Denmark
Workers’ Communist Party of Denmark – APK
The ‘five presidents’ and their draft for the Completion of the Economic and Monetary Union of Europe in 2025
The so-called five presidents of the European Union have drafted a road map for the complete take-over of the political decisions and economic priorities of the countries of the Euro-zone. By 2025 the state budgets will be decided by the Commission of the EU, while the national parliaments will only be ‘consulted’. This is a final move towards the completion of the ‘United States of the Euro’, that is, the economic and political imperialist superpower EU.
The ‘five presidents’ are the president of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Council Donald Tusk, the president of the Eurogroup Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the president of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi and the president of the European Parliament Martin Schulz.
Together they have released a report entitled ‘Completing Europe’s Economic and Monetary Union’. This is a draft for major new steps in the state building process of the European Union - towards the completion of the ‘United States of Europe’.
The euro – a ‘successful and stable’ currency
The European Union, with reunited Germany at the head, has created the Euro as an economic regulatory mechanism, and it is now demanding control over the political decisions of the member states in order to make the ‘opportunities’ of the union become manifest.
The opening words of the report of ‘the presidents’ are as follows:
“The euro is a successful and stable currency. It is shared by 19 EU Member States and more than 330 million citizens. It has provided its members with price stability and shielded them against external instability.”
The EU presidents are obviously living in a world quite different from the one known to the citizens of the European Union. The terrible situation in Greece and such things as the crisis of the Euro simply do not exist.
But the predominant instability and the deterioration of the conditions of the peoples of the EU countries are not only the result of the operation of the laws of capitalism, but are also the result of the introduction of the euro and the neoliberal system of the European Union itself, which has set these laws free to operate without restriction and sharpened all its inherent contradictions.
Greece for instance has been pushed into poverty and deep crisis by joining the EU and the ensuing dictates and conditions.
According to Jean Claude Juncker and European monopoly capital, the problem of Greece simply lies in the fact that the Greeks still have certain possibilities to make their own decisions. They should not have such possibilities, according to the EU elite, and neither should any other EU country.
The EU countries have a joint monetary policy and joint interest rates, centrally fixed. But they themselves decide their state budgets. This is the problem. The economic and monetary union – the EMU – is not complete. Now is the time to complete and implement the union to its full extent; this is the message of the EU presidents.
The completion of the EMU will take place in four areas from January 1st 2016 to 2025
Complete integration in the European Union has participation in the Euro as a precondition and will include participation in a fully completed union in the following areas
It will be a rule that ‘the national parliaments will be closely involved in the establishing of national reforms and stability programs.’
It should be mentioned that the creation of any kind of ‘joint European democracy’ to replace the remnants of national sovereignty are not to be found in the agenda. The blueprint calls for applying without restriction 100 percent of the dictates of the supreme authorities of the EU.
A country such as Denmark and others outside the Euro zone will
undoubtedly be placed under strong pressure to seek full admission and
integration, and indeed they already are under such pressure.
In lyrical terms the report highlights the dreams of the EU presidents for the year 2025:
“At the end of Stage 2, and once all the steps are fully in place, a deep and genuine EMU would provide a stable and prosperous place for all citizens of the EU Member States that share the single currency, attractive for other EU Member States to join if they are ready to do so.”
We hope that Denmark will never accept this integration into the EU. The real EU has in no way been a persuasive advertisement for membership. Voluntarily and in a democratic manner the Danish people have expressed their will not to integrate into the EU. According to an opinion poll in 2014, 65% of the people in Denmark are against it.
Still more, people are aware that the economic policies of the EU do not mean ‘a stable and prosperous place’ for the majority of the people. On the contrary poverty, insecurity and worsening conditions of labour are growing in all the EU countries. Even in one of the richest countries, Germany, 10 percent of the workers are living beneath the poverty line as so-called working poor.
The road map of the five presidents is defined in various stages. The first stage is already being implemented; among other measures it includes the Banking Union. In this stage also a European Financial Council is to be established to secure a better fulfilment of the ‘regulations’ and ‘a more solid basis for public debate.’
Already in the first stage new steps towards
responsibility of the States are being undertaken. This is where the
European Parliament and the national parliaments are to play a role.
They should organize debates, where the ’local actors’ (what we call
politicians), Members of the European Parliament and members of the EU
institutions should carry out ’deep-going discourses on political
priorities.’
In the second stage all intergovernmental solutions (the patchwork solutions that are driving towards a closer union) should be incorporated into the treaties. For instance, this should apply to the Euro Plus Pact and the European Stability Mechanism. All these should be made into supranational regulations and will demand a new EU treaty.
During the third stage the new structure for drawing up and adopting the budgets of the individual countries should be implemented.
