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EDA: Arms for War and Profit

eddie — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 19:30:13 +0000

One of the many surprises thrown up by the Lisbon Treaty debate was that the European arms industry had managed to set up shop within the EU. Not only were we being obliged to spend more on armaments [“Art. 28(3): Member States shall undertake progressively to improve their military capabilities”], but an entire EU agency dedicated to bolstering the defence sector and the arms trade was being brought into an EU Treaty.

How had this happened? Where had this European Defence Agency (EDA) come from? And what was the attitude of the Irish Government to all of this?

There are a number of excellent reports by the human rights group, Statewatch, and the Transnational Institute outlining how the European arms merchants got into the EU shop: it was via the EU Commission ‘kitchen’. There are over 15,000 lobbyists in Brussels, mostly representing business interests, and many of them are invited by the Commission to sit on special policy committees. One such group was the EU Advisory Group on Aerospace. Nearly half its members were aerospace industry chairmen, including those from Europe’s four largest arms companies. Their ‘Strategic Aerospace Review for the 21st Century’, published in July 2002, called for the creation of a ‘level playing field so Europe’s industry can compete fairly in world markets’. Ultimately, what was required was the establishment of a: “European armaments policy to provide structure for European defence and security equipment markets, and to allow a sustainable and competitive technological and industrial base”.

The EU Commission embraced this proposal: good for business, good for EU military ambitions. By the spring of 2003, it had produced Towards an EU Defence Equipment Policy, incorporating the Aerospace Review concepts and calling for the creation of an Agency to oversee these developments. The very first draft of the EU Constitution in 2003 contained provisions for a European Armaments, Research and Military Capabilities Agency, (later renamed the European Defence Agency). It was not surprising that such an agency would be part of the new EU Constitution, which was on track to boost the EU’s military dimension. Indeed, during the preparatory work for the Constitution by the EU Convention, thirteen ‘expert’ witnesses were called before the Working Group on Defence including a General, military reps from the EU and member-states, two reps from the arms industry, and President of the European Defence Industries Group. The working group never asked to hear from civil society representatives.

Measures to boost EU military capabilities pre-dated the EU Constitution. Member States in 2003 promised to develop their military capabilities to an agreed state of readiness by 2010 (the so-called Headline Goal), so the EU could ‘respond with rapid and decisive action ….to the whole spectrum of crisis management operations’ included in earlier EU Treaties. Under the 2004 Irish Presidency, the European Council gave its final blessings to these Goals, adding that the EU must consider pre-emptive actions and have the ‘ability to conduct concurrent operations … simultaneously at different levels of engagement’. This was all underpinned by the European Security Strategy authored by EU Foreign Affairs and Security chief, Javier Solana, in 2003.

The EU Constitution would have leant a helping hand to these military improvements. When it was defeated in 2005, its military provisions were fully incorporated into the Lisbon Treaty. Lisbon spells out the EDA’s role in ensuring that the EU is fighting fit. Not only will the Agency be responsible for supporting the defence sector and defence R&D, but it will identify operational requirements for the EU’s developing military force, assist in defining a European capabilities and armaments policy, and monitor the improvement of EU military capabilities. It has a special responsibility for the new Permanent Structured Cooperation provision in Lisbon, a mechanism allowing certain member states to form mini-military alliances within the EU’s structures for the EU’s ‘more demanding’ missions. The EDA is to ensure that these states are fully equipped to carry out these demanding missions.

The EDA has no misapprehensions about the importance of its role. It shouldn’t have. It already exists. So eager were the EU Powers That Be to have its services, that the EDA didn’t have to wait for the Constitution’s blessings. It was up and running from July 2004, when approved by the EU Foreign Ministers. In other words, with the Constitution defeated and Lisbon knocked down by Ireland, the EDA has still not been placed into the EU Treaties. The EU’s Foreign Affairs Supremo, Javier Solana, is head of the EDA. Its steering group consists of the EU defence ministers and the EU Commission.

