UNDERSTANDING THE CRISIS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
Introduction to a series of articles to be published by the MPEP : Mouvement politique d’éducation populaire
(A political movement combining political action with continuing education)
Mai 29, 2010
Five years ago, on 29 May 2005, the people of France voted NO in a referendum on the European Constitutional Treaty. To commemorate this victory, in keeping with our aims of continuing education and our efforts to bring politics back to the people, we will be publishing a series of roughly a dozen articles on the present European crisis. Media coverage has been confusing, often fallacious : the mainstream media manipulate the facts, while the “experts” cast a foggy veil of disinformation, and the average citizen struggles to understand what has happened. In our articles we hope to decode the mechanics of the crisis, making it comprehensible for a wider public. We will also discuss solutions which might be used to end it - for the situation might very well be brought under control, if certain measures were taken in the countries concerned . . . in Greece, in France, or elsewhere.
To end the crisis, two things must happen : a social uprising of unprecedented proportions and radicality - an exceptional mobilization to deal with an exceptional situation - and the rise to power of governments authentically of the Left. Through our analyses and proposals, the MPEP hopes to help stimulate and define the goals of the current social movements and to contribute to the construction of a programme for governments genuinely of the Left, since such a programme is lacking.
If Greece were a bank, the European Union and the IMF would have “saved” it long ago ! The Greek people, soon to be followed by all the other peoples of the Euro Zone and beyond, are the victims of the international finance system (the “subprime” private debt crisis), of the European Union (EU), of those who govern the EU member States, of their own governments (the Socialists, in Greece, Spain ad Portugal) and of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
As of this writing, near the end of the first half of 2009, the situation - as in all times of crisis - may provoke conflicting reactions. On the one hand, the darkest and most irrational forces of our societies may be unleashed in a wave of the basest bigotry, racism, xenophobia and nationalism of the extreme right, with the dregs of society coming to the surface. These forces have been gaining ground in Europe and only in Europe, in step with the EU’s political leaders’ exhibitions of helplessness, complacency and vanity. The decisions taken by these leaders often seem so outrageous, one wonders whether their helplessness is geunuine or a deliberate pretense, concealing their true ambitions, as they crush the peoples of Europe and establish a form of eurocratic dictatorship.
If the European ruling classes could have avoided the Greek crisis - which went on to become a currency crisis for the euro and then a crisis of the European Union, and now perhaps the latest in the endless series of international financial crises - they would have done so. For this crisis threatens the stability and the profits of certain key agents in the system (notably the banks), and undermines the credibility of the whole system. The appeal for help from the International Monetary Fund is also a sign of helplessness, and certain European oligarchs would have liked to do without it, since this recourse proves that the Brussels system is unable to solve Europe’s problems alone. The German leaders, however, were among those who welcomed the IMF’s intervention.
On the other hand, the forces of the genuine Left - progressive, humanistic, internationalist - could win over a majority of the population, if their analyses and proposals coincide with the peoples’ aspirations and with this historic moment for Europe. Unfortunately, the Left has fallen into the European trap. The “construction” of Europe - which so far has amounted to nothing more than the construction of a European-style capitalism - has acted as a formidable machine for dividing the Left. A large part of the political, trade unionist and associative Left has been neutralized through its adherence to the European myth. If the Left is to shift back to its true nature, genuinely of the Left, it will have to make a considerable effort to face reality and break with the Brussels system, without ruling out the possible construction of new forms of multilateral relationships among European and Mediterranean countries. In late May 2010, social movements have been having difficulty in spreading across the Euro Zone, while the various parties of the Left in Europe have remained divided in their views on the European system itself and on the main question at issue : whether or not to abandon the euro.
In an effort to clarify these issues and their solutions, so that readers may reach their own conclusions and work towards progressive alternatives, the MPEP will be publishing a group of articles in serialized form.
EPISODE I of our serial will be published on Tuesday 1 June and will be entitled In Greece and everywhere else, refuse austerity programmes and the erosion of democracy. Further “episodes” will follow every few days. In the immediate, they will deal with the following issues :
EPISODE 2 : Do not accept loans from governments, the European Union or the IMF, because they demand austerity measures in exchange.
- Many thanks to Shelley for the translation
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