Towards a European Europe

Umberto Mazzei

03/06/2014

Opinión

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Europe has got to get away from this notion that the whole purpose of Europe is to diminish the nation state

Tony Blair (after European parliamentary elections)

In political advertising released in France before the European parliamentary elections, on 22 to 25 May, the predominant message ranged from a wink against European bureaucracy up to demanding the dissolution of the European Union (EU). It went from the very establishment French UMP party’s For another Europe, up to the Left Front openly calling for France to get out of NATO, the Euro and the EU. All parties implicitly or explicitly claimed dissatisfaction with the system in their slogans.

The founder of the National Front (FN), Jean Marie Le Pen, whose party won the largest share of votes (25.4%), in the advertising facsimile of the voting card for the FN clearly explained how the EU government in Brussels is becoming increasingly less representative of European will. It reminded how, in 2005, French people rejected in a plebiscite a draft for a European constitution, and how it was later imposed by an agreement among governments in disregard of the citizens will. It described the EU as increasingly remote from the opinion of the people and closer to the interests of the bankers. It mentioned how the European Union slashed wages and employment in the name of austerity, but wasted millions on weapons and NATO’s unnecessary military adventures.

The general tone of the election for the European Parliament was anti-systemic and the National Front, simply put, had more credibility. The mainstream press has always demonized the FN, calling it extreme right, which it is not, even if because in Europe there is no space for the left and right paradigm, as you can watch hard Ricardian capitalism policies endorsed by European socialist parties in all major European countries, such as Germany, France, Great Britain and Spain.

The FN is above all an anti-system party and the owners of the system press feel it that way. Its policy agenda places it as an ideologically mixed party, that I dare to see as the true heir of De Gaulle. Its priority is French and European sovereignty; so it must fight against a version of Europe led by the interests of Wall Street and the City in London. The FN is conservative when it protects French identity and prioritizes the interests of French citizens and national companies. It is for independence when it requests more freedom for government policy choices and less interference from Brussels in national affairs. It is socialist in promoting the rights of workers in their fight against homicidal austerity imposed by bankers’ greed.

FN’s triumph at the European parliamentary elections was the most commented on, but it was by no means an isolated case. The increased electoral support for anti- system parties was a general phenomenon, but there was no uniformity in their programs or in the dimension of electoral support.

UKIP, in the UK, had a remarkable electoral success, with 29 % of the vote. In Denmark the DF- Popular Party won 26.6 %. In Croatia the nationalist coalition HSP won 41%. In Austria the FPO won 19.5%. In Hungary, Jobbik maintained its 14.7% despite being an external ally of the Fidesz - KDNP nationalist coalition government, which took 51%. Among the Baltic states, anti-system vote was around 14%. In Greece, despite having its leaders imprisoned or maybe because of it, Golden Dawn got 10%, but the big winner was SYRIZA, with 26.6%, which the press classifies as a left wing party but is also anti-system and promises the same policies as does, say, the National Front in France.

The basic thing these political parties have in common are: a) the rejection of the neo-liberal creed; b) dislike of European bureaucracy; c ) respect for European national identities; d ) annoyance with the long American economic and military occupation of Europe; e) criticism of the US – EU coup in Ukraine; f) opposing foreign intervention in Syria. Another common trait - attributed by their adversaries - is to be opposed to the idea of a united Europe. Actually it is the reverse: they oppose the de-Europeanization of Europe driven from Brussels.

The European political, economic and social climate

Europeans increasingly feel robbed by those that direct national policies and EU policies. They were robbed of their identity by mandatory quotas for massive, indiscriminate and inassimilable immigration. They were robbed of their savings by governments to bail out bankers from their own greed and stupidity. They were robbed of their social rights in order to improve their governments’ budgets ruined by dishonest and stupid misdeeds.

Brussels imposes the economic model that has been used by Anglo – Saxon countries since the Industrial Revolution. It is the economics of over production that Ricardo recommended to have higher earnings in the short term, but that push towards over consumption by credit, which causes debt, sub-consumption and crisis. It is also the U.S. model described by Sismondi in 1819[1] as Debt Economics that started with Alexander Hamilton. That lifestyle promotes an addictive, superficial and vain hedonism, which encourages dishonesty. It is the way of life that stimulates hyper-consumption by imitation.

