MAASTRICHT
THE PROTECTIONISM OF FREE TRADE
by Nicholas Hildyard
(From The Ecologist, Vol. 23, No. 2, March/April 1993 pp 45-51.)
Introduction:
In 1986, the twelve member states of the European Economic
Community signed the Single European Act which committed
them to dismantling all legislative barriers to the free
movement of goods, services, capital and people between them
by 31 December, 1992. The Single Market now in force has
created a free trade zone encompassing 340 million people, a
market constructed to protect the multinational interests
that have long lobbied for its creation and which are now
the dominant economic and political force within Europe. The
Treaty on European Union - commonly known as the Maastricht
Treaty after the Dutch town where it was signed in February
1992 by EEC heads of government - will, if ratified by all
member states, give those multinational interests the legal
powers and administrative apparatus of a full-blown state.
Text:
Europe is a construct, defined by economic and political
interests rather than physical geography or a common
"culture" . This construct has varied throughout the
region's history: for the Ancient Greeks, Europe was the
land mass behind the Greek mainland; later, it was the
domain of the great European powers -the Holy Roman Empire,
Napoleon's France or the Austro-Hungarian Empire of the
Hapsburgs.
In 1957, Europe acquired a new definition when six
countries founded the European Economic Community (EEC)
under the Treaty of Rome, another six joining by 1986.[1]
Europe (as it is understood in the boardrooms of Tokyo or
New York, or in the pubs of Britain) now means the EEC.
Greece, although separated from the rest of Europe by a host
of non-European (that is, non-EEC) countries, is nonetheless
part of Europe; Finland, although it features on maps of
northern Europe, is not; Britain was "out" but is now "in",
and Norway is still deciding.
The glue that holds this new Europe together is a set
of mutually-advantageous trading arrangements, ranging from
open borders to common standards, between the most powerful
economic interest groups in the 12 individual states that
now make up the EEC. National regulations to protect home
industries have gradually been replaced by Europe-wide
regulations that protect those jndustries with "European"
(and, increasingly, global) reach. The nation state has been
pushed into the background as the unit of economic
administration: sovereignty has shifted to pan-European
factions within government and business, operating through
the institutions that make up the EEC.
Modernization and Change
From its inception, the EEC was set on turning its
members into dynamic, industrial economies, able to compete
on the world market. In the case of France, joining the EEC
was part of a wider plan to transform the country from a
largely rural society into an industrial state, initiated by
a core group of government technocrats under the slogan
"Modernization or Downfall". By ripping open the
protectionist cocoon around France's major industries, the
EEC would force them to compete, allowing the few "enclaves
of modernism" that had emerged out of post-war
reconstruction to break free from the shackles of "La Vielle
France" -- the France of pampered national industries, of
"lazy" peasants who refused to leave the land to supply
labour to industry, and of rural, guild or family-based
businesses, content to produce for the local market.[2]
The strategy had already worked with the steel industry
which had been shocked into modernizing after France's entry
in 1951 into the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC),
"that valuable dress rehearsal for the [EEC]".[3] As Jean
Monnet, a principle architect of France's post-war
modernization programme, recalled in 1968, "Back in 1946, we
tried to persuade the Loire steel industry to modernize but
they refused. They began to do so only in 1953, under
pressure from [ECSC], and through fear of competition from
[German] Lorraine steel."[4] Within two years of signing the
Treaty of Rome, France was transformed from one of the most
protectionist economies in Europe to one of the most "open",
its tariffs being cut by 90 per cent. The impact on the
economy was dramatic: between 1958 and 1962, France doubled
its overall exports and trebled its exports to other EEC
members. In chemicals and automobiles, French exports to
Germany alone rose more than eightfold. As John Ardagh.
writing in 1968, commented in his book _The New France: De
Gaulle and After_:
"In every field, the average French firm's attitude to
exports and productivity has changed strikingly in the
last ten years . . . With the coming of the [EEC], many
smaller firms have hurriedly joined forces to create
new export subsidiaries and for the first time are
stirring outside their frontiers."[5]
Those businesses which could not compete against foreign or
domestic rivals were rapidly edged out of business.
