On
Thursday, 23 June, a referendum will be held to decide whether Britain should leave or remain in the European Union. When Jacques Delors, then EU
Commission President, announced his vision of a social dimension for European
integration in the late 1980s, in the UK he won large parts of the British
trade unions over into a pro-EU position. Against the background of neo-liberal
restructuring by consecutive Conservative governments, social regulation at the
European level offered advances, which would have been impossible in a purely
domestic context. Is this situation still the case today?
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| Photo by Descrier |
In
this post, I will first assess the current state of affairs for social
policies in the EU. Then I will focus on the dangers of nationalism and
xenophobic reactions to migration, implied in a no-vote, before concluding in
the third section that the focus of the debate should be redirected on what kind
of EU we want, rather than the issue of further or less integration.
Corporate, not
Social Europe
Hopes for a Social Europe were
high in the 1990s. Following the Treaty of Maastricht, multi-sector social
dialogue has made it possible that the European Trade Union Confederation
(ETUC) on the one hand, and Business Europe, the European employers’
association on the other, directly negotiate work related issues, which are
then transferred into binding EU law via directives passed by the Council of
Ministers without further discussions. First directives have been passed along
this road. Collective negotiations on the directive on parental leave, for
example, were concluded in November 1995 and accepted by the Council in June
1996 (Falkner, 1998: 99-155). At the Amsterdam summit in 1997 an employment
chapter was added to the EU, bringing employment into economic policy
discussions at the European level.
Overall,
however, while these developments are not unimportant, they should not be
overestimated either. The fact that there is an EU social policy is not
significant in itself. The real question is in relation to the actual contents
of a common social policy. The collectively negotiated directives constitute
only framework agreements with an emphasis on minimum standards. In contrast to
the UK and several Southern European members, for Germany, France and
Scandinavian EU members they have had no practical impact. The employment
guidelines by the European Council must be compatible with the broad economic
guidelines of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). A focus on price stability is
the dominating goal in the monetary, economic and social policy-mix. Employment
policies within the individual EU members have consequently had to focus on
supply-side measures such as improved vocational training. More employment is
mainly to be created via restructuring through the deregulation and
liberalisation of goods and services as well as capital and labour markets, not
through government spending on infrastructure projects, for example. Hence, the
full employment policy as envisaged by the Lisbon strategy, including its
revisions in 2005, is in full accordance with neo-liberal restructuring and has
not changed the overall dominant focus on competitiveness (Hager 2009).
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| Photo by Elliott Brown |
In
general, it can be concluded that it was neo-liberalism and a focus on the free
market, which has dominated European integration since the mid-1980s including
developments in the social policy area. The Internal Market established the
so-called four freedoms, the free movement of goods, capital, services and
labour on the understanding that free competition will increase efficencies,
lead to higher profit levels and ultimately result in more jobs and wealth for
everyone. Economic and Monetary Union, in turn, enshrined the principles of
price stability, low inflation and balanced budgets for members of the
Eurozone, but indirectly also for the EU as a whole. And neo-liberalism does
not only characterise EU internal dynamics. In its outward policies too, the EU
has pushed restructuring. This includes the eastward enlargements in 2004 and
2007, when Central and Eastern European countries had to adopt neo-liberal
policies as a precondition for being allowed to join the EU, as well as the
EU’s free trade policy agenda Global
Europe, initiated in 2006, putting pressure on partner countries in the Global
South to open up their markets to European goods, services and capital (Bieler2012: 201-6).
Who
would have thought that the Eurozone crisis results in a change in neo-liberal
economic policy was soon to be disappointed. On the contrary, neo-liberal
restructuring was asserted in the imposition of austerity policies. This was
carried out most directly vis-à-vis peripheral EU members struggling with the
sovereign debt crisis. In exchange for bailout programmes imposed by the Troika
of Commission, European Central Bank and IMF, Greece, Portugal and Ireland had
to implement drastic restructuring measures including (1)
cuts in funding of essential public services; (2) cuts in public sector
employment; (3) push towards privatisation of state assets; and (4) undermining
of industrial relations and trade union rights through enforced cuts in minimum
wages and a further liberalisation of labour markets.