The self-assured Agency even produced a Long Term Vision Statement in 2006, outlining some of the tasks it sees before it: “The Headline Goal and European Security Strategy envisage a broad and significantly challenging set of potential missions. These include separation of warring factions by force, on the sort of scale that would have been required had a ground invasion of Kosovo in 1999 turned out to be necessary. They may also encompass stabilising operations in a failed state …. So the demands of today’s European Security and Defence Policy are already potentially deep and comprehensive.”...“Future joint forces will need agility at the operational and tactical levels as well as the strategic. Once deployed, EU Member States’ joint forces may need to be able to operate at will within all domains and across the depth and breadth of the operational area, possessing combinations of stealth, speed, information superiority, connectivity, protection, and lethality. They may need to operate in complex terrain and inside cities.”

These EU joint forces are already under development, including a 60,000-strong Rapid Reaction Force capable of intervening far beyond the EU’s borders. The French Presidency next month hopes to speed up that process. Meanwhile, the EU is already in action with a number of rapidly deployable Battlegroups, consisting of up to 2500 troops, with capabilities for high intensity operations. NATO has described the Battlegroups as “providing the EU with ‘ready to go’ military capability to respond to crises around the world”. Ireland has been a member of the Nordic Battlegroup since 2006.

This Vision Statement was also written with the knowledge that the EU’s military tasks had been expanded by the EU Constitution (and now Lisbon). In addition to the humanitarian, peace-keeping/peace-enforcement tasks of previous treaties, there are new provisions for joint disarmament operations, post-conflict stabilization and combating terrorism in countries outside the EU. There are also mutual defence and solidarity clauses, with the latter dealing with joint actions against terrorism, including the need to counter perceived ‘threats’ as well as attacks.

Ireland: eager members of the EDA

Ireland joined the EDA immediately, in July 2004. There was no Dail debate and no vote. The decision was taken by the Government. Defence Minister Willie O’Dea stated the EDA was an intergovernmental agency within the framework of the EU’s European Security and Defence Policy and that membership didn’t oblige or commit Ireland to do anything other than contribute to the EDA’s budget. The fact that the EDA would be in the business of promoting armaments and boosting the arms trade didn’t seem to bother the Minister or the Irish Government.

It is within the Lisbon Treaty provisions concerning the EDA that Member States are obliged to improve their military capabilities. EDA Head Javier Solana has made it clear that there is an ‘absolute requirement for us to spend more, spend better and spend more together’. In 2008, Ireland will be making a financial contribution of €327,000 to the EDA. In addition, Ireland has, since 2007, been participating in the Joint Investment Programme on Force Protection. This has a budget of €55 million over 3 years, to which Ireland is committing €700,000. (Research areas include: Stand off detection of Chemical, Biological, radiological, nuclear and high-yield explosives; Defence options for airborne threats; Scope spotting and sniper detection: Research on new materials for force protection).

There are basic questions which must be asked about Ireland’s involvement with the EDA. Historically, Irish Governments – in keeping with popular sentiment — have not been proponents of the arms industry. Ministers have invariably denied the existence of any indigenous Irish arms sector (despite evidence from Amnesty International and Afri to the contrary). Indeed, for over thirty years, Irish state boards promoting research and enterprise, such as Enterprise Ireland, have been bound by legislation stating they: “shall not engage in or promote any activity of a primarily military relevance without the prior approval of the Government”

The Department of Defence’s Strategy Statement, 2008-2010, extols the EDA as providing “opportunities of interest to Irish-based enterprises and researchers” and states: “We will work closely with Enterprise Ireland to exploit potential research and commercial opportunities arising”.

Ireland’s relations with the developing world have prompted concerns about arms spending and the global arms trade. But the EDA is focused on increasing global competitiveness for EU arms industries, particularly in relation to the United States, a direction reinforced by the EU Commission in its 2007 “A Strategy for a Stronger and More Competitive European Defence Industry”. Already, EU companies are responsible for over €80 billion a year in arms sales.

The EDA and Lisbon

Since the EDA already exists, one might ask: how has defeating Lisbon affected that organization? There are at least four implications.

1. Without Lisbon, Member States are not legally obliged to progressively improve their military capabilities;

2. The EDA has still not been placed into the EU Treaties;

3. The new expanded military tasks have not been given Treaty status and the EDA should not be promoting capabilities, etc. in these areas;

4. The provision of Permanent Structured Cooperation — in which the EDA was to have played a major role — has not been approved.

How Ireland ever joined the EDA without parliamentary debate or approval is incomprehensible. Maybe now, post-Lisbon, questions will begin to be asked about Ireland’s involvement in this agency and about the entire EU military project.