Thousands of "inefficient" small family businesses often
committed to high craftsmanship but low sales-were pushed
into bankruptcy, taken over or forced to merge.[6]
Even where EEC programmes overtly aimed to preserve
the status quo-as, for example, in the Common Agricultural
Policy's commitment to maintaining farmers on the land by
ensuring a fair standard of living for the agricultural
community-the underlying rationale was still one of
modernization and change. As David Goodman and Michael
Redclift note in their seminal book, _From Peasant to
Proletarian_:
"During the 1950s and 1960s, the attempt to design
'European' agricultural policies in the countries of
the EEC. although a political stumbling block, was also
in some respects a sine qua non for re-establishing a
viable industrial economy, as well as a means of
gaining the tacit support of much of the rural
population for supranational planning. Without
increases in agricultural production, largely effected
through price supports and subsidy mechanisms, it would
have proved more difficult to provide a 'breathing
space' in which population shifts could occur, and
without which industry would be starved of
manpower."[7]
The thrust of the EEC's agricultural policy has thus been to
_manage_, rather than stem, the displacement of small family
farmers from the land through manipulating prices and
support programmes, on the one hand, and through retraining,
early retirement schemes and "structural development"
programmes on the other-and it has been remarkably
successful.[8] A rural exodus on a scale unparalleled in
European history has been deliberately stimulated, leaving
the countryside dominated by large, modern, industrial
farms. Again, the French example is illustrative. In 1939,
35 per cent of the French population worked on the land; by
1968, that figure was down to 17 per cent; and today, it is
less than 5 per cent, the number of farms falling from 1.6
million in 1970 to 1 million in 1990, with the average size
of a farm rising from 19 hectares to 31 hectares.[9]
The Single Market
In France. as in other EEC countries, the restructuring of
postwar Europe was never politically neutral. As
multinationalism has grown in political strength since 1945,
so regimes that protected domestic interests have been edged
out by regimes that protect European and increasingly
_multinational interests: the rules of trade have been
rewritten (albeit after considerable political wrangling)
to create what free traders call "a level playing field"- a
pitch that is "level for those whose commercial interests
demand untrammelled access to markets within Europe and
abroad. For those who rely on local markets however, or who
find themselves on the periphery of this Europe, the playing
field is far from level: from their point of view it is
deliberately inclined against them.
Nowhere is that bias more evident than in the rules
and regulations that have come into force as a result of the
1986 Single Act, under which EEC member states agreed to
dismantle all remaining national legislative barriers to the
free movement between their countries of goods, services,
capital and people (the "four freedoms") by 31 December,
1992. By signing the Single Act, the 12 EEC countries
effectively agreed to subordinate their national or regional
interests to the longer-term (and supposedly shared)
interests of creating an EEC-wide free trade zone out of
which, it was hoped, European-based companies of sufficient
size and strength would emerge to "rise to the competitive
challenge posed by the USA and Japan".'[10] In future, the
sole benchmark for deciding on what constitutes a barrier to
the four freedoms would be the competitiveness of European
companies in the Single Market.
The project was business-driven from the start-the
proposal for the Single Market was drafted by, among others,
Wisse Dekker, the Chief Executive of Philips, and Giovanni
Agnelli, head of Italy's FIAT conglomerate[11] -- and
business has used the process of setting up the Market to
boost profits at the expense of product quality; to drive
smaller companies out of business; and to undermine (or
block) environmental and public health measures deemed
onerous to business.
To facilitate the free flow of goods between countries,
the process of making product standards the same in each
country ("harmonizing" in Eurospeak) was moved up the agenda
to become a top priority. In the area of food standards, the
European Commission agreed that any foodstuff could be sold,
provided it complied with certain public health rules and
its label contained specified information for consumers.[l2]
National food and drink standards have thus been abolished
in favour of EEC ones, often bringing lower costs for
business but lower food quality for the consumer. Germany's
beer producers, for example, are projected to save 22 per
cent of their production costs,[l3] following the rescinding
of the country's age-old "pure beer" laws, the
Reinheitsgenbot, which stipulated that beer could only be
made from hops and barley, with no additives or sugar. In
Britain, where food standards were scrapped in 1986, one
study found that on average the amount of meat in meat
products fell from 46 per cent to 31 per cent following
deregulation of national food quality rules.[14]
Harmonization has led to a lowering of standards in
other areas as well. The number of EEC permitted food
additives has been expanded, so that food producers in
Germany and Greece, for example, can now choose from 412
additives whereas under national legislation they were
restricted to using just 120 of them. As Dr. Tim Lang of the
British-based consumer group Parents for Safe Food comments:
"In the negotiations for EEC-wide standards. multinational
food manufacturing interests have got what they wanted.