First the EU will evaluate the general situation in the annual growth report by the Commission and will make a number of other evaluations. A list of countries will be drawn up for further investigation of ‘imbalances’. This might well establish which countries have too high wages, social benefits, etc., according to the EU Commission.
The evaluations of the Commission would then be debated in the parliament of the EU, although that agency has no decision-making authority. After a discussion of priorities in the agencies of the EU, the ’results’ of the various countries are to be judged.
During this stage the national parliaments, the ’social partners’ and ’civil society’ are to be involved – after the publication of the specific reports on each country by the EU commission, where the ‘challenges’ of the countries are listed. Also the involvement of the employers’ associations and the trade union organizations on a EU level is foreseen.
The final decisions are to be taken by the EU.
A number of other initiatives in the direction of total political, economic and military union are on the agenda.
Among these are the well-known plans of trade agreements, such as the TTIP [Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership] that will overrule national legislation, but which have been met with stubborn popular resistance.
There are also the rules of the ‘EU commissar for better regulation’ and the right of veto over decisions of the EU parliament and the meetings of the EU council. The latter has been decided single-handedly by the EU Commission itself.
The Lisbon Treaty of 2007 opened the possibility of the creation of an EU army, a so-called European Army. Before it was adopted the German chancellor Angela Merkel told the magazine Bild: “During the coming years we have to move closer towards a European army.”
The ground-shaking economic crisis called for other immediate priorities. But in 2013 it was decided to develop a ‘joint policy of defence and security’.
The former secretary-general of NATO, Javier Solana, promoted the
idea of a military union in a report entitled “More Union in European
Defence” in February of 2015. It stated:
“We firmly believe that the time has come for the creation of the European Defence Union (EDU) that supports NATO in its task to provide territorial defence.”
This might be done according to a special paragraph of the Lisbon Treaty that opens the possibility for a smaller group of member States to establish an integrated security system, a joint army etc., without the permission of the other EU countries. This mechanism is called PESCO (Permanent Structured Cooperation).
In June of 2015 came the report “In Defence of Europe” by Michel Barnier, the special adviser to the president of the EU commission Jean Claude Juncker, who is an outspoken proponent of a EU army. It recommends the formation of a special group of PESCO countries, that would develop a joint military and foreign policy, leaving the other EU member states the option of joining later.
For a start it wants a new military headquarter with a joint helicopter force established. The already existing EU reaction force of 1500 men, set up in 2007, should be thrown into active combat. A 10-point plan leaked from a report of the CDU party of Angela Merkel of Germany also envisions a joint military headquarters, joint arms procurement and a joint military doctrine.
With the new form of Europol as an integrated part of the EU structures, the law-and-order and armed branch of the European super-state is well under way.
Imperialist wars and imperialist plunder have created the present refugee crisis, where thousands have drowned and died in order to reach the European Union, fleeing from wars and hunger in the Middle East and Africa.
The wars by the US, EU and NATO in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and in Syria are the main cause behind the exodus. But the European Union knows no other answer than the further militarization and creation of heavily armed borders on land, air and sea.
The Union train is on its tracks and is moving fast. Facts prove that the policy promoted by left-reformist forces such as Alexander Tsipras and the European Left Party as well as the social democrats who believe that the European Union can be turned into a progressive force, a superpower for good, is a dangerous deception.
We, the progressive and revolutionary forces, must fight against the imperialist European Union and its anti-worker and anti-people policies and structures, we must fight to leave the euro and the union itself.
Referendums and exemptions
Serious contradictions exist also among the big powers of the EU such as Germany and the UK. Not the least concerns the creation of a European Army, which is perceived by the UK as a challenge to the supremacy of its strategic partner the US and its command of NATO.
In May 2016 a referendum on staying in or leaving the EU is planned to be held in the UK.
In Denmark there is going to be held another referendum on December 3, 2015. It is called by the present minority right-wing government of Lars Løkke Rasmussen, jointly with the social democrats that lost the elections in June of 2015.
The intention of the referendum is to remove one of the three major Danish exemptions to the Maastricht treaty, adopted in 1993, so that the country will be almost completely integrated into the juridical and legal structures of the European Union.
The revolutionary and left-wing forces in Denmark have a strong tradition of opposing the integration into the European Union and of struggling to leave the EU.
Also the xenophobic Danish People’s Party – the second largest Danish party after the social democrats – and the mainstay of the present government is going to oppose the elimination of the exemption.
According to this plan, supported by the Danish bourgeoisie, which
is firmly pro-EU, the other Danish exemptions should also be removed –
notably that Denmark should join the military cooperation of the EU and
join the Euro, so that the country will be ready to fully and completely join the Dreamland EU of Merkel and Juncker by 2025.
September of 2015