Nice II The Return

national | miscellaneous | news report Monday July 01, 2002 21:49 by Malatested - Anarchist Federation Ireland ireaf at yahoo dot ie

Nice II The Return

NICE II :THE RETURN

IN THE SUMMER OF 2001 a majority of voters rejected the Nice Treaty in a so called “democratic” referendum where the will of the people would be respected. Our
“democratic” leaders now see fit to bestow upon us the second chance to change our warped minds and vote a resounding Yes. Yes for the Euro Army, yes for the boss’s Europe. Hell no!

Privatisation

Why No? The Nice Treaty sets down the new boundaries with which capitalist globalisation can develop within the European Union.The European Union plays an important role in introducing the World Trade Organisation’s General Agreement on Trades in Services
(GATS). Under GATS, governments’ hand over public
services to private industry- privatisation - this
means private health care, education and public
services. -Eircom anyone?. The result is two-tier
services as private investment will only be attracted to profitable services, i.e. the ones whose customers pay the most money, the rest will be starved of funds.
This also makes for an increase in payment for
services, such as bin charges or the proposed
re-introduction of fees for Third Level education.
Furthermore poorer safety, as private industry cuts corners to make the bigger profit margin, like Railtrack in Britain, and worse working conditions and layoffs for public sector workers for the same reason.

Fortress Europe

With the proposed enlargement of the EU comes old
habits, for example, the German state continues to
build a wall along the border with Poland, does this seem like Europe is opening up? No. The German government also wants to prevent Polish workers from working within the EU and especially Germany for five years after entry into the EU. However this won’t stop German companies from benefiting from cheap labour over the border in Poland. The repression towards immigrants under the E.U.’s Fortress Europe policies are geared towards managing the economically necessary, and inevitable, immigration, in a certain fashion. They are aimed towards making immigrant workers dependant on short term contracts, with their
work permits held by their employers, so they can be subjected to super-exploitation.

The Euro Army

Bertie Ahern and his compadres may find it easy to
play down the above information as Bertie & co. just love privatization, exploitation, and more profits for their brown envelope friends. But will a declaration from his fellow politicians in the EU really secure our “neutrality”. Not likely. Consider this, the Irish government allows the US Air Force to refuel at
Shannon on it’s way to Afghanistan (and Iraq in 1991), and to even train in our airspace. EU boss Jacques Delors stated “We need a European Army for the resource wars of the 21st century.” The Nice Treaty puts the EU in control of a 60,000 man European army called the Rapid Reaction Force. This force will act under the direct control of European bosses to secure
resources, markets and local “stability” i.e. the
exchange of one dictator for another. We are told the Irish state may not take part in EU military action without a UN Security Council mandate, but this is almost meaningless. All it means is that the U.N. Security Council, which, for practical purposes, consists of Russia, the United States, France, Britain and China, must agree with whatever action is to take place. Nothing more. Even still it’s just a promise.
Great play is made of the fact this does not involve “mutual defence” or “common defence”. This is of course because the E.U. has no need for defence (an invasion of Italy by Switzerland !???!!!), and the purpose of the Rapid Reaction Force is not to defend
the borders of Europe but to intervene outside Europe. It’s area of operations is up to 4,000 kilometres outside the E.U.

No to Nice

Last time we said no, a passionate NO campaign
defeated a campaign who’s key point was Bertie says YES. It will take much more than another NO vote to stop any of the above, put a NO vote will put a few potholes in the super highway of capitalist globalisation. Beyond that we need to combat the boss’s Europe, and so join with the general strikers of Italy and Spain, the striking building workers in Germany and the striking airport workers across Europe.

From the pages of Resistance, regular monthly bulletin of the Anarchist Federation Ireland, now available in PDF format at our website.