Nevertheless,
austerity has not only been imposed on countries
struggling with sovereign debt. At the EU level, the bailout packages were backed
up with a new set of regulations around the so-called ‘six pack’ on economic
governance applicable to all member states. ‘According to these six new EU laws
that came into force after their publication in the EU’s Official Journal on 23 November 2011, Eurozone countries that do
not comply with the revised EU Stability and Growth Pact or find themselves in
a so-called macroeconomic excessive imbalance position, can be sanctioned by a
yearly fine equalling 0.2 per cent or 0.1 per cent of GDP respectively’ (Erne2012: 228).
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| Photo by European Parliament |
These mechanisms have been further enhanced by the ‘Fiscal
Compact’, which came into force on 1 January 2013. It includes the so-called
‘balanced budget rule’, requiring the national budgets of participating member
states to be in balance or in surplus (European Council 2012). If the balanced
budget rule is breached then an ‘automatic correction mechanism’ should be
initiated to bring the ‘deviations’ in line over a fixed period. It is to be
implemented through legislative means, preferably through constitutional
amendments (EuroMemo Group 2013: 19). This is all based on recourse to the
European Court of Justice if such structural constraints are not observed with
its rulings legally binding.
As
a result, from a labour point of view, today’s EU offers very little. While the
promises of the social dimension seemed to yield results in the 1990s, by now
it has become clear that neo-liberal economics rules supreme. In fact, the
current financial crisis has been (ab-) used by capital to enforce welfare
state cuts and undermine trade union rights. Austerity is clearly a class
project of European capital to change the balance of power in its favour. The
current fate of Greece at the hands of the Troika is the most visible example
of what happens to those, who attempt to resist this line. In short, as the EU
presents itself at this point in time, there is nothing on offer for working
people in the EU. Today’s EU is a Europe for business. It is corporate Europe.
Should
one, therefore, advocate a No in the forthcoming referendum from a labour
perspective?
Brexit and the
dangers of nationalism
One
argument in favour of Brexit by some on the British left is the criticism of the EU’s
undemocratic structures. Leaving the EU would imply regaining political control
over decision-making within the national context. Nevertheless, while the EU
governance structures include many non-democratic processes around the
Commission and the Council of Ministers as well as the European Central Bank
parallel to the direct elections of the European Parliament and its role in
decision-making, it is highly questionable whether British structures of
representative democracy and the election of governments every five years
actually allow for more direct popular participation in decision-making.
Ultimately, the specific institutional set-up of representative democracy be it
at the national British level, be it combined at the British plus EU level is
secondary to the question of balance of power in society between capital and
labour. Brexit in itself will not strengthen labour vis-à-vis increasingly
transnational capital and its vast resources of structural power.
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| Photo by Descrier |
There
was a strong believe amongst the British left in the early 1980s that the UK
outside the EU would find it easier to move towards stronger social, if not
socialist policies. Reflecting on developments in the UK and on the role of the
UK in the EU since, this has not really been the case. First, many neo-liberal
policies such as privatisation and financial market deregulation were actually
pioneered in the UK and then exported to the rest of the EU. The UK was also
first in Europe in its attack on trade unions undermining labour rights during
the 1980s. Moreover, while the UK has never joined EMU and the Eurozone,
austerity has been implemented since 2010 just as much severely as elsewhere in
Europe. Left positions in favour of withdrawal from the EU are not credible as
a viable alternative in my view. It would be incorrect to view the EU as
something, which imposes austerity policies from the outside onto Britain.
Austerity within the EU is pushed by transnational capital, which equally
pushes it within the context of Britain. The struggles over the internalisation
of capital’s neo-liberal interests within the EU and Britain are the same.
These dimensions mutually support each other and should not be viewed in
contradiction. As Hugo Radice had already convincingly argued in 1984, ‘the
capitalist world economy is now so thoroughly integrated across national
boundaries that an autonomous national capitalist strategy is no longer
possible; … neither in the capitalist class, nor in the national state, can the
left find partners for an alliance powerful enough to mount a reformist
economic programme on a national basis’ (Radice 1984/2015: 20-1). Today, this
is even more correct than it had been during the 1980s. ‘Progressive
nationalism’ is not an option.
