appeal, Defis 2001 (D14 - Site : www.d14.be)

The presidency of the European Union will be held by Belgium from July to
December 2001. European leaders want to begin a debate on the future of the
European Union, notably at the Laeken Summit. Defis 2001 (D14) has brought
together a number of associations and organisations who oppose the current
construction of Europe. They consider that it is being forged by capitalist
and not social interests, that it is not democratic but repressive and is
not peaceful but rather, threatens world peace.

While the different European institutions appear very distant from the
average citizen, they in fact exercise a far more important role.
According to UNICE (European Employers' Association): "In European
countries, 60% of new laws are introduced at a European Union level and 70%
of these measures (regulations, directives, decisions and
recommendations) are concerned with the economic domain". The European
Union is working for whom?

Needs and aspirations, there is definitely good reason to raise these
questions. What have neo-liberalism, globalisation and privatisations
brought the general population? What policy have the Commission and European
Council applied?
Redundancies, flexibility, part-time or increased working hours, night
shifts, working weekends, pensions under threat, increased cut-backs in
social security? How do ordinary European citizens see themselves in this
European construction?

The people have a right to a decent wage. But the European Union taxes the
salaries of those on low and middle incomes severely in order to meet the
criteria of the well-known Maastricht criteria, the keys to the vaults of
European construction. At the same time, the wealthy profit from
globalisation and avoid paying taxes. The wealth for some people increases
at the same rate as poverty increases for others. And this is not the end
of the matter.

The people have a right to access public services. But the European Union
encourages privatisations and de-regulation (the post office,
telecommunications, transport, energy) to transform these
sectors into sources for profit. For those who use certain services, the
prices increase and in some cases the quality gets worse. The workers in
these services loose their job security and sometime their jobs.

The people have a right to live in peace. But the Union is creating an
autonomous army. This will be able to intervene anywhere, either because the
market economy is not master of the situation or because the economic
interests of the big multinationals consider that their interests are in
danger. The Balkans, Africa, the Middle East are increasingly considered as
valid terrain in which to intervene.

The people themselves have the right to decide their future with full
knowledge of the facts. New technology, notably the Internet will allow
them to do this. But there is no administration as intransparent as the
European Union and what of the European Commission, European Council,
Council of Ministers and the Committee of Permanent Representatives that it
has created? Such a construction encourages the unseen lobbying of certain
employers' groups but excludes the democratic participation of ordinary
citizens. Nothing has been planned to rectify this bureaucratic concealment
and it will not be a practically powerless European Parliament that is going
to resolve the problem.

The people need rights. Equal rights for all. But the European Union
reproduces national chauvinism on a continental scale. The right to vote
and employment in the public sector are denied to part of the population
living in Europe but who originate from countries in the South or East.
Immigration for our leaders is nothing but a commodity to be imported
according to the needs of capital. On the one hand it welcomes with open
arms workers who are very well qualified and on the other hand it uses
clandestine immigration to keep wages down. Immigration that has been
declared illegal (and therefore without the necessary documents) and is used
to justify Fortress Europe with camps, barbed wire and international police
(Europol). It is the same with the European Union on the question of
sexual equality. Using the excuse of equality between the sexes, working
nights is becoming more widespread for women and is becoming the accepted
rule in the workplace. The age for retirement has been extended to 65 for
everyone and equal pay has still not been achieved.

The people have a right a private life. But the European Union supports
police co-operation between Member States, notably by way of Europol. Using
the pretext of the struggle against organised crime and terrorism,
repression grows. Spy cameras cover entire areas. The number of police is
increased as well as stop-and-search controls, especially in poor
neighbourhoods.

The people have a right to a healthier life. But pollution impacts on
everything we inhale, drink, eat, hear and see. Unhealthy food, of which
mad cow disease is a case in point, is the result of a European agricultural
policy determined by the agri-business. It is the same story with health
care, which has been targeted by the pharmaceutical industry. European
waste disposal is discharged in the Third World.

The people must have the right to express their cultural diversity whilst
ensuring that the weakest members in society have an equal voice.
Inventions and cultural creations of the poorest members of society must be
given full support. But the European Union reserves culture for the elite
and privatises it.

In the media, it is only a few large groups who monopolise the role of
information-providers. The European Union talks about transparency but
floods the people with news trivia. How can ordinary citizens emancipate
themselves, be free and participate in the democratic debate without access
to culture and information?

Aggression and resistance

Faced with so many problems, workers, employees, youth, unemployed,
clandestine refugees, the homeless, etc., have multiplied their acts of
resistance. The Clabecq workers fought to protect their jobs with formidable
determination. They defended their rights as trade union members which the
European Union sought to curtail. They have been portrayed as criminals in
a parody of a trial.
The Renault Vilvorde workers opposed the right of "their" multinational to
close a factory that employed 3,000 workers.

