Re: Anti-EU demonstration in Sweden

[Trond Andresen <trond.andresen@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

The messages by Whinfrey below are so ill-informed that I do not know
whether to
laugh or cry. I have been a participant on this list since 1993, but a
lurker mostly for the last year or two.

Now I feel the need to protest against Whinfrey's writings on the issue of
EU and Scandinavia. First to Norway, where I was myself, with several
hundred thousand Norwegians (population 4.2 million) both in the referendums in
1972 and 1994, an active organised campaigner against membership (I am 53
years old). The Norwegian majority has been for most of this 30-year period
clearly against membership. In 1972 the referendum result (after campaigns
where the YES side controlled the big media and gvts. propagandised YES) was
53.5% NO, in 1994 (same role of media and the gvt.) it was 52.5% NO. Today
the polls are 60% NO. The NO majority has its greatest support among women,
young people, working class and farmers, radicals, the districts.

The YES side is most clear in the Oslo area, among high-income people, among
the educated right-wing. Among the low-status right-wing NO and YES is
fairly evenly divided. The big media are massively for EU membership and
have in vain been propagandising this for 30(!) years. Anarchists or
neo-nazis do not play any role of importance on the organized NO side, or
the YES side for that case.

The NO side is a very broad, truly popular movement -- which has stably
existed and been organized for 30+ years. In all this period the NO side
has schooled themselves on the workings and apparatus of the EU system, to a
degree that has resulted in the average Norwegian being better informed
about the EU system than an average EU citizen. Norway has the highest
intensity of newspaper readership among any population in the world.

My point is that the NO opinion are not impressed by slogans about "A new
European identity", about "one currency" etc. We *know* we are Europeans and
do not have to be told so (look at a map), we have for centuries had
extremely open economy (small country - exporting raw materials, importing a
lot of stuff), have had free trade in over 90% of our trade with all of
Western Europe since 1973, we travel in all of Europe, and do not fall for
slick "Eurobabble" ad campaigns with ulterior motives.

While there of course are EU sceptics who are racist or chauvinist, you also
find such people on the right-wing YES side to at least the same extent, so
this is not a point. The main basis of resistance is instead a recognition
of the EU as a system to remove the right of decison on all sorts of issues
from at least to some degree representative domestic organs who are elected
by popular vote based on a fairly well-established and not too badly
informed popular debate and process (an old-fashioned idea called
"democracy"), and transferring this right to a remote jetset
super-bureaucracy in Brussels -- a bureaucracy interacting with lobby groups
for multinational interests and multinationals themselves who have a
thousand times the staff and resources than environmental and other
anti-corporate-oriented groups.

The main idea of Norway EU resistance is decentralist, not xenophobic: "We
manage our country by democratic processes, you other guys manage yours in
the way you find best. And we visit, travel, cooperate and trade intensively
for mutual benefit. Where supranational meaures are needed, for instance in
connection with environmental issues, we join in making voluntarily binding
agreements on a global scale or a regional scale, depending on the character
of the problem."

The EU bureaucracy works shielded from public insight, its documents are
confidential and the press do not as a general rule have much access -- as
opposed to what is the reality in Scandinavian countries where there are
fairly advanced legislation giving the public and press rights to access to
documents and info in the governmental sphere. The EU also has a parody of a
"parliament" with little power and fat personal perks for the pampered
representatives. The sad state of affairs is instinctively recognised by the
EU population, who are apathetic to the EU system, and hardly do participate
in the EU parliament elections.

The European commisions are churning out rules and regulations based on a
monomaniacal  implementation of unfettered capital movements and no
regulation of multinationals' right to "compete" and take over local
business. This is a European NAFTA on steroids, with a well-fed "Vienna
congress" of a castrated parliament hanging on the coattails of the EU
corporate/bureaucracy alliance.

You want examples of what laws and regulations they try to force on European
countries? Just ask.

