Build European workers unity

Submitted by Matthew on 2 December, 2010 - 1:48 Author: Darren Bedford

The bosses and bankers of Europe have been busily discussing a coordinated response to the debt crises that have shaken Ireland, Greece, Portugal and other countries within the “Eurozone.”

They are discussing united responses across the continent to defend the interests of their class. Our class needs to do likewise.

There have been significant strike movements across Europe recently; the Greek strikes, the recent Portuguese general strike and the French strike wave are the most prominent. But these strikes have all been called on a national basis with little or no attempts at coordination.

Some workers in Belgium took strike action in solidarity with the French movement but such examples have been rare. The European day of action called by the ETUC on 29 September was a one-day protest action and was almost ignored in Britain.

The stakes are far too high for this kind of disunity. The crisis is beyond national, the bosses' response is beyond national, our response must be beyond national too.

It is now not uncommon to hear rhetoric about the need for continent-wide action from labour movement leaders in Britain. If they genuinely mean those words, they should fight not only for coordinated action but for the political programme implied by that action — not British withdrawal from the EU, not the break-up of the EU, but smashing “through” the EU to European workers’ unity and, ultimately, a united workers’ states of Europe.

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