Consumers have been urging a reduction in additive use:
industry has got an expansion." In several instances, banned
additives will be legal again: Britain, for example. will be
obliged to allow the import of foods containing cyclamate
sweeteners, despite contrary government health department
advice because cyclamates are suspected carcinogens.[15]
Conversely, where larger industries have seen an
opportunity to use tighter standards to squeeze smaller
competitors, they have seized it. In the meat industry, more
stringent hygiene standards have been pushed through the EEC
with the support of large slaughterhouse interests.[l6]
Unable to afford to implement the new regulations, half of
the estimated 600 slaughterhouses in Britain, many of them
local, family-owned concerns, will in all likelihood be
driven out of business, their trade being picked up by the
larger abattoirs. Local butchers are likely to be affected
too, since the larger slaughterhouses tend to sell direct to
supermarkets, further concentrating the meat industry into
fewer and fewer hands.
Cries of "trade barrier" have also been raised
against laws to protect the environment. In 1987, the
Belgian province of Wallonia was taken to court by the
European Commission for prohibiting the import of toxic
waste into the province, a block to the free movement of
goods between community members (under EEC law, waste-
however toxic-is deemed a legitimate and tradeable "good").
In October 1992, an EEC- wide compromise was reached by EEC
environment ministers under which national authorities may
prohibit the importation of waste for _disposal_ but not for
_recovery_ (for instance, through recycling or processing).
However, this leaves the law wide open to legal abuse: as
Greenpeace notes: "For any waste stream, a 'recovery
operation' can be invented to justify its export no matter
how technologically or environmentally senseless."[17]
Corporate Concentration
With the playing field levelled in their favour and capital
free to move throughout the EEC, multinational interests
have received in abundance what the Cecchini Report, a 1988
analysis of the projected economic benefits of the Single
Market, promised them: cheaper costs and more convivial
standards.[18] One result has been a spate of take-overs
and mergers-Europe's 1,000 leading firms more than doubled
their mergers and acquisitions between 1986 and 1989-
creating multinational giants whose influence on government,
and whose control of trade, is pan-European.[19] Larger
firms have snapped up smaller ones to gain control of local
distribution networks or to get rid of rival brand products.
In banking, soft drinks and paints, the top five companies
now control 38 per cent, 50 per cent and 25 per cent of
their respective markets. Of the 39 companies that dominated
the European trade in household appliances in the 1970s, 34
had been swallowed up by 1990, leaving the five largest in
control of some 60 per cent of the market.[20] In other
areas too, there have been mergers. In two of the biggest
cross- border deals of the late 1 980s and early 1 990s,
Siemens of Germany and Britain' s GEC jointly acquired
Plessey, the British electronics firm, while Carnaud of
France and Metal Box of Britain merged to form CMB
packaging.[21]
Core and Periphery
As a union of multinational business interests rather than a
"union of the peoples of Europe" (the stated objective of
the Treaty of Rome), the EEC has split its domain into a
core and a periphery. The result is not One Europe but
several.[22] Running through the centre lies the EEC's
productive heartland-the industrial belt that begins in
northern Britain, runs down through eastern France and
western Germany and ends abruptly in northern Italy. Within
that belt lies the Europe of the service industries, of
banking and administration-the so-called "golden banana"[33]
stretching from London through Brussels to Milan. Outside
those core areas (and, embarrassingly, also within them)
lies Peripheral Europe: run-down black spots whose
industries are not competitive; areas whose peasant way of
life does not match the EEC's vision of the future; areas
deemed fit only to supply cheap labour to the pan-European
commercial interests that dominate the core.