Carol Fox is Research Officer for PANA, the Irish Peace and Neutrality Alliance.

European style: nobody loves it

Ellie Keen — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:12:09 +0000

Imagine a man on trial for his life. The jury brings in a verdict of not guilty, so the judge immediately invites counsel for the prosecution to complete his closing speech, and then the accused is found guilty and sentenced to death. The Irish rejected the Lisbon Treaty on 12 June by a large majority. The treaty cannot come into force unless it is adopted by all 27 member states of the European Union, but most European leaders immediately announced that the ratification process would continue, yet promised to “respect the will” of the Irish people (see “Ireland votes no”). Europe is used to attacks on the sovereign power of the people by their overlords. That is now its style, even if it likes to be seen as the kingdom of democracy on earth.

The Irish rejected a “simplified” treaty so big the prime minister, Brian Cowen, confessed he had not managed to read it cover to cover. A member of the European parliament said the Irish reminded him of a “people’s democracy”. Another remarked: “It’s no accident that dictators love a referendum” (1) and the president of the European parliament, Hans-Gert Pöttering, concluded: “The Irish no vote cannot be the last word” (2). So there will be a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty and possibly a third. Voting in Dublin will continue until the result is a yes, because that is what the other states want, those states where the electorate has not been consulted at all.

Blame the Irish! Ungrateful, selfish, working-class militants, incapable of the generosity and unselfishness shown by their rulers. Except when they vote them in and give them a mandate to carry out “bold reforms”. No need for a second ballot then. The Irish are thoroughly European in that respect.

Something has gone wrong. The European style has been exported and sold on the strength of claims to peace, prosperity, justice and equality. It has produced charming posters with blue skies, loving mothers and happy babies; it has an army of journalists and artists campaigning for it; Europe is being created by symposiums and meetings. But nobody waves its flag. Its identity seems to be so insubstantial that all it can think of to put on its banknotes is the cost of living.

It talks about peace but prepares to join the US forces in dubious wars. It talks about progress but deregulates employment. It talks about culture but produces a television without frontiers directive that will result mainly in more advertising slots. It talks about ecology and safe food but lifts an 11-year ban on imports of US chickens washed in chlorine (3). It talks about freedom but adopts a shameful directive under which foreigners without the right papers may be held in detention centres for 18 months before being expelled, including minors and even unaccompanied minors.

Keeping Europe’s promise called for harmonisation at the highest level: freedom, employment law, progressive taxation, independence. Instead, the gains achieved by the most advanced states have been diminished in the name of unification and we are left with extended detention, free trade and Atlanticism. This has produced the beginnings of a social Europe, the Europe that says no. Noting that in Ireland a majority of women, people under 29, and workers firmly rejected the proposed text, a columnist in The Economist observed that: “A 19th-century-style electoral roll, restricted to older, male property-owners, would have produced a handsome yes for Lisbon” (4). But what kind of Europe can we hope to construct if we go back to the property qualification?

Another Treaty That Won't Lie Down

Ellie Keen — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:37:53 +0000

The Irish government, obliged by its own national constitution to put the question of the Lisbon Treaty to the vote, will win little sympathy from its ‘partners’ in the European Union.

Those national leaders who did not dare to put the matter to the vote, and those who were bullied out of doing so by more powerful actors in the EU drama – the Commission and the big member states – will breathe a sigh of relief that they cannot be blamed for this farce.

When EU leaders gather for their regular summit meeting in Brussels at the end of this week, the Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen is going to have some explaining to do.

The instructions from Brussels were quite clear.

A second round of ‘No’ votes must be avoided at all costs.

You might compare the Taoiseach’s position to that of a minor gang leader required to explain to a mafia boss why takings are down from his protection rackets.

He can whinge all he likes about constitutional obligations, but having caused this mess he will be expected to offer a feasible way out of the brown stuff into which the leaders gathered in Brussels find themselves sinking.

Of course, there is only one honest, democratic way out, and that is to abandon the whole project.

The constitutional position is quite clear.

The Lisbon Treaty, like the virtually identical Constitutional Treaty before it, is dead.

And yet what is almost certain to happen is that a set of clearly rejected constitutional arrangements will be imposed on the peoples of 27 countries.

Three countries which held popular votes have actually rejected one or the other version.

