Nice: No Plan B?

by Phuq Hedd Wed Oct 09, 2002 23:07

Central European Review is a journal worth checking out. It has some ebooks, more than one of which offers a critical Eastern European perspective on the EU and it's strategy of expansion. It is worthwhile considering whether or not the Nice Treaty is an attempt to normalise a set of unequal power-relations which have developed in contrast to the stated aims of democracy and freedom of the European Union. The penetration of capital into the decision making processes of the European Union may be manifested in the blatant racism, lack of democracy and consensus in EU processes and militarism. The Nice Treaty may be an attempt to make this actual, current behaviour an official and legal obligation on the part of member states. (This is a clumsy over-statement of the case suggested by this bbook

Empire's New Clothes: Unveiling EU Enlargement
Edited by József Böröcz and Melinda Kovács

this is available for free download in pdf form here:
http://www.ce-review.org/ebookstore/rutgers1.html

Although a bit academic (using Bakhtin, Foucault, Bourdieu, Goffman, Fanon etc.) it is readable and provides a unique perspective from "outside" of the European Union from intellectuals within some of the states applying for accession to the EU. It is concerned with neo-colonialism and imperialism. Some extracts:

Introduction:
pg.8
"Our volume tackles a mighty object indeed: the wholesale redivision of the European geopolitical map. Myriad smaller and bigger clues suggest the lurking prensence of empire and coloniality in that process."

pg.13 "Those nine former-colonial powers have not only made their indelible mark on the history of capitalism; they are also the most powerful members and represent about 90 percent of the population, of the European Union"

pg.22 "The ["eastern enlargement" of the European Union] features a very prominent combination of state coloniality and a secular-"westernist" version of civilizing coloniality, with direct physical violence relegated, so far, to relatively isolated instances such as the member states' constant low-level violence against undesirable immigrants including, alongside the "aliens" from the former colonies, also the poor, undocumented central and east Europeans labor migrants and informal petty merchants, Romany or otherwise, the war on Kosovo and the continued violent oppression of ethno-nationalist insurgency within the EU."

pg.27 "[...] it is suggestive that [... the European Commision's 2001 report ... ] teases out a solution that [...] transmform[s] the would-be accession countries (at some point after the collapse of state socialism independent, sovereign states) into restricted-exit homelands or reservations: in collusion with its right-to-extreme-right Austrian counterpart, even the Social Democrat-Green government of Germany is insisting on a seven-year freeze on the movement of "eastern" workers after accession [pg.13 Those nine former-colonial powers have not only made their indelible mark on the history of capitalism; they are also the most powerful members and represent about 90 percent of the population, of the European Union"

The Fox and the Raven by Jozsef Borocz uses Mikhail Bakhtin's "Social Drama" theories to investigate the unequal relationship between an applicant state (Hungary) and the EU:
pg.107 "This conclusion allows a tentative remark about the question of what the term "integration" means within the European Agreement, which provides Hungary and all hopeful applicants with associate membership. Judging from the European Commission's communicative strategy, "integration" means transposition and implementation of the _acquis_communautaire_, including the opening of the applicant state's borders to EU actors. What it does not mean is a reliable promise of full membership. The essence of the European Union's strategy vis-a-vis the central and eastern European applicants is _integration_without_inclusion_: participation in the production systems, and appendance to the consumption markets of EU corporations without the attendant political, economic, social and cultural rights conferred by European Union citizenship."

The Enduring National State: NATO-EU relations, EU-enlargement and the reapportionment of the Balkans (Salvatore Engel-Di Maurio)
Examines the ties between the EU and NATO and argues using the bombing of Yugoslavia and the "Stability Pact" that a pattern of renewed imperialism and colonialism is discernible. Engel-Di Maurio points out the Council of Ministers is a structure that reduces the influence of the voters of national member states (low though this is already), that there is a very confused and uncertain relation between the actual power structures that exist within the EU and its stated aims. He also calls into doubt the "military defence" arguments for the Rapid Reaction Force or the Partnership for Peace:
[...] coercive and consent-gathering media remain under the control of EU member states much as begore, according to an uneven sovereignty consistent with internal state hiearchies (Krasner, 1999). These militiary and other capacities can be mobilized as required, just as votes within the European Councili in the struggle for supremacy and expansion (not necessarily territorial) among EU states. These struggles and EU foreign policy in general are complicated by overlaps and inconsistencies among the strategic alliances of the member states. Military mobilization, for instance, is contingent upon the outcome of tensions between major NATO powers, which include the US. A unified military under the control of the EU is pre-empted or largely redundant as a result of the expansion of NATO, which represents the same major powers within the EU. Eleven of the 15 EU member states are simultaneously affiliated with NATO, while four of the non-EU NATO members are applying for EU membership.

pg.122 "The debate over intervention [the US/UK bombing of Yugoslavia] raged in nearly all EU states and _demonstrated_the_lack_of_representativeness_of_the_ministers_involved_in_the_decision-making_process within the EU Council (see for instance the debate within the Irish Parliament, http://www.irlgov.ie/debates-99/25mar99/sect4.htm" (my emphasis)

pg. 123 "Aside from the universalisation of EU-US policies and the internal political legitmacy reinforced through humanitarianism arguments, direct intervention in the Balkans has permitted a more effective penetration of capital (see USAID example below)."

Also of interest is http://www.euractiv.com
which includes a section on the Nice Treaty:
http://www.euractiv.com/cgi-bin/cgint.exe/2006835-11?714&1015=3&1014=ld_irishreferendum&-tt=el

by o as if = iosaf - lunatic fringer with RTS past and bit of genome (for peace) Wed Oct 09, 2002 21:36 ipsiphi23 at email dot com barcelona 0034679708674

that supported by a suspicious France (wonder why!?) attempts are being made to alter EU expansion.
This allows for Irish and Finnish neutrality to continue unaffected and expansion of EU eastwards on a joint French/German model.
Turkey has also been relogated and will not be allowed to enter the EU with its present human rights policy or production of arms condsidered illegal within the EU.
This is not wonderful news but it is progress of a sort.
Say NO to NICE
Say NO to the WAR
Have a nice day.

by wormholebrothers Wed Oct 09, 2002 19:50

Massive rip off part two in planning - first the 60s/70/s/80s - now this.

The Irish 60s 70s 80s will be repeated as farce in Eastern Europe (Irish Developers react to overheating of Erron Economy by going where the wages are low and labour cheap and politicians corruptible) while simultaneously this country's services will be opened up for Multinationals and PPPs - Remember that burlington meeting? - I guess personally that what the IRL GOV presented to the WTO as Irelands Liberlaisation Commitments on GATS in secret in the last yearor so was not so secret at that PPP meeting if you had the $2000 + required to hear Charlie read the list out loud from documents supplied by the irish reps on the 'shadowy' Article 133 Committee.