Letter: Euro super-state? (2002)

Letter to the Editors from the February 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Euro super-state?

Dear Editors,

Your article on the euro (January, Socialist Standard) presented, by valid economic assessment, how the euro is monetarily irrelevant for wage and salary earners. Yet the major issue involved requires deeper analysis. It is the determination of the capitalist class, in the main, for the political purposes behind the euro.

Romano Prodi, President of the European Commission, boldly states that “the euro is for a purely political process!”. This “process” is for the creation of a single European Nation State. It must lead to a single supreme governing assembly, with the power to pass laws obligatory for Europe as a whole. These laws, passed by majority vote, would be political as well as economic and be binding and incontestable. The assembly would maintain central control of all military and police legions in the European State.

In periods of serious political and economic crisis, mixed European forces would be used to crush any social unrest or revolutionary activity. With the inevitable chaos and turmoil of the capitalist system and the need to maintain “law and order” there is the distinct probability of a totalitarian regime emerging. Recent European history reveals how swiftly, in times of emergency, authoritarian rule develops and with the support of a misguided majority of workers seeking a “strong leadership”. These trends already exist in Europe.

Socialists should actively protest now against a European State. The euro is a reality and a further steeping stone towards these aims to strengthen capitalism. It is not just a question of more “sovereignty” for Britain but the practical ability to avoid the legal impositions by a European parliament. The dangers are neither irrelevant nor neutral.

Lionel Rich, 

London NW6

Reply: 

We are of course opposed to a European state but we are also opposed to a British state. In fact, we are opposed to all states since they exist, all of them, to uphold capitalist class rule and production for profit.

You construct a nightmare scenario to try to get us to support an independent state for the capitalist class of Britain as opposed to them merging into a European state. We don’t think even Prodi envisages as centralised a state as in your nightmare, but, even if he did, you give no reason why we should prefer repressive laws to be voted at Westminster rather than by a European Parliament. Nor why we should prefer British rather than European police to be used against strikes and pickets. Nor why we should want the government that presides over the operation of capitalism in Britain to be situated in London rather than Brussels. In short, we remain unconvinced that we should take sides in the debate about the best political structure for running capitalism today.

The socialist alternative to a European Super-State is not Little England but One World.

Editors