Only Spain and Luxembourg held referenda which resulted in approval, but what matters here is not the three-two scoreline.

The rules in the case of both the Constitution and the Lisbon Treaty were simple.

If one country rejected either, it fell.

Modern European politics is, however, a game which can be halted at any time by one team, the ruling elite, which can then proceed to change the rules.

It also gets to appoint the referee.

People voted against these treaties for a variety of reasons.

If Lisbon is imposed, small countries will lose power.

National institutions under democratic control, or at least influence, will see their powers transferred to unelected and unanswerable bodies.

National vetoes will disappear across a range of policy areas, so that ever more laws can be imposed which have the assent of neither the government nor the parliament of the member state involved.

A European army will be born.

And neoliberal economic policies which are good for no-one but multinational corporations and international criminals will be reinforced.

The Irish in particular could see much to alarm them in a treaty which would jeopardise their military neutrality, undermine their agriculture and allow unprecedented interference in their system of taxation, until recently an unquestioned national preserve.

Their reasons for voting ‘no’ are, however, their own affair.

As in other contexts, no means no, whatever motives may lie behind it.

Yet the Taoiseach has said only that there is no “quick fix”.

He has also said that Ireland will do its best not to halt what he describes as “the ambitious project of EU reform”.

European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, meanwhile, has joined the leaders of many EU member states in refusing to declare the treaty dead.

The British government has said that the ratification process will continue.

So, you can vote Yes, you can vote No, but the process is more akin to a multiple choice test than an election, and don’t worry, if you don’t get the answer right the first time, you’ll likely be given a second chance.

Similarly, depending on where you live you can vote social democrat, Labour, Christian Democrat, Liberal, Communist or for the Man in the Moon, but don’t expect it to make any serious difference to the way in which your country is governed, the decisions your government takes, or life in general.

There are now only two sets of interests which really matter: those of multinational corporations and those, sometimes still slightly different, of the governments and political parties which now exist primarily to serve their interests.

This includes not just conservatives but Europe’s social democratic and labour parties, most Green parties – our own being an honourable exception – and the whole ragbag of centre-left, centrist and right wing groups which are increasingly indistinguishable at the level of policy.

So, viciously anti-trade union labour rulings by the European Court of Justice go unchallenged by parties which were created by those same trade unions.

And the EU’s ‘flexicurity’ proposals, which translate as flexibility for us, and security for them, are enthusiastically supported by parties built by working people to defend their interests

The European Union, which likes to present its opponents as narrow nationalists and backward-looking xenophobes, is dragging us back to a time before working people could demand, if nothing else, that they be treated with respect, paid a living wage, and allowed to organise in pursuit of their legitimate demands.

By imposing neoliberal economics on twenty-seven member states, the EU is making real international cooperation, of the kind needed to confront the crises facing us in a world increasingly spinning out of control, impossible.

The Irish people, like those of France and the Netherlands before them, have had the courage and good sense to vote to reject the heinous Lisbon Treaty and thereby give us a further chance to confront those who would deprive us of our rights and of our livelihoods.

This time we must seize it with both hands.

Ireland Shows the Way

Ellie Keen — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 11:42:52 +0000

Dublin

In the midst of a growing economic crisis, Ireland’s urban working class and struggling rural people have united to deliver a blow to Europe’s ruling elite.

The defeat of the Lisbon Treaty in yesterday’s Irish referendum has tossed out years of efforts by the European Union to come up with new, “streamlined” procedures, and to get the increasingly unitary EU an (unelected) president and foreign minister.

The Treaty was itself a modest rewrite of the European Constitution, rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005.

As the counts came in from around the country today, the Irish people’s decision was, in the end, not even close. The momentum for a No vote displayed in last week’s opinion polls continued right through polling day. With a turnout bigger than in any previous Irish Euro-referendum, the electorate smashed expectations that a big vote would boost the Yes side and defied the advice of 95% of the country’s elected politicians, who supported the Treaty.

The politically disparate No campaign had rained blows from left and right, defending workers’ rights and defending low corporation tax, against privatization and against abortion; the Yes side could scarcely defend itself, let alone fight back.

Former Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte today compared the plight of the Yes campaigner to playing a video game: “You pop the bad guy, two more pop up.”