Their comrades at Danone want to prevent their company from closing down
different units, while at the same time the company is awash with profits.
It is the same fight at Electrabel. At Cockerill Sambre in Charleroi, the
steel workers are not prepared to sacrifice their jobs for a merger
(Usinor-Arbed) that is supported by the European Union because it seeks to
create a world leader in the steel industry. The workers at Sabena do not
want to be gobbled up by the large airlines, which has been promoted by the
Commission to compete with American firms.

Everywhere, the railways, the post office and local government, employees
are set against deregulation and privatisations, as dictated by the European
institutions. In the United Kingdom, rail workers are fighting against the
consequences of rail privatisation. In France and other countries they are
fighting to stop privatisation of the railways going ahead.

All different groups such as clandestine refugees, unemployed and homeless
etc., want to put an end to the insecurity for which the policies of the
European authorities are responsible.

Teachers are fiercely opposed to the transformation of their
schools into private businesses and refuse to accept the market ethos in
education.

In Nice, 100,000 people took to the streets to denounce European policy, in
the most impressive trade union demonstration ever seen. They were
fighting, in particular, against the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which
engenders the danger of serious setbacks in the social arena (no right to a
job, accommodation, social security benefits, ...).

We are in solidarity with all of these struggles and wish to seem them
extended.

It is patently obvious. European Union policy goes against the aspirations
of the people. The Commission drones on about a social model but in fact
pursues the introduction of an American economy. Unemployment, low paid
jobs, poverty, exclusions, these all risk being the lot of a large part of
the working population.

This is what the Round Table of European business leaders wish to see, those
who are presiding over the future of European construction. It is also what
UNICE is pursuing too, as well as other employers' associations whose social
ambitions constitute a vision of creating a Limited Company. It is they
who promote the current construction of Europe and who want all notions of a
social life to be sacrificed to the pursuit of profits and the creation of
large-scale enterprises, capable of competing with American and Japanese
rivals.

This is why there is no construction of a social Europe. It is not
democratic. Neither is it conducive to peace or solidarity between
countries.

In order to get the people to accept European construction as it is, the
people in charge of it, as well as their fellow-travellers are involved in
the construction of myth-making.

The first myth: European countries on their own are too small to oppose
stronger competitors. In order for their voices to be heard in the concert
of nations they need to speak with the same voice and they need to be larger
if their prosperity is to be guaranteed.

To be larger? Perhaps. But is this a reason for accepting the kind of
Europe described?

It is no guarantee for preventing social destruction.
The USA, the most powerful country in the world, is home to 30 million
people who live in poverty. Since 1977, 40% of those who are poorest have
seen their incomes decline. This has happened over the last decade too.

The second myth: will peace be the result of implementing a European area?
The current Europe is developing a market economy, while destroying local
industry and heightening social and economic tension. We can already see
how this has provoked economic wars, the prelude of much more serious
conflicts. European countries have already participated in many military
operations (Iraq, Kosovo, etc.).

Why is NATO doing this? Why build a European army?
Why, when officially we do not have any enemies any longer? As the adage
goes, whoever wants peace must prepare for war. When everything else is
ready, there is nothing left but to but to do it.

The third myth: Europe is the birth place of democratic values and the
social model for the world.

The forces to which Europe yields and which we are fighting against are
those illustrated in colonial conquests. Fascism occurred in Europe. There
is nothing to be proud of this. Today, European leaders are attacking the
European social model with their deregulation and privatisation. But in
international relations they continually talk of "democratic values " and a
" European social model". Has this not replaced the idea of "civilisation"
used in the nineteenth century in colonisation?

For another kind of Europe

The rights and interests of its citizens are the concerns of its people.
Europe is their Europe. It is not that of the European business leaders'
Round Table. It will be the different peoples in Europe who will construct
another kind of Europe. A just democratic Europe of solidarity. A Europe
where social needs are ensured for everyone, without discrimination. A
Europe of different peoples. A Europe of solidarity with the struggles and
resistance movements everywhere in the world against the power of the
multinationals, the large
finance houses and the political leaders who defend these interests.

There have been demonstrations in Seattle (against the WTO), in Washington
(against the IMF and World Bank), in Davos (against the World Economic
Forum), in Prague (again against the IMF and World Bank), in
Porto Alegre (Counter Summit to the forum in Davos), in Nice (against the
European Summit, ? in Brussels. Globalise resistance!

arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)