MPs may have voted – treacherously ­­– in the House of Commons, but the fight goes on...

EU Constitution: Referendum now!

WORKERS, APR 2008 ISSUE

27 February: thousands of people lobbied Parliament, only to be ignored by MPs Photo: Workers

THE HOUSE of Commons voted on 5 March to deny the British people a referendum on the EU Constitution. Only a handful of Labour MPs stood by their party's manifesto commitment for a referendum.

The Lisbon Treaty was drawn up to replace the draft European Constitution after it was thrown out by French and Dutch voters in 2005. They called it a 'treaty' by having it tinker around with earlier treaties (those of Maastricht and Rome) to kid us into thinking that it wasn't really a constitution at all.

The Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) held a meeting on the eve of the 27 February Lobby of Parliament on the issue, at Conway Hall in London. The content of the speaker's address to the meeting, given below, is all the more urgent to consider when planning what to do next.

What is this EU Constitution? What does it do? And, most important, what are we doing about it?

First, what is it? EU officials rewrote the 2,800 pages of the EU's 17 earlier treaties and acts into a mere 560 pages, so we could, supposedly, easily find out what our governments had signed us up to over the last 30 years. Supporters of the Constitution tried to convince us of its great merits by spelling it out, clause by clause, annexe by annexe, protocol by protocol, from page 1 to page 560. But for some reason, this didn't work, so now they've stopped trying to convince us – they're just aiming to impose it anyway, whether we like it or not.

But is the Treaty of Lisbon any different from the Constitution? Valery Giscard d'Estaing, chief architect of the Constitution, says, "All the earlier proposals will be in the new text, but will be hidden and disguised in some way."

Just like the draft Constitution, the Treaty would change the EU from a Union based on treaties agreed between countries to a multi-national state based on its own constitution. It spells out, for the first time in an EU treaty, that EU law overrules all national, including constitutional, law. This is a rule of federal states like the USA. So the Treaty is still a Constitution in the usual sense of the word.

What does it do? The Constitution gives the EU many new powers. These include powers over trade, monetary policy, foreign and defence policy and the internal market. They are wider powers than one might think: the European Commission introduced its recent directive to "marketise" healthcare under the internal market so that they could pass it by majority vote.

So the EU can enforce privatisation of health, education, postal services and social services by claiming that all public services are internal market matters. Yet the Daily Mirror slams those who want to debate the Constitution, saying that they should talk about health instead! Under the internal market the EU's leaders could ban nationalising the water industry or the railways as breaching the EU's basic principle of freedom of competition.

The Commission has delayed its proposal to "marketise" healthcare because of protests, though not, as some might have hoped, from this government. The reason they gave was a 'very over-loaded agenda', but its officials now admit that Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Holland all opposed it because they thought it would destroy their national health systems. This Common Market in health could mean EU citizens flooding our NHS, making planning impossible.

The Constitution would make free movement of capital, goods, services and labour into Constitutional obligations. The EU will decide all immigration and border control policies, by majority vote. It gives the EU new powers to stop member countries controlling migration: it says, "The Union shall develop a policy with a view to ensuring the absence of any controls on persons, whatever their nationality, when crossing [the EU's] internal borders."

It would give us the "freedom of establishment". This brand new freedom, which we didn't even know we didn't have, seems to mean giving the Establishment whatever it wants.

And what it wants was exemplified In December last year, when the European Court of Justice ruled that Finland's ferry operator Viking Line could, under the "freedom of establishment", ignore its agreements with Finland's unions, re-flag its vessels to Estonia and hire local crews on lower pay. The Rail Maritime and Transport union warns that employers will use this ruling to cut wages across the EU because every strike action "restricts the right of freedom of establishment".

Also in December, the Court ruled that strike action by Swedish building workers violated the EU's basic principles.

The Court has ruled that the right to strike is a "'fundamental right" under EU law – unless it is against national or EU law, or affects the 'smooth operation of the market', or is contrary to good morals. So that's all very safe then! In the past, British courts' judgements have been overturned by popular trade union pressure. The European Court's judgements have always gone in one direction – greater freedom for capital to operate as it wishes – and have never yet been overturned.

The Constitution would create a full-time EU President who would be a much more powerful figure than the current Council president, yet would be elected by a process about as democratic as the way they choose the Pope. Now Blair says he'll be President if we give him more powers, especially over defence.

The Constitution would create an EU Foreign Minister, to run the EU's common foreign and security policy. Do other international organisations have a President and a Foreign Minister? Does the UN? Does NATO? No – other organisations don't have presidents or Foreign Ministers, not even Chelsea Football Club. As a recent book on the Constitution admits, "No other international organisation has such a structure." It is a huge step towards a new state.

An EU ambassador said, "The issues of the EU Foreign Minister and the common diplomatic service will be dealt with last, after ratification of the Lisbon Treaty by Britain, because the subject is too explosive." EU leaders also plan to take big decisions about the EU President's powers, by majority vote, after ratification of the Constitution by what they call 'difficult' countries - like guess who? So MPs who vote for the Treaty would be signing a blank cheque.

