What to do with the European Union?
Tags: Communism, European Union, Socialism, Anarchism

First of all, it’s probably a good thing to explore some of the victories and failures the EU has given to the left and leftist principles in general.

In terms of victories, the by far biggest victory the EU has achieved is that it’s one of the greatest triumphs of internationalism and consensus democracy. Not only has it shown that consensus democracy can work on massive scales, it has shown it can be done internationally. Yet, this also shows one of the weaknesses of consensus democracy; it’s horrifically centrist. This is one of the big reasons why the EU is so neoliberal.

Another victory of the EU is labour rights. The EU has laid minimums for labour rights that have improved the standard of living across the continent. One of the examples of this being the EU-wide implementation of parental leave for both parents, which has increased paternal leave in countries like the Netherlands from 3 days to 6 weeks.

The EU has also delivered us massive victories on consumer rights, such as the ending of roaming charges inside the common market, the great pushes for privacy laid out in the General Data Protection Regulation and possibly in the future, the right to repair. It has fought monopolies and oligopolies like Apple and Google.

Freedom of movement of people has shown that a world without borders can work and even prosper. Being able to live, work, study and enjoy the culture of all over the EU is a great thing in many cases, but it also has had downsides in terms of labour rights and competition inside the common market. Not something that can’t be fixed! It’s a shame there is an outer border though…

And lastly, the EU has been a massive victory for peace and cooperation inside the continent. It’s one of the main contributors to the relative peace in Northern Ireland and has largely avoided the wars that have riddled Europe since for millennia. It has worked on peace in the Balkans, for minority rights and for womens’ and LGBT rights inside and outside the Union.

English Translation: Neoliberal Action

Yet, it has has had and is having massive failures. It indeed has a big democratic deficit in general and is neoliberal to a fault. This is due to the consensus based democratic system in most cases. To get all states inside the EU to agree to a policy, it has to be really centrist in general. However, this is not to say it wouldn’t work in leftist circles; it’d just find the centre of the leftist solution in those cases.

Another reason why is because of capitalism. The EU is truly a lobbyists paradise, and not the good kind of lobbyists such as unions and low-level government either… they’re almost exclusively corporate lobbyists. There are almost 30.000 lobbyists in Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxemburg City; compared to some 779 European parliamentarians and commissioners. That’s almost 20 lobbyists for every MEP and Commissioner. Only Washington D.C. is a bigger circus of lobbying.

The European Union has also been one of the biggest participants in (neo)colonialism and imperialism around the globe, inside and outside the Union itself. From the massive austerity measures forced on Greece to keep up the interest gains for Western-European banks as the German industry out competes Greek industry, to dumping via the since then abolished export subsidy and adjusted Common Agricultural Policy. Indeed, it’s one of the biggest issues with the EU that every leftist should care about.

It also has been unable to fight the tide of fascism inside the EU, burgeoning in countries such as Italy, Hungary, Poland and Austria. Not out of lack of trying though; but out of lack of power the union has. These four countries back each other and defend each other from consequences as liberal democracy is broken down and people are facing so-called Slave laws.

What is to be done? Considering all this, it’s hard to come to a conclusion about what the EU is to the left. Is it another tool? Is it another obstacle? Can it be salvaged and turned to something anarchist, or is it something that will be abolished under any such system?