Rehashing the Idea of a People’s Europe

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Rehashing the Idea of a People’s Europe

Strike of Conductors at Arriva

Blenkinsop Colliery Closes

Polish Shipyard Workers Rally

In a speech in Scotland on Tuesday, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw called for: "A written constitution for the people and communities of Europe, not the political elites."

Jack Straw had a number of provisos in regard to this ''written constitution'', but commentators have pointed out that this explicit support for a European Union constitution is the first time that the government has gone so far, and flies in the face of public opinion in general.

The Foreign Secretary’s speech to Scottish business executives in Edinburgh marks the first part of a tour to make the government's case for stronger ties to Europe coupled with an agenda for reforming European institutions.

Jack Straw called for shifting more powers to Brussels "in areas where it is manifestly in the national interest to do so, such as in the fight against crime and immigration". But he also demanded a new "subsidiarity watchdog" made up of EU parliamentarians who would have the power to review European legislation to ensure Brussels does not intervene in areas which the government claims should be the responsibility of national governments.

There are two interesting things to note about Jack Straw’s statement. One is the rehashing of the idea of a people’s Europe which stands against the ''political elites''. The other is that while Jack Straw calls for an EU written constitution, Britain itself has no such fundamental legislation. This lack of any legal guarantee to any right whatsoever is underlined by the way the government has opted out of provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights by the expedient of declaring a permanent ''state of emergency''. Even more fundamental is that though this Convention is incorporated into British law, the Human Rights Act which does so cannot be used to strike out any other Act should such an Act prove incompatible with it.

The question inevitably arises why Jack Straw should be putting forward the proposal of a written EU constitution at this time.

"There is a case for a constitution which enshrines a simple set of principles, sets out in plain language what the EU is for and how it can add value, and reassures the public that national governments will remain the primary source of political legitimacy," Jack Straw said. "This would not only improve the EU's capacity to act; it would help to reconnect European voters with the institutions which act in their name."

Implicit in Jack Straw’s remarks is that European voters have become disconnected with institutions which purport to act in their name. Generally speaking, the legitimacy of the political institutions of national governments is being called into question. They are seen to act in the interests of the monopolies, and the EU as an instrument of such monopolies, which stands against the people’s sovereignty. The right of people’s to decide their own affairs is being violated not just by the EU standing above the individual states, but by the systems of ''representative democracy'' the feature of which is that sovereignty is not vested in the people. But particularly what arises at this time, especially in Britain where Tony Blair is seen to be the most reliable ally of George W Bush, is that a whole movement is in the making whereby people are declaring that the agenda of the ''war against terrorism'', both at home and abroad, is not being carried out in their name. This is further deepening the crisis of legitimacy of the government.

The concept of a ''people’s Europe'' or a Europe which stands against the ''political elites'' is a fraud. The contradictions over the direction of the EU are contradictions among the monopolies and the respective European big powers. It is precisely the political, as well as the economic, elites which have a stake in a European constitution, building up the EU as a superpower to contend and collude with US imperialism. A European Union which has an ''improved capacity to act'' stands against both political renewal and against the workers of Europe settling scores with their respective political and economic elites and going for socialism.

This ''capacity to act'', as Jack Straw puts it, is also significant at this time. The world is on the brink of such turmoil with the unilateral aggressive declarations of the political and economic elite of the US that such a capacity is being much prized by the big European powers. Jack Straw is evidently manoeuvring once again within the context of the government’s programme to ''Make Britain Great Again''.

What Jack Straw also has in mind is the streamlining of the EU institutions so when they admit the new applicant members, the big European powers can still direct what happens in the EU, and the smaller countries are denied a veto and the mechanisms remain suitable for the EU to act in the interests of the big monopolies of Europe.

Reprinted from North East Workers and Politics, Vol.2, No.9, August 27, 2002

Conductors at Arriva Trains Northern staged their eighteenth strike over pay over the Bank Holiday weekend. The dispute started in January and has lasted 7 months. Members of the Rail Maritime and Transport union at the company walked out for 24 hours, hitting services across northern England during the Bank Holiday weekend. Union members had rejected management's latest offer. The union was reported as saying that the new two-year offer was worse than the offer put to the conductors at the start of the dispute in January.

Reprinted from North East Workers and Politics, Vol.2, No.9, August 27, 2002

Blenkinsop Colliery, near Haltwhistle, has closed with a loss of 84 miners’ jobs. The owner of the private mine, Mr Wardle, has shut the pit when he failed to win a life-saving government subsidy. The pit was opened by his grandfather in 1965.

In an article in the Newcastle Journal by Liz Hands, one of the pit’s longest-serving miners is quoted as saying that he found it hard to come to terms with filling in the mine where he worked for nearly 20 years. ''There is still coal down there and it is so frustrating that we aren’t being allowed to mine it. There is enough there to keep Blenkinsop going for another 20 years,'' he said. Other miners expressed their feelings movingly in the report about the pit closure and the hardship that they are now facing.

Haltwhistle has been hard hit over the past few months with the loss of Akzo Nobel paint factory and the closure of Barwicks Brother building firm in Gisland.

Reprinted from North East Workers and Politics, Vol.2, No.9, August 27, 2002

It is reported that employees of the bankrupt Szczecin shipyard staged a sit-in protest on Monday, demanding their jobs be retained by the government-run company that has been formed to continue production.

Thousands of protesters gathered below a banner reading ''Strike'' that they had tacked to the entrance of the shipyard, demanding that all 5,500 of the original employees be given work in the new company Stocznia Szczeckinska Nowa SA and that they receive back pay outstanding since April. ''Nobody cares about us,'' said Roman Pniewski, spokesman for the protesters in the Baltic city of Szczecin. ''We must take a decisive action. It’s a struggle for existence.''

Since taking over from the bankrupt shipyard in late July, the new company said they would employ up to 5,500 workers and have so far signed contracts with 750. Nowa is still negotiating terms to take over contracts from the private company that declared bankruptcy last month.''

Andrzej Stachura, president of Nowa, which is owned by a government agency, said in a letter to workers that he had begun talks with a Norwegian client on Monday about a contract for several ships and that the yard has already signed a contract with a Vietnamese customer.

He also said the yard has asked for government guarantees for building another five ships. The government so far extended credit guarantees for continuing work on seven vessels.

The shipyard, the report says, overextended itself before bad economic times hit and filed for bankruptcy amid allegations of corruption at the top levels of management.

Since then, workers have marched regularly through the streets of Szczecin or held meetings in the shipyard demanding that the government help them get their jobs back.

The report says that the shipyard halted work in April after it could no longer pay suppliers, then filed for bankruptcy after creditor banks refused to write off the bulk of its debt. The failure of negotiations with these finance banks caused the government, which held a 10 percent stake in the company, to drop its plan to take over the company to save it from bankruptcy.

The report estimates that if the yard is not rescued, it could affect 55,000 workers nationwide in related industries.