Free to go anywhere they want to in Europe,
companies have sought to invest their capital wherever it
will earn the highest returns. High technology sectors such
as the electronics industry are favoured over less
productive sectors; areas of cheap or unorganized labour
over areas where wages are high or where trade unions are
strong. Poorer rural areas with low wages or where farmers
find it hard to remain on the land are thus targeted for
"development". With the average worker paid less than $4 an
hour in Portugal, compared with $13 in Germany and almost
$16 in Denmark, it is "no wonder that German companies now
seem keener on sunnier climes."[24] As with investment by
Northern interests in Third World countries, the major
beneficiaries are primarily those in the metropolitan "core"
areas to which profits are repatriated. Demands for higher
wages are met by threats to transfer production elsewhere.
As the World Council of Churches (WCC) notes:
"Manufacturers can, with the benefit of new technology,
divide up their operations between different countries
and shift production from one country to another when
economic conditions dictate that they should . . . This
has been done against the odds until now because of the
many fiscal, technical and other barriers that still
exist between the EEC countries; it will become
extremely simple after 1992."[25]
For employers, Europe's labour market is now a "buyer's
market", as areas of high unemployment seek to attract
investment by undercutting their competitors' pay and
conditions. The 1993 decision by Hoover Europe to close its
Longvic plant in France and switch production to Cambuslang
near Glasgow, for example, was secured in large part by the
Scottish workforce agreeing to accept limited period
contracts for new workers, constraints on the right to
strike, cuts in overtime, a yearlong freeze in wages,
flexible working time and practices and the introduction of
video cameras on the factory floor.[26] Such "beggar-my-
neighbour" tactics -however understandable-have led to
accusations of "social dumping" as workers in one region
find themselves losing their jobs to a more compliant
workforce elsewhere. Yet the jobs created by social dumping
will generally have little security. As the WCC notes:
"The new workforce predicated by 1992 consists of a
slimmed down, highly trained and skilled core of
workers for electronics, research and 'sunrise'
industries, and a mass of 'flexible ' unskilled workers
in, for example, building and construction, service
industries, garment manufacture and food processing,
who can be taken on, laid off, employed part-time, and
moved around the Community as required."[27]
Increased Marginalization
The increasing migration of workers in search of jobs and
the widening of economic differences between poor and rich
regions is likely to be greatly exacerbated by the economic
and monetary union proposed under the Maastricht Treaty. At
present, an EEC country which is faced with high production
costs relative to its other EEC partners can devalue its
currency, increasing the cost of its imports and decreasing
the cost of its exports. With the adoption of a single
European currency-a central plank of the Maastricht Treaty-
that option will no longer be available. Uncompetitive
countries will have little option but to adjust their
economies through wage restraint, further deregulation,
increased productivity, lower taxation and higher
unemployment.[28]
For free marketeers, such enforced restructuring is a
necessary-if painful-step in forging a leaner economy to
compete on the world market. But others are less sanguine.
They point to the experience of countries such as Italy
where the adoption of a single currency (albeit over a
century ago) has contributed to a widening of the
disparities between rich and poor regions. Not only has
available capital from the poorer regions been sucked into
the richer areas, but employment opportunities in the more
competitive Northern states have attracted the unemployed
from the South, fuelling a xenophobic backlash and creating
an underclass of despised and exploited economic migrants.
To prevent such migration, the Italian government has
sought to subsidize the South through social funds-further
fueling Northern resentment against the South since much of
the money is generated by Northern industry.[29] One
result is the emergence of separatist movements, such as the
Lombardy League, Venetian League and the Tuscan League, all
of which now capture a major proportion of votes in national
and regional elections. Grounded in a hostility to
"foreigners", such separatist movements many of which are
neo- fascist, will be further boosted both by Maastncht's
commitment to encourage the free movement of workers (in
effect, economic migrants) and by social dumping. As such
movements gain ground, so racial violence and ethnic
tensions will be greatly increased.
Social Funds: Further Disparity
Recognizing the centrifugal tendencies of the Single Market
and monetary union, Article 130C of the Maastricht Treaty
provides for increased central funding of regional
development programmes,[30] while other articles, such as
the Social Chapter, aim to "protect" the citizens of Europe
from the likely social and economic fallout of economic
union.
