“Quo vadis Europe? No to the European Union of transnationals and major powers – For a Europe of cooperation, social progress and peace”

Speech by Neoklis Sylikiotis, member of the Political Bureau of the C.C. of AKEL and AKEL MEP, to the initiative organized by the Portuguese Communist Party PCP 

 

Friday 27 April 2018, Lisbon, Portugal

Dear friends and comrades,

First of all, I would like to thank the Portuguese Communist Party PCP for the invitation to participate in today’s discussion. On this opportunity, I would also like to convey the comradely greetings of AKEL to the Communists of Portugal. Furthermore, we also wish to express our will to strengthen the cooperation and joint action between our two Parties, both within the framework of the international communist movement and at the level of the Group of the Left GUE/NGL in the European Parliament.

Friends and comrades,

The debate on the European Union can now take place based on the concrete reality and the specific results that its policies have caused in our continent and on its peoples.

• Instead of “prosperity”, the peoples of Europe are counting the millions of unemployed, homeless and poor, while billions of Euros are being spent to rescue the banks.
• Instead of “peace”, the EU is continually being militarized, transformed into a twin of NATO, engaging in the sale of arms with the warring Middle East and proclaiming a “shift in investment” towards the arms industry. The EU is deploying military missions all over the world, establishing the Euro-Guard security services and carrying out in aggressive raids, attacks and military interventions. The EU’s hands are stained with the blood of Yugoslavia, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, while it has colluded in the resurgence of fascism in Ukraine.
• Instead of “solidarity”, the EU leaders are erecting walls and electrified fences, launching patrols and carrying out operations to keep the refugees who are drowning in the Mediterranean waters outside “Fortress Europe”.
• Instead of “democracy”, the democratic deficit in the functioning of the EU is deepening constantly and the inequalities between the states and its regions are being reproduced, while at the same time the EU is institutionalizing anti-communism and the falsification of the history of the Second World War.

Today, increasingly fewer people are denying the existence of these realities. The contradictions between the empty rhetoric and wishes, as well as the reality experienced by the peoples themselves, cannot be covered up by the lavish EU’s communication campaigns or by the pompous declarations made by one or the other of its leaders. The reality of mass unemployment, poverty and inequalities is so unescapable and blatant that no one can question it anymore. However, where great and fundamental differences do arise, even within the progressive spectrum, is with regards the causes and roots of today’s reality.

I therefore wish that you permit me to make three important, in our opinion, comments about the EU, its character and development.

Firstly. The “European Union” did not end up where it is today because – as certain forces and circles claim – it supposedly has “deviated from its founding principles” and “departed from the visions of its founders”. The truth is really quite different. The “European Union” is today confronted with deadlocks and contradictions, because this was unavoidably its course as an advanced form of capitalist integration.

From the very outset, the motives behind the creation of the European Economic Community (EEC) were economic and geopolitical: that is to say, to rally capitalist Europe into a political and military community, against the then Soviet Union. Indeed, in the landscape of the war-stricken economies of Western Europe and in parallel with the US economic penetration in Europe through the provision of so-called “economic aid” to their allies, the powerful West European countries took specific decisions: To unite their forces so as to boost their economies and assert a bigger share of the global capitalist market, the limits of which had been curbed due to the growth of socialism.

It is therefore of crucial importance to reveal the real starting point of European unification which began with the Treaty of Rome in 1957 and which subsequently developed with the Single European Act, the Single Market, the Maastricht Treaty and the Treaty of Lisbon. From the “four freedoms” and the Common Market, to the Eurozone and the Banking Union, the principal motive that is driving the deepening of the EU is what led to its very establishment: capitalist profit and the interests of the multinational monopolies.

Consequently, this dramatic socio-economic reality the peoples are suffering today is not accidental. It is the product of the capitalist nature of the EU itself. It is the result of the political choices made by the ruling classes in the EU member-states which both European Right and European social democracy have elaborated, promoted and imposed jointly.

Secondly. This very nature of the EU is expressed in the field of foreign policy, international relations and through its militarization. It is its capitalist nature that demands from itself to assert a greater share of the global market and spheres of geo-political influence in the competition with the other powerful centres of the world (US, Russia, Japan, China) in order to continuously expand the range of its business giant companies. For example, the EU’s Common Commercial Policy, which is a key element of the EU’s external action, aims, according to the Treaties, to “promote the integration of all countries into the global economy, also through the gradual abolition of restrictions in international trade”, “to immediate foreign direct investment, as well as the reduction of customs and other barriers”. This objective is expressed the economic and political content the EU attaches to the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), the Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP), the Enlargement Policy, the Neighborhood Policy in the East and South, the Association Relations with other states, regional and international organizations.

