By Frank Noakes
LONDON — Even though most Europeans oppose the Maastricht Treaty, the project has the overwhelming support of all major political parties, which dishonestly present the debate as narrow nationalism versus broad Europeanism. To the consternation of many of their supporters, the Social Democratic parties are often more ardent treaty advocates than their conservative rivals.
Support for the treaty reflects the Social Democrats' complete acceptance of market economics, and with it the end of their historic commitment to social reform and wealth redistribution. In some cases the retreat of Social Democracy over Maastricht includes a final renunciation of any claim to represent the working class.
The French Socialist Party is discussing a name change after the elections later this year, which appear certain to deal it a thoroughly deserved drubbing. And in the British Labour Party, open warfare has flared between supporters of the traditional close links with the trade unions and those wanting to abandon even the party's name in the move towards a formation more like the US Democrats.
Ignorance
The most notable feature of the Maastricht debate is that it takes place in ignorance. Most politicians haven't seen the treaty, and an enforced ignorance is even deeper in the broader population. Even so, the Danish and French referendums show it is no simple matter to sell the document to those who will suffer most from it.
In Britain, despite it being an issue in the April 1992 elections, a translation of the treaty wasn't released until after the poll, a good five months after the treaty was drafted. Now, as British politicians finally get to read the document, increasing numbers say they will vote against it, though not in sufficient numbers to prevent its passage through parliament.
Only in Denmark did the government actually distribute a copy of the treaty to all voters, a move criticised by other treaty supporters as likely to frighten people. The referendum outcome showed that it certainly did.
The Irish government learned from Denmark, distributing only a leaflet on the treaty prior to its referendum. After Denmark,
France and Ireland, the other nine EC governments are not about to allow their citizens to cast a direct vote on the issue.
The French government scheduled a referendum at a time when opinion polls indicated overwhelming support for the treaty. Mitterrand, the French "Socialist" president, was confident a resounding yes vote would weaken the impact of the Danish no. With 70% of French voters supporting European integration, he seemed to be on a safe bet. However, it soon became clear the yes/no division cut through all major parties and all layers of society.
The French politicians frantically scrambled to identify Maastricht with Europe and to discourage voters on the traditionally pro-Europe left from examining the treaty too closely. The Socialist Party ran a slogan: "Napoleon would have voted yes".
In Britain, the Labour Party leadership is at one with the Tories that the people shouldn't be allowed to decide, and it's a similar story across the rest of Europe.
Just what is it that has given the pleasant southern Dutch town of Maastricht such a bad name across Europe?
The official story is that economic convergence and a single currency will mean generalised prosperity after a brief period of initial pain. The environment will be a priority, all cars will be required to use catalytic converters, there will be a proliferation of creches across the continent, and power will devolve to local and regional levels.
Everywhere except Britain there will be a social charter enshrining trade union and other rights. The new Europe will be prosperous, green and caring, internationalist in outlook and more democratic, though significant powers will be ceded to a central government in Brussels.
Fine print
However, there is one small, frequently recurring phrase in the treaty that means most of this will never come to pass. It reads: "subject to price stability".
In reality, the Maastricht Treaty is anything but a people's nirvana. For many it could become a nightmare; for some it already is. The treaty is profoundly anti-democratic and, if ratified, will become the main vehicle for further attacks on the welfare state throughout the EC.
In the name of economic and currency convergence, governments
must reduce spending and aim for zero inflation. Moreover, the institution of real power in the EC will be a central bank.
All existing national banks will be abolished or become branches of the European Central Bank (ECB). National governments will be required to hand over control of currencies and interest rates, the main tools of economic and monetary policy, to a body answerable to no-one.
The treaty is in fact a charter for a bankers' Europe. The ECB is to be totally independent of political control, with its non-elected members appointed for eight-year terms. All other objectives of economic policy are to be subordinated to stable prices. A permanent deflationary policy is entrenched, regardless of factors such as rising unemployment.
Article 107 of the treaty spells it out: the central bankers are to take no account of the views of elected politicians or elected governments. For their part, the governments undertake not to seek influence over the bank.
The treaty lays out strict limits for national spending. The national debt of any government must not exceed 60% of gross domestic product, and governments are forbidden from borrowing more than 3% of GDP annually.
To put this in perspective: the British government's borrowing requirement for 1992, despite massive cuts to spending on infrastructure, education, health and welfare, was 6% of GDP, twice the target under economic convergence. Government spending would need to be cut by another £20 billion.
The end of the decade is the target date for economic convergence, but the Tories won't make any progress in 1993, as their borrowing requirement this year will approach 8% of GDP.
Austerity measures required by the treaty have already precipitated large protests. Last year, around 8 million Italian workers demonstrated against the Socialist Party-led coalition government, and in Greece and Spain the story is the same. Even so, the cuts will have to go further and deeper if these countries are to achieve their economic convergence targets; and this in the midst of the deepest recession since the 1930s.
'Counter-revolution'
The British Labour left's Tony Benn describes the Maastricht process as a counter-revolution. The welfare state built up since World War II is being destroyed; the notion of collectivism is derided in favour of individualism; remaining state-owned property is slated for privatisation; democratic institutions are
to lose most of what little powers they have left.
Amid all this, Social Democracy's maximum program of nationalisation and welfarism has crashed just as completely as that other model of "actually existing socialism" — Stalinism. Under Maastricht, socialism is outlawed. The market rules — by law.
For any remaining genuinely reformist Social Democrats, Maastricht is a disaster. Already limited opportunities for reform through parliament will become even more restricted in the Europe of the bankers.
Another, unstated, aim of the treaty is to keep foreign goods and people, especially those from the Third World, out of fortress Europe. Tough new anti-asylum bills are being adopted throughout western Europe to enforce this stance.
Despite all this, there are already some cracks in the fortress. While the unity of Social Democracy and the conservative parties has a short-term advantage for treaty supporters, it also increases the risk of new political forces growing outside its control.
In the Danish referendum, for the first time large forces mobilised not just against particular government policies, but struck successfully at the heart of European capitalism's main project. The Danish vote helped slow the treaty process when it looked like being forced through before opposition could be organised.
Other political and economic events have now ensured that the bankers' European dream will take longer to achieve. A further economic downturn, especially in Germany, could even render the ratified treaty worthless.
The European left has always championed a united Europe, which would expand the scope for social justice while minimising the causes of war and national chauvinism. Maastricht, the Europe of the bankers, has nothing in common with this ideal — it is its very opposite.