The EU Reform Treaty and the Right to Decide

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The EU Reform Treaty and the Right to Decide

Repeal the Anti-Trade Union Laws! For the Rights and Freedoms of the Workers and their Trade Unions!

The Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, is attending a summit meeting of the leaders of the European Union in Lisbon on October 18-19. The main item for discussion will be the so-called "Reform Treaty", a new EU constitution in everything but name. It aims to replaces the EU constitution, which was widely opposed in many EU countries and formally rejected by referenda in Holland and France two years ago. The new treaty reforms the previous treaties of the EU agreed at Maastricht and Rome. Media reports suggest that the new treaty is likely to be agreed by government leaders during the summit, although it may not be formally signed until December. It will then still have to be ratified by individual countries, with several promising further referenda.

The Reform Treaty has already been controversial, with some arguing that it is simply a re-written version of the discredited EU constitution. The government has denied that this is the case, not least because it made a manifesto commitment to call a referendum over an EU constitution, while it is refusing to do so in regard to the Reform Treaty. The Conservative Party have seen this as an issue on which they can attack the government but some trade unions that have also demanded a referendum. For their part, the Liberal Democrats have called for a referendum on membership of the EU.

The government has also claimed that it has managed to opt out of various parts of the new treaty, on matters pertaining to justice and home affairs, tax and social security, foreign and defence policy. It has also secured an opt-out from the legally-binding Charter of Fundamental Rights, which was first agreed in 2000 but will now have legal force once the new treaty is signed. The government has negotiated for itself a legally binding protocol, which says no court can rule that the "laws, regulations or administrative provisions, practices or action" of Britain are inconsistent with the principles laid down in the charter. It has also added a clause to the effect that the charter can create no new rights enforceable in Britain. There continues to be some debate about whether the government’s apparent ability to opt out of parts of the treaty is legal under international law, as well as the precise character of the treaty and other issues. However, there is little discussion about who should decide such matters, nor the fundamental nature of the EU itself.

The EU is a reactionary alliance of the big European monopolies and their representatives, a means to attempt to coordinate the dictate of the monopolies throughout Europe and internationally. In recent years, it has expanded in eastern and southern Europe, so that its current borders reach as far as Russia and North Africa. As the Prime Minister explained before he left for Portugal, "This summit comes at a critical juncture for the European Union. For the first time in its history, the EU has an opportunity to become a genuinely global player." The Reform Treaty is therefore part of the measures that are being taken to allow the EU to strengthen its reactionary role in alliance and contention with the other big powers. It is also aimed to reconcile some of the differences between the big powers within Europe and between the big powers and more recent members of the EU. Several measures are envisaged which will allow the EU to act more effectively in the global arena, including the creation of an EU Council president and a foreign affairs minister. The decision-making process will also be streamlined with fewer veto powers and a voting system which favours the big powers.

It is clear that the Labour government is fundamentally opposed to the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which sets out the rights that are supposed to be enjoyed by the citizens of Europe, including the rights of workers such as the right to strike. At the same time it is an enthusiastic supporter of the reactionary EU in general, which it sees as a suitable vehicle to advance the interests of the big British monopolies. Britain’s membership of the EU and its very existence must be opposed, not simply on the basis that it is an attack on Britain’s sovereignty, but rather as a further manifestation of the dictate of the big monopolies in the conditions of neo-liberal globalisation.

Britain’s continued membership and the negotiations over the new treaty throw into high relief the fact that the people of Britain are continually denied the right to decide, not only in regard to the EU but over ever aspect of life in Britain. What must be demanded and fought for is a political system that recognises that all individuals have fundamental inherent rights by virtue of being human. One of the most important of these rights is to fully participate in the decision-making process, to make decisions regarding the future of the individual, the various collectives of the people and society itself.