The EU’s support towards the pro-fascist coup d’état in Ukraine, the reinforcement of the Syrian opposition with arms and funds, the bombing and disintegration of Libya, the enlargement in the Western Balkans, the provocative tolerance shown towards Turkey (a country that is illegally occupying 37% of the territory of a member-state of the EU itself, namely the Republic of Cyprus), as well as the notorious policy of “equal distancing” pursued towards Israel which continues to occupy the Palestinian territories are political choices that must be explained on the basis of class interests, the EU’s geopolitical, economic and energy planning and its hard core of members.

In conjunction with these developments, the EU’s course of militarization has passed through various stages. From the elaboration of the European Security and Defense Policy to “the Union must have the possibility for autonomous action, supported by reliable military forces, the means in order to decide to use them and the readiness to do so…”.

It has passed through to the creation of the EU Battle Groups, that is to say highly trained military formations that can be deployed anywhere in the world within 10 days.

The formation of rapid reaction forces and the carrying out of civilian-military missions around the world.

The establishment of the European External Action Service (EEAS) which acts as the civilian-military arm of European diplomacy.

The Lisbon Treaty which has institutionalized the coupling and synergy with NATO, as well as the possibility of waging preemptive strikes in third countries which has widened the range of missions that the EU can take outside its borders.

In recent years, EU leaders have announced “a shift investment” towards the arms industry with the creation of permanent military structures and a European Defense Fund with a budget of € 38.5 billion from 2020 to 2027. That is to say € 5.5 billion per year for military equipment, the strengthening of the arms industry and the promotion of research for military purposes.

The difficulties experienced in the past in setting up the European Army – given that it addresses the sensitive aspects of state sovereignty, but also inter-European competition – are being overcome today through the creation of the so-called PESCO (Permanent Structured Co-operation), which marks a new phase in the militarization of the EU

All these developments prove in an irrefutable way that the European Union – in spite of its verbal proclamations and the Nobel Prizes – is not a force of peace. It is a force of interventionism and militarism. It is no exaggeration to say that a military super state is being completed.

Thirdly. The current European Union cannot be reformed, nor can it be glorified, as capitalism itself cannot be too. The economic, political, constitutional, legal and institutional framework which has been forged by the EU constitutes a suffocating framework that is continually curbing national sovereignty. In particular, this applies with regards the possibilities of implementing an independent and alternative economic policy, developments are much clearer than ever before. The “Stability Pact”, the “Euro+ Pact”, the “Single Support Mechanism”, the “Financial Pact”, the “European Semester”, the “Enhanced Economic Governance”, the “Six-pack”, the “Two-pack” to impose privatizations and restructuring that large capital demands in conjunction with austerity policies and cuts in working people’s incomes and social gains. The New Framework for Economic Governance has rendered the measures a permanent and all-European character, as well as big capital’s whole mechanism. In our opinion, the need for an initial bold and open dialogue is imperative on the nature and functioning of the European Monetary Union (EMU) as a mechanism that reproduces inequalities between and within EU Member-States.

The much-publicized “Banking Union” is aiming at the concentration of banking capital and to defend the big banks. At the same time, the possibility for a haircut on the depositors when demanded, remains among the options. In addition, the developing Capital Markets Union, which according to the European Commission’s proposal will be completed by 2019, will launch a shadow banking system that will favour big investors rather than small and medium-sized businesses. There is indeed the danger of a new “bubble” of speculation developing. Nevertheless, the European Union is determined to further deepen these policies. The Juncker plan on the future of the EU provides for:

1. Permanent austerity mechanisms in the Member-States (the so-called Competitiveness Committees).
2. A European super-Finance Minister, who evidently will not be subject to democratic accountability.

III. Preventive “scrutiny” of every legislative initiative of the Commission and the Member States through an economic perspective, so that they go beyond and deviate from the financial indicators.

In the face of these facts, dear comrades and friends, the question that is posed before all the Communist and left parties of Europe, the progressive forces of our continent, is: “What do we do?” Without anyone claiming that he/she has unfailing magical recipes, our own answers to this question are as follows:

– First and foremost, we should reveal the truth about the EU, its character and policies. Even when we are being accused by our opponents of “Euroscepticism” and “living in the past”, we ought to tell our peoples the truth about what the consequences of the policies that are being elaborated each time in the EU Directorates will have on their lives and rights. In Cyprus, AKEL is the only party in Cyprus that critically approaches the EU, opposes its policies and projects the necessity for a different alternative Europe.

– Secondly, we reject the conservative “Euroscepticism” of the Right and extreme-right, which is being projected as the answer to the deadlocks of the EU and neoliberalism. Reactionary forces such as Le Pen in France, Viktor Orbán in Hungary, the “Golden Dawn” party in Greece and its branch in our country, namely the “National Popular Front” (ELAM) represent the most reactionary and sinister face of big capital, with open or disguised fascist tendencies, racism, anti-communism and nationalism. Not only are they not anti-systemic forces, but they represent the system’s best reserve force that it turns to whenever the system itself needs to channel social dissatisfaction into a different channel of capitalism.

– Third. We set forth demands – intermediate goals for militation and assertion – that can alleviate the current situation and the suffocating control over member-states such as:

• The abolition of the Fiscal Stability Treaty, the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance and the European Semester, and their replacement with policies promoting social convergence, employment and sustainable development without exclusions.
• Public control and decentralization of the banking sector, as opposed to the consolidation of the “Banking Union” and the immediate cessation of the procedure for the Capital Markets Union.
• The introduction of a Framework Directive to promote dignified work in all forms of employment by ensuring for each working person a basic set of enforceable rights in relation to the minimum wage, pensions and unemployment benefits.
• The accession of the EU to the European Social Charter in order to provide tools for tackling the most anti-social aspects of the Single Market and the Economic Governance Framework, in particular of the Member-States of the periphery.

– Fourth. We need to strengthen the popular and labour struggles in every country in Europe where the role and contribution of the Communist Left was, and will continue be irreplaceable. We need to wage struggles against the policies of the EU, both on a national and all-European level, inside and outside national parliaments and the European Parliament. For AKEL, it is of crucial importance to maintain and strengthen the cooperation of the left-wing forces of the European Parliament, through the Group of the Left (GUE/NGL). The confederal character and the agreement on substantive political issues enables the cooperation of forces that – regardless of their diversity – can represent the voice of a different Europe inside the European Parliament. This also represents one of AKEL’s priorities for the upcoming European elections.

Dear friends and comrades,

Finally, we link the struggle to curb neo-liberal policies and the struggle for social protection measures, with the struggle for another, for a radically different Europe. Besides, the Left has never rejected the perspective of European unification, given that in our view cooperation between the geographical regions of the world are objectively a step forward in humanity’s historical development. Only the right-wing nationalist forces reject the vision of a united European continent, in which the peoples, nations, languages, religions and cultures will co-exist in peace.

The questions posed by the different scenarios “more or less Europe?” which the leadership of the EU is elaborating are false dilemmas since they do not go to the root of the problems and deadlocks. However, the key question which represents – in our opinion – a historical challenge for the future of the peoples of our continent, is on what foundations this unification will be built on. By whom and with what materials? “What kind of Europe do our people want and need?” This is the question History poses.

For AKEL, the Europe that we want is a Europe of democracy and the parity of its members, not the EU of the Directorates.

We want a Europe of peace, cooperation, social progress – not the EU of NATO and the arms industries.

We want a Europe that will serve those who produce the wealth, namely the working people – not the EU of bankers and multinational monopolies.

We want the Europe of democratic freedoms, individual rights and open pluralistic societies.

Because, comrades, Europe is not the European Union and the Brussels directorate.

Europe is the democratic and militant heritage of the peoples of our continent.

Europe is the values ​​of humanity, peace, solidarity, social and civil rights.

Europe is the class and socio-political struggles of our peoples.

Europe is the Revolutions that shook the world: from the French Revolution and the Russian October to the Spanish Republic and the Anti-fascist Victory of the Peoples, the Polytechnic uprising of Greece and the 25 April Revolution in Portugal.

This is the Europe that inspires us in our struggles today and for tomorrow. This is the Europe that unites the peoples.

The Europe of the Peoples and Socialism!