It is a moot point, however, whether the beneficiaries
of regional development funds are Europe's citizens or EEC
multinationals, because such funding has been used to break
open local economies and force local communities into the
economic mainstream. In Spain, for example, the EEC's
structural funds have been used to introduce intensive,
export-oriented agriculture at great cost to local
livelihoods, exacerbating regional inequalities and
transforming cultural diversity into economic disparity.[31]
Maastricht' s social programmes are similarly biased
towards industrial goals. Under the heading "Economic and
Social Cohesion", Article 130A directs governments to reduce
the "backwardness" of their "least-favoured areas", in
particular "rural areas", with the assistance of the EEC
Structural Fund.[32] Grants made from the proposed European
Social Fund arc aimed at restructuring the workforce to meet
the demands of industry: to "improve employment
opportunities for workers in the internal market . . . to
render the employment of workers easier, to increase their
geographical and occupational mobility within the
community."[33] To that end, an EEC-wide vocational training
programme will "facilitate adaptation to industrial change,
ease integration into the labour market, facilitate access
to vocational training, encourage mobility of instructors
and trainees, stimulate co-operation between training
establishments and firms, and develop information exchanges.
"
Maastricht' s Social Chapter offers more of the same.
It may provide for workers' rights, but like its 1989
predecessor, the Social Charter, it is concerned primarily
with ensuring a pliable workforce. Of the Charter, Frances
Webber has written:
"Just by looking at the stated aims of the Charter. we
can see that it is not interested in people, but only
in efficient and productive units of labour: that it is
not interested in the economically inactive, but only
in workers; and that it is not interested in democracy
or giving people any control over their lives, but is
basically about management [and manipulation] . .
.There is, for example. no right to housing, no right
to education (as opposed to vocational training), no
right to health facilities outside of work, and no
political rights whatsoever."[34]
The same criticism may be made just as forcefully of the
Social Chapter.
Shifts of Power
With completion of the Single Market, the political economy
of Europe has been dramatically reshaped. Implementation of
the Maastricht Treaty will shift power still further from
national interest groups with domestic constituencies to
multinational interest groups, unfettered by local
allegiances. The process has been self-reinforcing. Firstly,
as economic power has become concentrated in the hands of an
ever smaller group of multinational companies, so their grip
on EEC economic policy has grown. Secondly, as more people
have become dependent for their livelihoods on inter-
European trade, so political support for multinational
factions within government and commerce has broadened and
deepened within Europe. And, thirdly, by providing a power
base outside of national politics, the EEC has enabled
multinational interests that may be relatively powerless in
any given country to increase their bargaining power by
building up alliances with like-minded groups in other
member states, using the European Commission rather than
national governments to push for policies favourable to
their goals.
Even non-EEC states have been unable to remain aloof
from the process: the gravitational pull exerted by a
powerful trading block such as the EEC has undermined
national sovereignty, regardless of Community membership.
The pressure on the Swiss to develop their transport
infrastructure for the benefit of the EEC is symptomatic of
the process as the country is drawn inexorably into the
European nexus. As The Economist also comments:
"What is the point of Switzerland priding itself on
secretive banking laws, when the big Swiss banks, now
multinational, have to reveal all in countries where
the rules are different . . . The greater the
intimacy, the more meaningless it becomes to
distinguish trade with neighbours from commerce at
home, and the less feasible it becomes to regulate
commerce nationally. For good or ill, the technology of
moving goods, services, people and money around has
ousted the European nation as the convenient unit of
economic administration."[35]
Maastricht and The Multinational State
Another reason why national governments are no longer
convenient is because, despite being EEC members, they
cannot be relied upon to Implement the EEC rules where they
conflict with still powerful domestic interests. In 1991,
Italy, for example, failed to implement 22 of the European
Court's rulings on fair trade practices. In mid 1991, only
37 of the 126 Single Market laws that should have been
implemented were operating in all 12 member states.[36] As
Zymunt Tyskiewicz of UNICE, the largest federation of
European industrial interests. complains, "There are key
sectors in which progress towards a borderless market has
been blocked, such as harmonization of Value Added Tax. This
is very frustrating for businessmen."[37]
The new power brokers of Europe. the business
community, are thus seeking political institutions and
fiscal arrangements which suit their needs-new governing
bodies, beholden to no national constituency and beyond the
control of ordinary citizens. It is precisely such new
arrangements that the Maastricht Treaty will provide.
