constitution debate hots up
WORKERS, FEB 2005 ISSUE
A MEETING on 15 December in Westminster enjoyed an eloquent denunciation of the proposed new EU Constitution by Trine Mach, the spokesperson for Denmark's June Movement. She noted that Denmark's trade unions were strongly questioning the Constitution, and had formed Trade Unions Against the EU Constitution, which has already been campaigning against the recent EU Directives on Services, and for trade union rights.
In Denmark (as in Britain) the EU has been driving the attacks on welfare and creeping privatisation of public services. The Constitution's Article III-217.4 extends the EU Commission's power to force public services open to liberalisation (read privatisation) as part of EU trade deals. The Danish government had said that privatisation was a political necessity and denounced its opponents as inward-looking nationalists linked only to the extreme right, a disinformation strategy familiar to workers here. Mach urged the meeting not to ignore the harmful effect that the Constitution would have on countries' manufacturing industries. We must not focus only on the need to defend our services, she said. She pointed out that EU member governments would try to confuse the Constitution debate by saying that it was about whether to withdraw from the EU, which was in fact a question for another referendum.
Just as in Denmark, government and EU bodies here are spending a great deal of our money on pro-EU, including pro-Constitution, propaganda. The Foreign Office has budgeted for an annual spend on European Union communications of £200,000. Last year, this paid for more than 70 pro-euro events and a range of publications and media relations activity. It is to publish an analysis of the EU Constitution, and a "lay person's" guide.
There are six different EU budget information lines with 10 million euros allocated in 2004. The EU also funds think tanks, cultural organisations and other bodies advancing the idea of Europe, which received more than 6 million euros in 2003.
The EU Parliament spent more than £260,000 on celebrating the new EU Constitution with champagne receptions before it has been ratified. Yet the European Parliament does not even have any say on whether the Constitution is ratified by member states.
Whatever the EU and government may spend to persuade us, workers will make up their own minds. Whatever the TUC says, trade union members will make up their own minds. When the government and TUC were gung-ho for entering the euro, workers were still so opposed that they did not dare to hold a referendum.