The various No elements avoided arguing among themselves during the campaign, but the battle to claim the victory has now begun. All analysts agree, however, that as in the 2001 Nice Treaty referendum, Irish people’s concern about military neutrality and the growing militarization of the EU was crucial.

Many of the issues and energies in the Lisbon campaign have been addressed already in CounterPunch. The X factor in this result was the effect of the prevailing economic catastrophism: would voters take the conservative option of voting Yes to avoid the danger of deepening the crisis with political uncertainty? In the end it was the most at-risk sections of the population who delivered the most decisive No.

The problem for the Treaty was that it was all too easy for voters to connect Ireland’s present economic woes to its role in Europe. As unemployment leaps, it calls attention to all the east-European immigrants working here; as previously astronomic house prices collapse, the president of the European Central Bank announces a coming rise in interest rates; as farmers worry about their futures, the EU negotiates at the WTO to allow more South American beef into European markets; as fishermen despairing of high fuel prices stage protest blockades at key ports, they complain about EU-imposed fishing quotas that force them to dump tons of their catches.

A No vote does nothing to address any of these issues; indeed few of them even figured prominently in the campaign. But voting No was the means at hand to complain about them.

Much of the media credit for the No win is being given to conservative businessman Declan Ganley and his new Libertas organization, with its respectably neoliberal campaign focusing on taxation and voting weights in EU institutions. But the results so far indicate that better-off Irish voters, from the fat farming regions of the south midlands and the prosperous suburbs of south Dublin, stuck with their traditional Europhilia. The Yes side won solid victories in well-off areas and a near-draw in prosperous rural regions. The No victory came with unprecedented turnouts in poorer areas of Dublin, Cork, Limerick and other cities, and with large No margins in more marginal rural areas in the west of the island and around the Border with Northern Ireland. Fishing communities delivered an overwhelming No. Former prime minister Garret FitzGerald has described the result as the most class-divided in Irish history.

There is, without doubt, some space for the Left in Ireland and across Europe to exploit this huge victory in a tiny country against the European Union’s neoliberal elite, especially if EU leaders try to drive through yet another version of Lisbon. But the reasons that an uneasy Ireland voted No are not simple, and the complex and contradictory story here gives that elite the chance to shrug off the result and just live with the institutional status quo ante.

Is Europe a regulatory threat to business? A military threat to peace? A liberal threat to traditional morality? A driver of climate-change enlightenment? A hungry vulture in third-world markets? A counterweight to US power? Take your pick: unlike the US, the definition of institutional Europe is up for grabs, internally and globally.

I was speaking last night to a prominent left-wing politician and No campaigner. He spoke of hearing a No voter give her reasons: “If the Lisbon Treaty goes through, Europe will bring in abortion, gay marriage, legal prostitution, euthanasia…” The campaigner was glad to have another No vote, but conceded: “If I believed that myself, I would have voted Yes.”

Harry Browne lectures in Dublin Institute of Technology. His book, ‘Hammered by the Irish: How the Pitstop Ploughshares disabled a US war-plane – with Ireland’s blessing’, is forthcoming from Counterpunch Books. He can be reached at: harry.browne@gmail.com

Lisbon Treaty — dumping social Europe

Ellie Keen — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 21:43:34 +0000

The Irish referendum on the European Union Lisbon Treaty will take place on June 12. The Dublin government, media and all the major political parties, with the exception of Sinn Fein, are calling for a “Yes” vote for “jobs, the economy and Ireland’s future in Europe”.

The Lisbon Treaty is virtually identical to the proposed EU constitution rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005, containing 96% of its articles. The treaty, if ratified, would consolidate and centralise the power of unelected EU institutions, further the militarisation of Europe in the framework of the NATO alliance and open the way for the accelerated privatisation of Europe’s public services.

The process of the drafting and ratification of the renamed constitution demonstrates its thoroughly undemocratic nature. The 500 million citizens of the EU have been excluded from having input into the content of the constitution, as well as being denied their right to approve or reject it through referenda.

Treaty’s fate in Irish hands

The southern Irish state is constitutionally bound to hold a referendum on the treaty — so those Irish people living in the 26 counties making up the Republic of Ireland are now in the ridiculous situation of having their vote count for all the people of Europe.

The treaty must be endorsed unanimously by all member states in order to come into effect in 2009. The EU’s other 26 member states plan to ratify the treaty by votes in their respective national parliaments.

