European Union -
Of Capital
by Erik Valencic
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European dreams were just that - dreams, from which we woke up into new uncertain times. Slovenia entered EU last spring and already it is widely known, specially to the workers, that European reality is far from almost the perfect picture that was for many years portrayed by our politicians and the media. Numerous closings of factories are the most vivid example of this. The illusion of prosperity inside of EU is falling apart and it is only a matter of time when it will collapse completely under the weight of harsh European social reality.
The aim of this article is to discuss the capitalist nature of European Commission (EC) and the so called Single Market of 450 million consumers, which is controlled by only a few European mega corporations.
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In past the relationship between big business and EC was not very friendly because of the EC's stable social policy, but in 1980s, known as the era of Thatcherism, the relationship started to grow into symbiosis. EC and corporations started establishing strategic partnerships because the Commission believed that this will strengthen its centralized power over the national governments of EU member countries. On the other hand, the big companies were looking for ways how to influence Brussels in their favour. Chief manager of Volvo Pehr Gyllenhammar started lobbying in 1982 for the establishment of an institution that would bring together the leading European corporations. His idea was widely supported and in year later European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT) was born. ERT is the biggest and most powerful corporate lobby institution in EU. It represents companies such as Nestlé, British Airways, Unilever, Total, Volvo, Philips, Nokia, Siemens, Volkswagen, Heineken, Bayer, Renault, Shell, British Petroleum and many others. On their web page they say:
"European industry cannot flourish unless it is competitive with other businesses around the world, but competitiveness cannot be determined solely by the efforts of industry. The prevailing economic and social policy framework is crucially important and must be flexible enough to adapt to changes in global conditions. ERT constantly urges policies which provide that flexibility and enable European companies to build and improve the competitive strengths, which a Single Market of eventually 450 million citizens can offer."
In its essence ERT is a sort of a Cosa Nostra that serves the interests of its members and membership can be secured only with an invitation. While smaller companies try to profit from a Single Market, ERT was involved in its creation and has benefited from it from the very beginning. Former executive manager of ERT Keith Richardson commented: "We don't deal with isolated problems. We don't deal with national issues. We only talk about the whole picture". The key word for success of a lobbying institution is 'access'. And nobody knows this better than ERT. Richardson had this to say: "Access means to have a possibility to call Helmut Kohl and tell him to read a certain report, access means to have lunch with Swedish prime minister right before Sweden decides to join EU".
ERT is a very ambitious organization. When EC suggested in 1984 that all barriers to free trade should be removed, the national governments refused this plan. Then ERT's chief manager Wisse Dekker presented his idea of the Single Market and after a successful lobbying offensive the plan was accepted by the EC and EU member states. Keith Richardson said this about his predecessor: "Wisse Dekker from Philips saw the creation of a Single Market as his highest priority. If you have in mind that the governments at first didn't like this idea, then it's obvious we accomplished a lot". In a TV interview in 1993 former head of the Commission Jacques Delors confessed: "Constant pressures from ERT were the decisive forces behind the creation of the Single Market".
In early 1990s ERT demanded that European Union improves its transport infrastructure. The tunnel connecting Great Britain and France under the sea was the idea of ERT, which also demanded the construction of 12.000 kilometers of new roads. Slovenia for example promised to build 500 kilometers of new highways that will connect Central Europe to the Balkans. This of course benefits only the corporations who find it easier to transport their products, while the roads are being payed with the taxpayers' money.
Intergovernmental negotiations that ended in 1991 with the Maastricht Agreement were another example of ERT's lobbying success. Only a few months before the Maastricht conference ERT delivered a report to the EC titled Reshaping Europe. This report is in its essence identical to many conclusions in the Maastricht Agreement, specially on the question of Euro. Five corporations from ERT established a new institution called Association for the Monetary Union of Europe (AMUE) which specialized in lobbying for Euro. Once the goal was accomplished and Euro replaced the national valutas, AMUE declared victory and ceased to exist.
Love relationship between European Commission and big companies further strengthened in 1990s when the head of the EC was Jacques Santer. In 1995 the Commission in collaboration with ERT established a new body called Competitivness Advisory Group (CAG), whose mission is to improve the competitiveness of European economy. In order for European economy to be competitive on a global level, workers in EU work more and more for less money and have less rights than before. The proof of this is the growing number of workers' strikes in all European Union countries. When Romano Prodi replaced Santer as the head of the EC, European Round Table of Industrialists demanded that EU expands to the east as soon as possible, because this would add 150 million of new consumers to the Single Market and provide cheap labour force for the western corporations. Keith Richardson commented already in 1997: "In eastern Europe we discovered a new southeast Asia".
Ten candidate states including Slovenia had to radically restruct their economy before entering EU. The consequences are horrible. In Hungary for example the investments of the foreign capital amount over 30 percent of the state's GDP. Corporations are thus in a perfect position to blackmail Hungarian government to lower taxes for them, otherwise they might move their factories elsewhere and economically destroy the country. Furthermore, corporations Unilever and Proctor & Gamble divided the market of Central and Eastern Europe and in the process destroyed many smaller companies in ten new member states. The unemployment is already critical. In Slovenia 50.000 people are about to loose their jobs.
After twenty years of successful lobbying the corporations in ERT are convinced that nothing can stop them and right now they are ruthlessly attacking the social rights of European workers. In the end one must understand that ERT, though the biggest, is only one of many lobbying institutions that influence European economic policy. In Brussels there are over 10.000 professional lobbyists. This is the corporate army which fights against the workers. The latter are establishing radical international unions to battle the interests of globalised capital which is eating up everything in front of it. This is a war against the invisible masters of European Union of Capital, a war between men and the machines. It is important for workers to understand that European dream is a Lie and the battle against the Capital must begin today. Those who make our lives impossible will make a violent revolution inevitable.
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– Erik Valencic, Radio Student Ljubljana
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