Trond Andresen
Trondheim

Norway

***************

> From: "Hugh Whinfrey" <econ@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: "Post Keynesian Thought" <pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Re: Anti-EU demonstration in Sweden
> Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2001 00:06:28 +0200
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>
> Harry Veeder writes
>
>
> >If so, these events probably signal the beginning of
> >Sweden's "repatriation".
>
>
> There's 2 things going on here.
>
>
> 1) Isolationism has worked for Sweden in the
> past. No WWI, no WWII, no NATO, etc.  There
> is a strong temptation to want to avoid alliances
> that are 'partisan' in one fashion or another.
> This is a very strong undercurrent, and it
> resembles to some extent the isolationist
> sentiments in the US. The EU is a natural
> target to vent these feelings on since it
> embodies that lost 'independence'.
>
>
> 2) Being anti-EU is a very 'hip' thing these
> days for young people to engage in,
> particularly in a nation that has lost
> some of its bearings (i.e. ever since
> Palme was murdered).
>
>
> For what it's worth, I wouldn't pay much
> attention to it. It isn't anything particularly
> unusual in this neck of the woods as far
> as I see it. It's just a little better organised
> than before - i.e. the overall energy level isn't
> anything new, it's just being harnessed better.
>
>
>
> Whatever institutionalised 'injustices' there
> might be in the EU are dwarfed by those
> elsewhere around the world, including those
> in the US. I take these folks to be just a bunch
> of kids in need letting off some steam. Goes on
> here all the time, but you don't always hear about
> it in the press.
>
>
> The odds of Sweden leaving the EU are
> smaller than those of Texas leaving the US.
> It's the only game in town, and Sweden can't
> really shut it out.
>
>
> Hugh (nextdoor in Denmark)

********
At 01:43 4/27/01 +0200, Hugh Whinfrey wrote:
> Henry writes:
>
> >I would be interested to know from those who are informed about northern
> >Europe, such as Hugh Whinfrey or others, if this is unique to Sweden, or are
> >there general centrifugal forces at work against regionalization.
>
> The main paradigm at work here outside
> the status quo is the anarchists vs. the neo-Nazis.
>
> They not infrequently engage each other in little scuffles,
> and folks following along at home find it all quite amusing.
> In other words it's not on the serious threat level in
> terms of shaping national agendas, although it does
> have the potential to bring about some serious but
> isolated incidents of violence.  The gang war in
> Denmark between two rival biker gangs is a bigger
> deal by an order of magnitude than the activities of
> either of these two extremist groups.
>
> Looking down the road a couple of decades or so,
> it wouldn't be all that unusual for one of these two
> groups to eventually become 'mainstream', although
> while it happened to the Greens, you're looking at
> cases here with these 2 groups that have much less
> universal appeal.
>
> The neo-Nazis were probably ignored by the
> authorities in Sweden for longer than they should
> have been, and it's generally acknowledged that
> the authorities made a mistake there. I've heard
> tell that one of the more prominent neo-Nazi figures
> in Sweden is actually Black - so I'd be careful
> about inferring too much about what they stand
> for other than posing a proverbial anti-establishment
> alternative.
>
> Plus, I think one of the results of that criticism of
> the authorities is precisely what triggered this
> thread, i.e. that the authorities are determined
> to not get caught in the same manner again by
> another fringe group, hence there are some
> good odds that they are overreacting a bit here.
>
> Anti-EU sentiment tends to be a standard plank
> for 'loyal oppositionists'. In other words, much of it
> is so superficial that the folks who would bother
> to turn out for a political rally to support the cause
> would be the same folks who would turn out for
> any other cause that the 'establishment' could be
> demonized for, and it wouldn't be much more than
> a social event for the 'in' people at that.
>
> I think the real danger that these folks on the fringes,
> who are really committed to anti-establishment activism,
> pose isn't to the EU, but rather that they might link
> up with the anti-globalisation folks as per Seattle,
> etc. and start to add some backbone and focus
> to what has clearly become a more 'hip' cause than
> being anti-EU. It appears in fact to be happening already,
> given the vast and diverse array of groups right across
> the political spectrum who are allies in those protests.
> And at least in Europe, those protests are clearly
> anti-American in nature, hence, all in all, that seems
> to be where it is headed.
>
> Hugh