The Europe of Brussels and Washington sees wealth distribution as crumbs that spill from the banquet of the rich (trickle down economics). In Europe crumbs were bigger and nurtured a social security system, minimum wages, job security and free education that gave a minimum of social tranquillity. Since the "financial deregulation" requested by Wall Street, unleashed greed and ruined Anglo American and European banks, governments are claiming back those crumbs. This happens because they need to pay back the money that the banks gave those governments so it could be used to bail out those very same banks from bankruptcy. Sounds like gibberish, but it was that way... and people are sick of it.

U.S. vs Europe

From the historical perspective of the XXI century, the United States has a coherent policy to deprive Europe of fossil energy sources. Iraq sold oil to Europe in euros, so it was invaded, occupied and destroyed. Iran was selling oil to Europe, but the U.S. invented a nuclear tale to impose a boycott on Iranian oil, that its European puppets applied. Libya was a faithful oil supplier to Europe and was destroyed. Russia is Europe's most important local energy source and the U.S. invested 5 billion for an anti-Russian coup in Ukraine, in a bet to empoison relations and endanger the supply of Russian oil and gas to the rest of Europe. It is likely that the next country to be put in turmoil will be Algeria, another European regional supplier.

Russia has reacted with caution to the American provocation in Ukraine, but the press and the American political establishment unleashed a campaign calling for Europe to apply sanctions against Russia; sanctions that would have a much more disastrous impact on the E U economy than in Russia’s. Actually, Russia wants closer economic and cultural ties with the E U and Vladimir Putin proposed a European economic area from Lisbon to Vladivostok. It would be convenient for the whole of Europe, as a counterweight to U.S. unilateralism.

So meanwhile, the U.S. invites Europe to two things:

a) to replace Russia as a source of fossil energy and profit from a supposed future American abundance of shale gas, but for which there are no terminals, nor port facilities, nor equipped vessels nor, according to recent news, the gas.

b) to sign with the United States an Association Agreement for Transatlantic Trade and Investment. This instrument would allow large U.S. international corporations to take over those European companies still not controlled by them and allow U.S. banks to suck the last reserves of European savings. These agreements have all about the same text and we know its disastrous effects on Mexico after it signed the NAFTA, which set the pattern for those signed later with some other Latin American countries. In them, for example, investment does not mean creation of new industries and new jobs, but the purchase of existing domestic firms.

For reasons that probably should not become known, the ruling class of nearly all European countries does not manage national or international politics according to their country's interests, but according to the interests of a stateless band loosely identified with the financial, military-industrial complex of the US. An example is the case of Italy, where in the name of economic austerity, the government fired public employees, reduced academic salaries, closed social services, etc, etc, to save about € 20 billion; but a similar amount will be spent to buy 90 F35 aircraft - an American bomber-hunter fraught with problems – as if Italy urgently needed to defend itself from its aggressive non-NATO neighbours: Switzerland and San Marino.

The French philosopher Alain de Benoist describes current Europe as "amnesic and oblivious of itself and thus unable to discover reasons in its past to project itself into the future" and then Benoist himself quotes Nietzsche: “Europe will be made only at the edge of the grave.”

Conclusion

With the Transatlantic Agreement, we are at the edge of the grave and the recent European parliamentary election proves that Europeans are beginning to remember. These elections show that the number of Europeans that want another Europe is increasing. They want a European Europe, because, while saying that a United States of Europe was being made, what actually came out is a Europe of the United States.

Geneva, 06/04/2014

- Umberto Mazzei has a PhD in political science from the University of Florence. He has taught international economics at universities in Colombia, Venezuela and Guatemala. He is Director of the Institute of International Economic Relations in Geneva.

www.ventanaglobal.info

[1] Jean Charles Sismondi: New Principles of Political Economy, Chapter 7 On Loans.

https://www.alainet.org/es/node/86098