APPEAL AGAINST THE PROJECT

SAY NO TO THE CONSTITUTIONAL
TREATY TO BUILD ANOTHER EUROPE!

We citizens, trade unionists, associations and organisations,

URGE TO SAY "NO" TO THE PROJECT OF EUROPEAN CONSTITUTIONAL TREATY

The project for Europe that is being proposed to us is entirely organised around a unique principle: the market, the generalisation of competition. This allows and organises the attack against public service and pensions, the incentive to the extension of working time and flexibilisation as well as the encouragement to social regression in each of the countries of the European Union. Whereas the aim of the constitutional treaty which is submitted to us is to set the broad lines of what will be tomorrow's Europe, we note that the future the treaty prepares for us is everything but the future we long for.

For too long, we have accepted that the construction of Europe develops without the participation of the European citizens and against their social "acquis". We refuse to imprison our future in a neoliberal constitutional text whose adoption would constitute a major obstacle to the European construction we want.

WE REFUSE THE ADOPTION OF THIS CONSTITUTIONAL TREATY IN OUR NAME

- because it confirms an ultra-liberal vision of the economy and the future of Europe, because it considers the "principle of an open market economy with free competition" as the guide and highest value of the initiatives of the European Union and prohibits therefore any real future discussion about its social and economic trends;
- because it buries the project of a social Europe by i.a. forbidding any restriction of the free movement of capital, by confirming the independence of the European Central Bank, by subordinating any social and fiscal harmonisation to the paralysing rule of unanimity and thus favouring social regression, dumping and relocations;
- because it does not recognise the fundamental social rights (right to work, to income substitution, to a basic income, to housing...) as being actual rights whose respect must be guaranteed by the European Union, but only as objectives which have to be achieved. Neither does it recognise the European right to strike;
- because it does not provide a satisfying frame for the future of public service but, on the contrary, confirms the attack against public service in the framework of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), which aims at their dismantling;
- because it foresees a close cooperation of the European Union with NATO and involves the EU in an escalation of military budgets;
- because it denies equality of rights to those who live in Europe without being nationals of a member state and submits them to administrative and police harassment;
- because this treaty project, which claims to be "constitutional", is neither the result of a real constituent assembly specifically charged by citizens to draft a constitution, neither the result of a real democratic debate;
- because, by setting in detail essential political, economic, and social choices, this project of constitution would prevent citizens from questioning these choices in the future, as unanimity of the 25 member states would be required to bring about the slightest change!

All these defects already broadly affect the existing treaties. We refuse to give them a new legitimacy and make them untouchable by transforming them into constitutional principles.

WE WANT TO BUILD ANOTHER EUROPE

Allowing today's Europe to keep going favours the dangerous expansion of reactionary populisms and xenophobic extreme right. This Europe, which excludes citizens from decision making, is not our Europe.

We are determined supporters of a Europe which grants everyone the right to work, a Europe mobilized against unemployment, precariousness and damaging of the living environment. A Europe which reinforces social guarantees, implements an economic development compatible with ecological balances, defends cultural diversity, respects the separation of the Churches and the State, attends to the strict application of equality between men and women. We want a democratic Europe based on the plain citizenship of all its residents. We propose a Europe whose peoples would be the actors of an authentic constituent process which allows them to really decide on political choices and to control their implementation.

This is why we appeal to give a majority NO to the constitutional treaty: a progressive NO, at odds with the liberal system and able to translate into vote what has been expressed by social, trade union and alterglobalist mobilizations during the last few years. If tomorrow the peoples reject the project of constitutional treaty, the Europe we want will not enter a crisis. On the contrary, for the first time at this level, we will together make our will of change heard. Saying no to the constitutional treaty is just a first step, a necessary step in the right direction: the direction of another Europe, more democratic, social, pacific, ecological and showing more solidarity.

We urge the citizens to say "no" to this project, through vote at the time of the referendum in the countries where it still has to be organised and through all other means likely to make their voices heard. We also urge the representatives sitting in the various national parliaments to refuse to ratify this project of constitutional treaty.

We urge all European progressives to build a large front in favour of the "no" to the project of constitution and we commit ourselves to take part, as much as we can, in the consciousness-raising actions carried on in that direction.

arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)