National sovereignty, having been "pooled" through the
Treaty of Rome and the Single Market, will now be dissolved
away for good through the acid bath of political and fiscal
union. The new sovereigns will be the multinational
managers, their administrative capital will be Brussels, and
their flag of convenience that of the EEC.
Concentrating Power
In post-Maastricht Europe, national governments will
surrender all control over monetary policy to an unelected
body, the European Monetary Institute (EMI) which will
formulate "the overall orientation of monetary policy and
exchange rate policy."[38] Its proceedings will be
confidential and its decisions binding.[39] Policies
currently favoured by multinational interests -essentially
monetarism and free trade-will be required of all member
states by law, the Treaty stipulating that the EMI:
" . . . will operate without prejudice to the
responsibility of national authorities for the conduct
of monetary policy. Its primary objective will be to
maintain price stability . . . It will act in
accordance with the principle of an open market economy
with free competition, favouring an efficient
allocation of resources."[40]
Once a single currency-much favoured by business, since it
will save an estimated $13 billion in currency conversion
costs [41]-has been achieved, the EMI's role will be assumed
by a European System of Central Banks (ESCB), comprising a
European Central Bank (ECB) and the central banks of EEC
states. The ESCB will essentially be governed by the
unelected officials of the executive board of the ECB,[42]
the deliberations of which will be confidential. "Members of
the governing bodies and the staff of the ECB and the
national central banks will be required, even after their
duties have ceased, not to disclose information covered by
professional secrecy."[43] As in all the other institutions
set up under Maastricht, the Treaty requires that "neither
the ECB nor a national central bank will take instructions
from EC institutions, governments or any other body". [44]
The ECB will have the sole right to issue bank notes
within the community and will act as an internal
International Monetary Fund (IMF), supervising national
economies and ensuring that they adhere to the Central
Bank's monetarist policies. Governments will be required to
balance their budgets, a budgetary deficit exceeding three
per cent of GNP being forbidden unless "the deficit reflects
investment".[45] Where a member state persistently fails to
reduce its deficit, the European Council of Ministers,
acting on the recommendation of the ECB, may "require it to
publish information before issuing bonds, invite the
European Investment Bank to reconsider its lending policy,
require the member state to pay a deposit, and impose
fines."[46] In effect, governments will only be able to
borrow money for productive investment: borrowing money for
social programmes which do not yield a financial return-
health programmes, for example, or higher pensions and
welfare benefits for the poor-will be almost impossible.
Power from the People
EEC institutions, with their bias towards multinationalism,
will also gain control over other crucial areas of policy.
Under the Treaty, the legislative framework, which national
legislation cannot conflict with, for 17 key areas of policy
will be set by-the European Commission, a body of 13
unelected bureaucrats "chosen for their general
competence"[47] and obliged by law "neither to seek nor take
instructions from any government from any other body."[48]
All legislation proposed by the Commission must be submitted
to the Council of Ministers, a body of ministerial
representatives of each member state who would have the
authority to make decisions on behalf of that member
state.[49] The Maastricht Treaty extends the areas where the
Council can act by a qualified majority rather than by
unanimity, thus weakening the power of member states to veto
legislation and policy. Once adopted by the Council,
proposals must be referred to the European Parliament, the
only EC institution whose members are directly elected by
the peoples of Europe.[50] Although the Maastricht Treaty
extends the areas over which the Parliament currently has a
right of veto, its new powers are in many respects illusory.
On the major issues of state-those relating to economic and
monetary policy, foreign affairs and defence, fiscal policy,
trade agreements with foreign countries, competition policy,
taxation, state aid to industry, export policies, measures
to protect trade or implement subsidies, Third World
development-there are no rights of veto. In these areas, the
role of the Parliament is either purely consultative or
restricted to making amendments only; if the Parliament
rejects a proposal in any of these areas, the Council can
(on a unanimous vote) still adopt it.[51] The powers
surrendered by national parliaments under Maastricht-powers
which allow elected representatives to have a say over all
areas of policy-are not recovered by the European
Parliament. Any checks and balances on the Commission have
been framed in such a way that fundamental societal choices
will be left to a handful of ministers and bureaucrats. Far
from creating an ever closer union among the peoples of
Europe, "in which decisions are taken as closely as possible
to the citizen",[52] Maastricht will strip decision-making
away from elected bodies, concentrating it in the hands of a
cluster of institutions that are largely unaccountable and
which have only come into existence to promote the pan-
European multinationalism that lies at the heart of the EEC.