On May 21, the executive council of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, which represents more than 600,000 workers, voted to support the campaign for a “Yes” vote, claiming that the treaty will be a step forward for workers’ rights as the “Charter of Fundamental Rights” seemingly enshrines the right to strike.

However, some of the individual unions affiliated to the ICTU are calling for a “No” vote, including Unite, one of the ICTU’s largest affiliates. The Technical, Engineering and Electrical Union is recommending its 45,000 members vote no, and the Services, Industrial, Professional and Technical Union — representing more than 200,000 workers — has yet to make a decision.

It is unclear which way the vote will go, as a recent poll found only 6% of respondents indicated they understood what the referendum was about, with 30% “vaguely aware” of its contents. Around 35% say will vote “Yes”, 18% “No” with 47% undecided.

The claim that the treaty provides new protection for workers’ rights is false. While article 28 states that workers may “take collective action to defend their interests, including strike action”, it immediately qualifies this “fundamental right” by explaining that “the limits for the exercise of collective action, including strike action, come under national laws and practices”.

The British Trade Unionists Against the EU Constitution pamphlet, The Big EU Con Trick, quotes a British foreign office spokesperson as saying explicitly: “The Charter doesn’t create any new rights. We spent a very long time looking at this, in particular the disputed article. It does not create the right to strike.”

Lisbon pits the “fundamental right” of workers to take collective action against the apparently more fundamental right of capital to unrestricted movement, unbound by national industrial laws and agreements.

Race to the bottom

Conflicts between employers and workers will be ruled on by a strengthened European Court of Justice. The European Trade Union Confederation has described several recent ECJ rulings as an “open invitation to social dumping”, launching a race to the bottom for workers’ wages, conditions and rights.

Some of the recent ECJ rulings on disputes include the case of the German company Objekt und Bauregie, which employed a Polish subcontractor to employ Polish building workers posted to Germany, on less than half the minimum wage agreed by German trade unions and employer associations.

On April 3, the ECJ ruled that O&B should not be bound by the local law that states public building contractors must abide by the existing collective agreements. The court found that while member states may impose minimum pay on foreign companies posting workers in their state, the Lower Saxony law restricted the “freedom to provide services”.

In essence, this ruling outlaws a minimum wage and base conditions being included in public tender contracts.

In 2004, Latvian firm Laval posted Latvian construction workers to Sweden and refused to acknowledge the existing collective agreement with the Swedish Building Workers’ Union. Laval claimed that it was not obliged to pay the rates collectively agreed on in the building sector.

The union took collective action and Laval claimed to the ECJ that it was being discriminated against on the grounds of nationality, with the Swedish union infringing upon its right to provide services. The court found that while “service providers” from another EU state are obliged to abide by the host agreement, collective action must be “proportional”.

This means that the ECJ believes workers have the right to take industrial action only when the minimum wage or conditions of the host country, or the minimum working conditions set out in the EU’s Posting of Workers Directive, are being breached by the employer.

In order to cut costs, the Finnish shipping company, Viking Line, attempted to re-flag its ships as Estonian and operate out of Estonia. When two Finnish maritime unions organised a blockade of Viking Line, it took its case to the ECJ.

Again, the claim was that the company’s right to freedom of movement was being restricted by the industrial action of the workers. And again, in December, the court ruled that the unions had restricted Viking Line’s right of establishment.

‘Rights’ of capital

Three things are clear from these cases and from the text of the Lisbon Treaty. Firstly, the universal right to take collective industrial action is not guaranteed as it is subject to member states’ national laws.

Secondly, the right to take collective action to prevent the exploitation of posted workers by foreign service-providers is subject to the company’s right to freedom of movement and establishment under the EU Services Directive — a right that the ECJ has consistently upheld as being superior to workers’ rights.

Thirdly, the collective action of workers and unions taken against foreign service-providers is only deemed legitimate if it is in defence of the most basic minimum conditions agreed on by EU bodies or set in law by the host country. What happens if workers want to take collective action in order to improve their conditions?

These ECJ rulings, combined with the provisions for privatisation and the removal of “distortions” from the market contained in Lisbon, are a recipe for the “equalisation” downwards of the conditions for working people of Europe — while the corporations that played a key role in drafting the treaty increase their profit-making capacity.

