The Militant - Jan. 10, 2000 -- Summit reflects increased rivalries of imperialist powers in Europe, worldwide

Vol.64/No.1 January 10, 2000

Summit reflects increased rivalries of imperialist powers in Europe, worldwide
{A Letter from Europe column}

BY CARL-ERIK ISACSSON
STOCKHOLM, Sweden—The enlargement of the European Union (EU) into eastern and central Europe was the question the Finnish government, which currently holds the EU presidency, wanted to top the agenda at the EU summit in Helsinki December 10-11. But leading up to the meeting other questions dominated the European Union, reflecting increasing rivalry between the main imperialist powers in Europe and in the world. These included:

An alarming slide in the common currency the euro to near parity with the U.S. dollar;
The refusal of the French government to accept an EU ruling and lift its ban on the import of beef from Britain; London's rejection of the proposed plan to equalize taxes on capital gains within the European Union by collecting taxes on Eurobonds purchased in the United Kingdom;
And a new proposal by Paris and London to form a 60,000-troop European fighting force fully deployable within 60 days—a scheme that polarizes politics for the supposedly "neutral" governments of Sweden, Finland, Ireland, and Austria and puts a strain on relations within the U.S.-dominated NATO military alliance.

The EU summit in Helsinki also followed the ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Seattle, which ended in a fiasco. The Seattle gathering registered the limits of the imperialists' aggressive trade policies that they hoped could fuel expansion of the world capitalist system on weakening of trade and capital regulations in the semicolonial countries and the workers states. Increasing rivalry between the imperialist powers themselves is also blocking further expansion of trade and capital flows between these countries.

Planned expansion of EU

The 15 governments who are currently members of the EU agreed to open entry talks in February with the governments of Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Malta. Membership talks are already under way with the governments of Estonia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, and Cyprus. But the targeted dates for EU membership keep being pushed further into the future. The EU Commission has ruled that the earliest possible entry date now is 2003.

The same is true for proposed changes in the EU constitution, which have been discussed since the Amsterdam meeting in 1997, to prepare enlargement by making it harder for small states to block the votes of large powers in the Council of Ministers. How could the largest imperialist powers that dominate the EU reach agreement on constitutional changes when Paris defies the decision by the EU commission to lift the ban on British beef imports and London will not obey the EU decisions on taxes?

The entry talks serve mostly to try to open up the perspective member countries—most of which are workers states where capitalism was overturned following World War II—to the further penetration of capital and changes in the judiciary and police forces, in hopes of restoring the rule of the market system. But 10 years after the collapse of the Berlin wall, it is proving impossible to impose the capitalist social relations needed to make imperialist investments there profitable and pave the way for capitalist expansion worldwide, short of defeating the workers in each of these countries in bloody struggles.

The summit also decided to accept Turkey as a candidate for EU membership, but with many conditions and no date to begin talks. Although the Turkish government in Ankara has applied for membership since the 1960s, it has never been seriously considered. The reasons are obvious. If agriculture in Turkey received subsidies from EU funds under the same criteria as in Greece, Spain, France, Ireland, and other current member states, the EU's budget would have to be substantially increased. Such a capital flow into Turkey—a predominately Muslim semicolonial country with a population of 65 million—from the main imperialist powers in Europe is not what the EU powers want. Instead, the imperialist rulers want to suck in the wealth produced by workers and farmers in Turkey.

The Greek government, the only imperialist power in the Balkans, has opposed Turkish membership to strengthen its domination in the region. The German rulers have also previously opposed Turkey's membership as it would put a further strain on the European Union funds, of which Berlin pays the largest share.

The imperialist powers in Europe have veiled their oppressive relation with Turkey with democratic imperialist diplomacy, accusing the Turkish government of human rights abuses as the reason for not dealing with Ankara's application for EU membership.

Debate over membership for Turkey

The U.S. government has supported the Turkish application. Ankara is a member of NATO and served an important role in backing U.S. interests in the 1990–91 Iraq war and especially the war over Kosova in 1999. The German rulers have also recognized this, and are looking to play a bigger military role in the Balkans. This had weight in the final outcome of the Helsinki summit.

The Turkish rulers, however, are far from meeting the EU membership criteria, such as lowering budget deficits and inflation. Turkey's inflation rate is currently about 65 percent. The government would have to impose deep austerity measures against workers and farmers in Turkey before becoming a member of the European Union.

As part of the agreement for this promise of consideration, Ankara may have to submit its territorial disputes with Athens to the imperialist-rigged International Court of Justice in the Hague and Ankara has to recognize the Greek Cypriot regime as a legitimate applicant for EU membership. This got a negative note by the Virtue party in Ankara, the largest opposition group in parliament. The Ukrainian government had also requested to apply for EU membership, but was not approved at the meeting in Helsinki. Among the unstated reasons was the imperialists' concerns that such a move would provoke sharper conflict with Moscow.

The Helsinki summit adopted the proposal submitted by London and Paris to form a force of 60,000 troops to be used in a "crisis zone" such as Bosnia or Kosova. The command and planning staffs, the intelligence base, and the decision-making and deployment apparatus for this force are to be in place by 2003.

Washington has been urging its imperialist allies in Europe to increase and upgrade their military forces, complaining that its NATO partners were far behind U.S. military might in the Yugoslav war. U.S. officials did not voice objection to the plan decided on in Helsinki, but stressed their concern that any EU military force not dilute the strength of the NATO structures, which Washington controls.

Carl-Erik Isacsson is a member of the metalworkers union in Södertälje, Sweden.

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