[PEN-L:1797] Re: Good News from France

["Hugo Radice" <HKR@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Sid,
Pro-EU socialists in Europe believe that it is politically possible
to construct a 'people's'/socialist EU.  They recognise that at
present the dominant political economy in the EU is monetarist, but
they cling to the belief that the 'social cohesion' measures promoted
by Jacques Delors as a counterpoint to Euromonetarism remain on the
agenda.  I still on balance go along with this view myself, though we
have the 'local' problem here in the UK that the Labour Party
leadership has become just as monetarist as the Tories, thereby
seriously undermining the above position.  At the same time, the
abject failure of the EU to offer any alternative to the imposition
of monetarism on E Europe and the former USSR does not exactly
encourage me (see the excellent piece by Peter Gowan in the latest
New Left Review).

Certainly we should view the struggle in France as one between
Euromonetarism and social democracy, with implications Europe-wide
and beyond.

Hugo Radice
hkr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx