European Union
No to little Englandism
Submitted on 12 October, 2007 - 08:52
As the banker James Pierpoint Morgan said, everybody has two reasons for things they do: the good reason, and the real reason.
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Opt-out from rights
Submitted on 27 June, 2007 - 14:45
"Extremely disappointing". I guess that from TUC general secretary Brendan Barber that counts as militant talk. Anyway, it is the sum total of the unions' reaction to Tony Blair getting the European Union to agree to an opt-out for Britain from the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights.
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Against the Europhobes, against the Euro-capitalists. For a workers’ united Europe
Submitted on 8 March, 2007 - 13:21
By Sean Matgamna
There are two basic lines of possible working class policy in relation to the European Union.
The first advocates building on what the bourgeoisie has created and uniting the working class across the EU to fight the bourgeoisie for democratic and social reform and, in the course of doing that, building towards socialist transformation by working-class revolution on a European scale.
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Human rights, Polish style
Submitted on 6 April, 2006 - 18:32
The accession of Eastern European countries to the EU is supposed to have helped bring up respect for human rights there to “modern” standards. Maybe not.
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Summary notes on the debate on Europe
Submitted on 24 June, 2005 - 11:19
Summary notes on Europe for the international meeting of June 2005/ notes sommaires sur l'Europe, pour la réunion internationale du 18 juin 2005. (In English and French).
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The European left and the EU
Submitted on 15 June, 2005 - 21:16
A survey of the attitudes to the EU and the draft European constitution of the two main link-ups of the European left, the Party of the European Left (Communist and ex-Communist parties) and the European Anti-Capitalist Left (which includes some revolutionary groups).
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Draft motion on 48 hour week
Submitted on 15 June, 2005 - 11:36
Draft motion on the 48 hour week and the British "opt-out", prepared for Cambridge Trades Council, June 2005.
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Industrial news in brief
Submitted on 14 May, 2005 - 21:54
The European Parliament has voted to scrap an opt-out from the rules limiting the working week in the EU to an average of 48 hours, but the ruling won’t come into force for another three years and it could still be blocked if the UK Government wins support in the Council of Ministers.
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France's Turkey veto
Submitted on 9 November, 2004 - 20:46
In the end, despite lobbying by the Polish government and others, the EU constitution signed by 25 member states on 29 October did not contain references to Europe’s “Judaeo-Christian roots” in its preamble. But the question whether the EU should in some senses be a club only for Christians rumbles on, including, strongly, in France.
European Social Forum: You have to be there!
Submitted on 23 September, 2004 - 23:00
By Joan Trevor
Last-minute preparations are being made for the 3rd European Social Forum, less than a month away. While it’s far from being the ESF we — or many others — would have wanted, it will still be an immensely significant and enjoyable event.
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European left: Some new alliances and some bad old ways
Submitted on 12 August, 2004 - 13:54
How did the European left fare in the June elections? Martin Thomas reports
The results
Two point six per cent in France, 5.8% in Italy, 8.1% in Denmark, 7% in the Netherlands, 5.2% in Scotland, 4.9% in Portugal... I do not know of any significant radical-left electoral efforts in the new EU member states of Eastern Europe, but in some west European states, at least, there were some scores for the radical left in June's Euro-elections better than those which parties to the left of the Communist and Socialist parties got in the 1970s.
European constitution: Fight for a workers' Europe
Submitted on 12 August, 2004 - 12:28
By Cathy Nugent
On Friday 18 June Tony Blair signed up to the new EU constitution on behalf of the UK government. Short of great political upheavals this constitution will settle the relationships between the capitalist powers in an expanded European Union for a long time to come - it codifies and pushes forward a very great degree of integration.
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The Danish left and the EU
Submitted on 8 August, 2004 - 13:47
By Bjarke Friborg
With victory for the social democrats and setback for the "eurosceptics" an established tradition in Denmark seems to have been broken. For the left wing it places the question of an anticapitalist answer to the European integration high on the agenda.
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Pour une Europe unie des travailleurs
Submitted on 27 June, 2004 - 16:45
Contre les europhobes et contre les capitalistes européens !
Par Sean Matgamna.
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CWU to back Labour Representation Committee?
Submitted on 23 June, 2004 - 11:48
By a CWU member
At the General Conference of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) (14 June) the European Working Time Directive will be discussed.
At present, different sections of the union have different policies on whether individual opt-outs should continue.
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Against the far right: for a united Europe
Submitted on 17 June, 2004 - 17:52
By Rhodri Evans
The threat from the far right in the 10 June Euro-elections may come as much from the UK Independence Party as from the British National Party.
The BNP hopes to win a Euro-seat in the north-west. But the UKIP has edged ahead of the Lib-Dems in one opinion poll. It is spending more on the Euro-elections than Labour and the Tories put together. It has the backing of multi-millionaire Paul Sykes, actress Joan Collins, freelance racist Robert Kilroy-Silk, and former Clinton campaign manager Dick Morris.
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June 2004 Elections: Vote socialist or Labour, build LRC!
Submitted on 22 May, 2004 - 09:12
By Colin Foster
Thursday 10 June will be a big election day, but, unfortunately, one with a small socialist presence. Seventy-eight Euro-MPs will be elected, by proportional representation in each of 12 giant regions.
Europe: Blair does a deal with Murdoch
Submitted on 27 April, 2004 - 08:26
By promising a referendum on the proposed European Union constitution, Tony Blair has put himself at risk of a political defeat. Current opinion polls show 86% against the constitution.
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EU plans new constitution. We say: For a democratic united states of Europe!
Submitted on 22 October, 2003 - 17:02
"Let us for a moment grant that German militarism succeeds in carrying out the half-union of Europe... what then would be the central slogan of the European proletariat? Would it be the dissolution of the forced European coalition and the return of all people under the roof of isolated national states?...
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Swedish no will not boost Euro-left
Submitted on 2 October, 2003 - 08:55
By Rhodri Evans
On 14 September Sweden voted 56% to 42% against joining the euro.
The Social Democratic government, the main opposition parties, and the major newspapers all favoured the euro. But the voters rebelled.
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Workers' Europe starts here!
Submitted on 10 September, 2003 - 12:15
By Joan Trevor
Since the end of the Second World War capitalists have been groping-sometimes blindly-towards a united Europe, with institutions and activities to meet their needs.
Their concessions to making this Europe in the interests of its non-capitalist majority have been tiny and token: the European Parliament is next to powerless; the European Social Charter aims at leveling social provision, not out of the goodness of the capitalists' hearts but so that no one member state has an advantage over the others; the extension of worker participation in running businesses comes out of a co-option management model, not respect for the organised power of labour.
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What do you think about... the Euro?
Submitted on 26 June, 2003 - 21:52
What should socialists do when faced with a choice between two options, neither of which are going to be beneficial to the working class? How should socialists vote in a Euro referendum?
Some socialists believe voting 'no' to the Euro is the only answer. They feel that if Britain joined the single currency, it would subject the working class here to the power of reactionary bureaucrats in Brussels. They also believe that the euro will bring cuts, and if it is brought in, it will mean a victory for the Blairites and their capitalist partners in crime. Because socialists are anti-capitalists, they say, we must logically oppose the capitalist euro. These socialists often also oppose the idea of the EU, viewing it as nothing more than a bureaucratic club for capitalists.
Euro? Yes, but not at our expense: For a Workers' United Europe!
Submitted on 18 June, 2003 - 05:54
By Colin Foster
Capitalism in Europe is becoming euro-capitalism, like it or not. In general and in principle, we - the socialists, the labour movement, the working-class left - should "like" it.
Unite with Euro-strikers!
Submitted on 16 May, 2003 - 21:25
Will Blair swap the pound for the euro?
By Colin Foster
Will Tony Blair use his boost from the relatively quick US/UK military victory in Iraq to make a dash for the euro? Or will Gordon Brown's caution hold him back?
Is it really true that euro entry would undercut the Health Service? Or is that scaremongering given that in the core of the eurozone welfare provision is generally better than in Britain?
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Is Iraq war about dollar vs euro?
Submitted on 7 April, 2003 - 15:23
In recent AWL meetings about the war, a number of comrades have suggested that maybe the underlying issue, what it's really about, is dollar versus euro. I'm not convinced, but I'm posting this (by Duncan Du Bois, from The Natal Witness), because it's the most spelled-out version of the argument I've come across so far.
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Wonderful Copenhagen!
Submitted on 11 January, 2003 - 17:57
Alan Turvey reports
To coincide with the European Union summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, in mid-December, at which ten eastern and central European states were admitted to membership, thousands of mainly young people demonstrated in the bitter Scandinavian cold - in the main not against "the EU" or "Europe" as such, but against "the capitalist EU".
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Neither pound nor euro, but workers' unity
Submitted on 31 October, 2002 - 10:29
Kat Fletcher's speech moving the "active boycott" composite at the Socialist Alliance special conference on the euro, 12 October 2002.
What is the Euro? It is about the integration of capital. It is one face of capitalism's drive to break down national frontiers, to create wider markets, to build larger units of production. The capitalist class of Europe want it in order to maximise their profits. They want to lower the national barriers in Europe in their own way and in their own interest.
That is the euro. Plainly we can't support it. But does it follow that we should say no to the euro?
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The euro: who said...?
Submitted on 21 October, 2002 - 14:47
By Bruce Robinson
Who said?
(1) 'The Growth and Stability Pact is in its death throes'.
(2) ' The Growth and Stability Pact is stupid'.
(3) 'Chris Jones obviously hasn't been reading the financial press lately.'
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Euro: which union lefts should we ally with?
Submitted on 14 October, 2002 - 06:33
From Solidarity 3/14, 11 October 2002
"We support in principle the single European currency. We are Europeans and internationalists", says Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the PCS civil service union and the most prominent trade-unionist in the Socialist Alliance.
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Socialist Alliance votes "no to euro"
Submitted on 13 October, 2002 - 08:17
The "no to the euro" motion won at the Socialist Alliance euro-conference, on 12 October, by 202 votes to 108 with one abstention.
Our "active boycott" composite lost by 107 votes to 199 with two abstentions. A "no" motion from Hyman Frankel on explicitly nationalist grounds was defeated with only one vote in favour. Dave Landau's motion which recommended continuing the debate was lost by 75 to 213 with 4 abstentions.