The result will be the growing severe exploitation of eastern European workers, increased job displacement, de-unionisation and falling conditions in the West — with public services fought for and won through generations of struggle being put up for sale across the continent. It’s in the interests of all the working people of Europe for the “No” vote to win in the Irish referendum.

Irish Euro Vote Comes Down to the Wire

Ellie Keen — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 22:55:10 +0000

Dublin

The more the Irish people know about the Lisbon Treaty, the less they like it. That’s the message of the opinion polls as we draw close to Ireland’s June 12th referendum, which is decisive for the future of European Union institutions.

It’s going to be close. The media panic about the possibility of a No vote on Thursday hasn’t dwelled on such details as polling-margin-of-error and the huge body of undecided voters. But there’s no doubt that the momentum toward the No side has been real, and Ireland could well force the EU governments back to the old drawing board—for a second time, after the rejections of the similar EU Constitution by French and Dutch voters in 2005.

The main problem faced by a virtually complete assortment of the Irish and EU powers-that-be is that there is no obvious positive reason to vote Yes. “To Make EU Institutions Function More Efficiently” is not a slogan to stir the blood, especially when folks suspect those institutions are up to no good to begin with.

What’s more, the ‘reforms’ envisioned by Lisbon—e.g. more majority voting instead of unanimity, fewer commissioners—were allegedly required after the expansion of the European Union to 25 countries in 2004 (it’s now 27). But no one has noticed Brussels and Strasbourg seizing up with legislative gridlock under the current arrangements—and again, most people think they wouldn’t much mind if they did.

The underlying issues, and the reason that Ireland alone is holding a referendum on this treaty, have been dealt with previously in CounterPunch. What is notable as the voting approaches— it has actually started already on a few offshore islands—is that the Yes side has moved its argument forward from “come on, we like Europe” to “we’ll make a terrible mess if we vote No and this is no time to be getting Europe annoyed”. Ireland’s always fragile self-esteem has already taken a blow over the last year or two as the Celtic Tiger limps off the scene; and new Taoiseach (prime minister) Brian Cowen seems to be shouting breathlessly every time he comes on TV, all about the trouble we’ll be in if No emerges victorious.

That shouting could yet work: if I were a betting man I’d stick a few euro on a narrow Yes victory. The main farmers’ lobby has joined the Yes side, after strong-arming the government into a commitment to veto any WTO agreement that isn’t favorable. Moreoever, the prime opinion-forming media outlets are amplifying the elite’s panic. (A couple of British-owned papers backing the No side have kept the press wars interesting, if not honest or well balanced.) Ad hominem attacks on the No side have been stepped up.

But the No side, which ranges right across the political spectrum, has kept throwing up objections to the Treaty and stayed on the offensive. Some of the objections are dubious—abortion will not be brought into Ireland thanks to Lisbon, however much this prospect seems to have engaged and enraged some conservative voters. And the fuss about keeping ‘our’ commissioner at the EU table and ensuring Ireland can continue to have the EU’s lowest corporation tax is neither very progressive nor based on a sound reading of how most Irish people’s interests have been served historically.

Sinn Fein, which had a terrible election last year, has virtually led the No campaign and deftly plucked arguments from left and right alike. But it would be fair to say that it has kept its emphasis to the left, and the party has helped to boost the left’s No voices, raising objections relating to workers’ rights, the possible privatization of public services and the militarization of the EU. It has made for an interesting month of debate: it’s rare, for instance, to hear so many, and contending, trade-union voices in the media.

And the popular energy is on the No side. While establishment politicians use the referendum campaign, and the accompanying relaxation of the litter laws, to stick up photos of themselves on lampposts across the State, sometimes beside the tiniest of “Yes” pleas, a motley assortment of No campaigners has plastered the island with slogans.

That energy, and a decision by the electorate that the burden of proof should be on those who wish us to change existing political arrangements and power structures, could yet yield a No victory when votes are counted on Friday. Whoever wins, the arguments about who wields power in Europe and to what purpose have only just begun.

<>Harry Browne lectures in Dublin Institute of Technology. His book, ‘Hammered by the Irish: How the Pitstop Ploughshares disabled a US war-plane – with Ireland’s blessing’, is forthcoming from Counterpunch Books. He can be reached at: harry.browne@gmail.com