are out of date. If you want to trample all over the right of nation states to self determination and invade them, then you would say the era of nation states is over to justify your military actions. This belies the fact there are nation states being formed all the time with no end in sight of the process which still has to work itself out fully in Africa, the Middle and Far East.
Internationalism
To promote the EU, some say the EU is internationalism. Is this phenomena confined to the 25 Member States? What about the rest of the world, is that not internationalism as well? International solidarity between workers is extrapolated and then misinterpreted as internationalism. Ask those who claim to be just internationalists what language they speak as their mother tongue. Their answer will show they belong to a nation or nation state.
Self-determination
The real counter to both the USA and EU is to enhance and respect the right of nation states to self determination, national independence and democracy. It is only nation states and their governments which can stand up to the avaricious transnationals. There is no other way. Certainly the European Union turned into a state with legal identity and powers by the EU Constitution is the anti-thesis of democracy and independence.
No democracy
The EU acts on the side of big capital. If the EU Constitution were put into place, powers would be centralised in Euro-federalism with one court, one government, one foreign secretary, one currency, one army, one flag and one stolen anthem. There will be no democracy. The EU with a state Constitution is a recipe for black reaction for fascism.
Solidarity
It is high time for all people of whatever political persuasion or none, however young or old to work to defeat the EU state Constitution. This would prevent the transfer of further powers to the EU joint imperialist centre of Brussels and protect our best interests.