In
a climate of increasing austerity and social inequality right-wing parties
across the EU have gained in strength. The rise of UKIP in the UK is not an
exception in this respect. It would be dangerous for British trade unions in
this situation to pursue a nationalist strategy with slogans like ‘British jobs
for British workers’. There is clearly the danger of nationalism in a No to the
EU campaign, which can quickly turn into an anti-immigration, xenophobic
course. Especially in times of crisis, people under pressure with their
livelihoods threatened can be won over by discourses against immigrants, who
are alleged to steal jobs of British workers and to ‘abuse’ the ‘generous’
British welfare system. Especially UKIP has linked anti-EU arguments to
immigration and is likely to emphasise this in its No campaign. Moreover, it is
often employers’ strategy to divide the working class in times of crisis and
anti-immigrant arguments, pushed by the business and government friendly
Murdoch press, are precisely doing this. If there is increasing inequality and
more and more people are being pushed into poverty in the UK, then it is not
the result of immigrants or ‘benefit scroungers’, but the way the economy has
been organised. The bailout of banks at great public expense during the
financial crisis is now being financed through welfare cuts.
Clearly,
with progressive nationalism not an option and considering the dangers of a
xenophobic surge, advocating a No in the referendum is not a progressive course
forward for the British labour movement. What should then be the labour
movement’s position on the referendum?
Forget the
referendum?
A
pro-EU position is in danger of ending up on the same side as British capital,
which through David Cameron has attempted to use re-negotiation of membership
as a way of further undermining workers’ rights. On the other hand, opposing EU
membership is in danger of being dragged down into a xenophobic and nationalist
campaign together with UKIP and related elements. Perhaps instead of making any
recommendation for the referendum, trade unions should use the discussions to
focus on worker friendly policies? The question over more or less integration
has always drowned out debate in the UK over what kind of integration, what kind
of policies we would like to see in Europe. Perhaps this is now the moment to
turn towards demanding concrete social, worker friendly policies be it at the
national or European level?
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| Photo by Descrier |
In
relation to immigration, the Norwegian construction workers’ union has put
forward a strong policy of solidarity expressed in the slogan ‘we are a union for workers in Norway, not only for Norwegian workers’ (Kjeldstadli2015). Rather than engaging with the treacherous ground of immigration policy,
this union focused on its core objective to avoid that workers, whatever their
nationality, underbid each other in their search for employment. This could be
a first progressive policy pushed by labour at the national as well as across
the European level.
Moreover,
from a labour perspective, trade union rights including the right to strike are
absolutely essential. Perhaps the demand should be that trade union rights are
strengthened at both national and European level? This demand should be easily
supportable by all European trade unions. A strengthening of the welfare state
and public services and the struggle against further privatisation and
austerity cuts should also be put forward. Membership or not has in itself no
direct impact on these issues. Public services are under attack from national
policies as well as European-level developments.
In
concrete terms, the focus should perhaps be put on resisting restructuring at
home and within the EU. In the UK, the attack on the NHS is one of the most
pressing concerns. At the European level, the negotiations of the Transatlantic
Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and its infamous investor-state dispute
settlement mechanism are currently the most important attempt by capital to
push neo-liberal restructuring yet further. Unsurprisingly, the outcome of the
struggle over TTIP has direct consequences for the possibility of defending the
NHS against privatisation, considering that TTIP includes negotiations of trade
in services and investment protection. In other words, as already indicated
above, the fight against austerity knows no borders, but needs to be waged at
multiple levels. The issue of EU membership or not is of secondary importance.
In
short, the labour perspective has to be informed by an internationalist
perspective for the fight against exploitation and is unrelated to narrow
geographical considerations. Trade unions, in my view, should not let
themselves be dragged down into narrow arguments over EU membership or Brexit. Let
the Conservative party and capital rip itself apart over the referendum, the
labour perspective has to go beyond it!
Andreas Bieler
Professor of Political Economy
Professor of Political Economy
University of Nottingham/UK
Andreas.Bieler@nottingham.ac.uk
Personal website: http://andreasbieler.net
24 May 2016
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