The Constitution would give the EU the power to make laws about: the EU's common trade policy, competition policy for the single market, customs, fisheries, and monetary policy for the eurozone. The Constitution spells out the EU's new goals of lowering customs and other barriers and of ending all controls over foreign direct investment. This would leave us defenceless against foreign takeovers and Chinese and Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds.

Neoliberal
Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson's Global Europe strategy, adopted by the EU, is a neoliberal free trade policy aimed at serving European capital in its drive to expand into new markets across the world, destroying young industries in other countries. It is also about destroying the EU's social, labour and environmental standards – Europe's "social model" – which Mandelson sees as barriers to free trade. He wants to achieve US standards in these matters. The Treaty expands the powers of this Blair-appointed gentleman to cover all matters of investment, trade in services and intellectual property, covering the EU's 133 different trade committees, which will carry on taking big decisions in secret.

Photo: Workers

The Constitution would stop the government making laws about the single market, social policy, communications, regional aid, agriculture, environment, consumer protection, transport, energy, 'freedom, security and justice'. It would give the EU new powers to 'co-ordinate' economic and social policy.

The Constitution would abolish the national veto in 63 areas. It would allow the Council of Ministers to end more vetoes without new treaties. It would allow the Council to take whatever powers it considers necessary to achieve their aims where they think that the Constitution does not give them enough powers. And it extends this power to foreign and defence policy and to justice and home affairs. It would allow moves towards a criminal justice system without juries or habeas corpus. It gives the EU the right to extend the powers of its rapidly expanding police force, Europol – which is immune from prosecution above the law.

It would give all these new powers to the EU, adding to the powers of the EU's rulers, while setting in stone its current undemocratic structure. The European Commission would keep the sole right to propose new EU laws. 80% of our laws are made in the EU.

The Constitution says much about rights – but how does this work in the real world? For example, just recently MEPs were alleged to have embezzled £100 million. A secret report was shown to a few MEPs, under surveillance, at a secret location, where they were told to sign a secrecy agreement and forbidden to take notes or copies. The report didn't name any names, and was not forwarded to the EU's anti-fraud body. Not surprisingly, the European Parliament, its Socialist group and the European People's Party, which includes the Tory MEPs, want to keep it secret. And then the EU recommends this system as a model!

What is to be done?
And lastly, what should we be doing? Lobby outside Parliament tomorrow [27 February]. Raise the idea of a referendum whenever you can, at work, in your union, in your neighbourhood.

London Ambulance workers are holding their own referendum and more than 20 villages have held a referendum. All returned large majorities in favour of holding a national referendum. Another 60 are in the pipeline and in some constituencies MPs have had to agree to support the call for a national referendum.

In 2005 the three main parties pledged to hold a referendum on the Constitution, so whoever won we should have had it – if parliamentary democracy worked! After the French and Dutch peoples used their referendums to reject the Constitution, the EU's leaders decided to reject, not the Constitution, but the popular votes. They renamed it and took the C word out of the entire text.

Blair said, "What you can't do is to have a situation where you get a rejection of the treaty and then you just bring it back with a few amendments and say we will have another go." Which is exactly what the EU's leaders have done. I realise that this is very odd – we have caught Blair in a truth.

Are we going to let them impose the Constitution on us anyway? Surely not. Surely the British working class will not allow this imposition. We can say no to the Constitution – what could they do to overrule us? We must have this promised referendum, otherwise, comrades and friends, where is the democracy?

What the Lisbon Treaty actually says... The Lisbon Treaty's new Article 97b says the "activities" of the member states and the Union "shall include a single currency, the euro, and the definition and conduct of a single monetary policy." The previous version specified that the rule about the euro did not apply to Britain; this new version contains no such opt-out from the euro. So not only are they trying to force the despised Constitution on us, they want to impose the euro too. The EU is taking powers to control all member states' energy resources – coal, oil, gas – through its 'competencies' over the internal market and the environment. The European Council has called for the "development of a common approach to external energy policy". The Lisbon Treaty's Article 175 (2) (c) says decisions 'significantly affecting a member state's choice between different energy sources and the general structure of its energy supply' are to be adopted by unanimity. The Brown government would still have a veto, but it can't be trusted to use the veto when Britain's national interests so require. The Lisbon Treaty for the first time formalises the limits on member states' powers. It spells out the areas where the EU and its member states have what it calls "shared competences". But it is mis-leading to call these powers "shared": the EU would have supremacy. Member states would still be allowed to make their own laws, but only in areas where the EU has decided not to use its powers. When the EU acts in those areas, member states are not allowed to legislate. What would those areas be? Under Article 2C, these areas would be: the internal market, social policy, economic, social and territorial cohesion, agriculture and fisheries, the environment, consumer protection, transport, trans-European networks, energy, the area of freedom, security and justice, public health, research, technological development, space policy, development cooperation and international aid – all domestic policy, all economic policy, all social policy and a large part of foreign policy. Not much left for Parliament to do then! The Lisbon Treaty states that "the common security and defence policy shall be an integral part of the common foreign and security policy." This common security and defence policy "will lead to a common defence, when the European Council, acting unanimously, so decides." The EU wants to use member states' armed forces for foreign interventions 'in accordance with the principles of the UN charter', but it does not require such missions to have a UN mandate. This opens the way to more illegal wars of aggression like Kosovo and Iraq.

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