[PEN-L:1899] A progressive European Union?

[D Shniad <shniad@xxxxxx>]

On a separate but related topic, here on Pen (and elsewhere)
folks have expressed the hope that a more humane model of
economic integration can be put in place in the European
Union. (Most recently, this hope was expressed here by Hugo
Radice.)  In the same article mentioned in my earlier
posting, Panitch notes that progressives who hold out a hope
for Social Europe tend to believe that the existence of the
European Community's Social Charter will prevent European
economic integration from being driven by the logic of
competitive austerity.

He comments, however, that

     This approach almost always involves vastly
     inflating the salience and significance of
     the European Social Charter, or, where its
     weakness is acknowledged fails to inquire
     [about why] "the most powerful labour
     movements in the world have made only very
     limited progress toward an adequate EC social
     dimension"......

     Alain Lipietz has recently provided a
     chilling account of how moderate EEC social
     democrats "set up a Europe of traders and
     capital", hoping that a social dimension
     would follow, but failing to understand that
     they had already "thrown away their trump
     cards by signing the Single Act of 1985."

Panitch cites a passage from pps. 156-159 of Lipietz's
_Towards a New Economic Order_ which, IMHO, is directly
relevant to the debate that we are having once again here on
Pen:

     A single market for capital and goods without
     common fiscal, social and ecological policies
     could not fail to set off a downward
     competition between member states, each
     needing to bring its trade into balance.  To
     deal with the threat of 'social dumping',
     Jacques Delors counted on a push _after the
     event_ [emphasis in original] by unions in
     peripheral and social democratic countries to
     impose common statutory or contractual bases
     throughout the community.  This has not
     happened, despite the (half-hearted)
     protestations of the European
     parliament...attempts to harmonize VAT
     failed...[and] lack of harmonization on
     capital taxation is much more serious.  Even
     more serious was the surrender over social
     Europe.  In September 1989, at Maastricht...
     legislative power in Europe was handed over
     to coordination by national governments; a
     state apparatus on auto-pilot.  Social Europe
     was once more sacrificed, and reduced to a
     'zero-Charter', with Britain opting out... In
     essence, as it is presently emerging, Europe
     will be unified only for the sake of capital,
     to allow it to escape from state control;
     that is, from the tax authorities and from
     social legislation. (pp. 85-86 in Socialist
     Register.)

(NB: Panitch argues that the statement Lipietz threw in at
the end of this passage -- that capital is being allowed to
escape from state control -- makes no sense, given the very
point that Lipietz had made earlier on, that Maastricht
handed legislative power over to _national_ governments.)


Sid Shniad