Proponents of Maastricht counter such charges by pointing to
the Treaty's commitment to political "subsidiarity", article
3B stipulating: "In areas which do not fall within its
exclusive competence, the community shall take action in
accordance with the principle of subsidiarity only if and in
so far as the objectives of the proposed acts cannot be
sufficiently achieved by the member states and can
therefore, by reason of the scale or effects of the proposed
action, be better achieved by the community." The concept of
subsidiarity, however, remains ill-defined (if defined at
all); if intended to ensure that decision-making is taken at
the lowest level, it is over-ridden by virtually every other
provision in the Treaty.[53] Indeed, if the subsidiarity
principle is exercised, it seems likely to be invoked to
support business interests seeking to undermine
"interfering" EEC legislation intended, for example, to
mitigate the environmental and social impacts of the Single
Market. Thus Britain, for example, has already hinted that
it will use Article 3B to support its case for watering down
domestic legislation required under the European
Commission's Bathing and Drinking Water Directives.[54]
Growing Unease
Despite the dominance of multinational interests over
today's European economy and their increasing control over
its political institutions, the Maastricht project is
faltering-primarily as a result of citizen concern, often in
alliance with threatened domestic interest groups, at the
lengthening of the distance between them and these
institutions. The Danes have rejected the treaty in its
present form and the French only narrowly voted in its
favour. In Britain, it is having a rough ride through
parliament. Hasty summit meetings have been convened by
Europe's heads of states to clarify the Treaty' s
application so as to make it more acceptable-but despite
minor amendments, the substance remains the same.
The failure of Maastricht would undoubtedly be a
severe setback to the forces of multinationalism. But there
would still be major challenges to overcome: with or without
Maastricht, the Single Market would still remain in force
and with it, social dumping, a growing gap between Europe's
core and periphery, and a Europe ripe for those who would
exploit such social tensions to further their own political
ends. In France, the National Front, which has capitalized
on Maastricht to spread its message of xenophobic
nationalism, lurks in the political wings, whilst in Britain
the main opponents of Maastricht seek not to check market
forces but to find means of extending them without the
sovereignty-sapping institutions proposed by the Treaty. In
such circumstances, it is all the more urgent for opposition
to the Maastricht Treaty to be seen within the frame of the
more general struggle to reclaim the commons, to regenerate
local markets and production, to protect the environment. to
ally the fight for the environment to the right for social
justice, and to bring decision-making back to the local. The
issue is not "protectionism versus free trade", since all
trading systems are protectionist of someone's interests:
The issue is who should control trade and in whose interests-
multinational elites, national elites or local people and
their communities?
References
[1] The six founders were Belgium, France, Italy,
Luxembourg, The Netherlands and West Germany. Denmark,
Ireland and the United Kingdom joined in 1973, Greece in
1981, and Portugal and Spain in 1986.
[2] See. for example. Ardagh. J.. The New France: De Gaulle
and After. Pelican, Harmondsworth, 1970, pp.32, 44 and 207.
[3] Ardagh. J., op. cit. 2. p.47. France's entry into the
European Coal and Steel Community was fiercely opposed by
Le Patronat Francais, the principle federation of big
employers.
[4] Ibid., p.47.
[5] Ibid., pp.48-49.
[6] Ibid., p.51.
[7]. Goodman, D. and Redclift, M., From Peasant to
Proletarian: Capitalist Development and Agrarian
Transitions, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1981. p.16.
[8] Ibid., p 21 .
[9] Ardagh, J., op. cit. 2, p.l21. See also "Trouble in the
fields of Elysium", The Economist, 19 September, 1992, pp.23-
26.
[10] Robins. N.. "The Reinvention of Europe: Background
Report for the Other European Summit. 11 December 1992",
The New Economics Foundation London, 1992, p.5.
[11] On the Defensive''. The Economist, (Business in Europe:
Special Report), 8 June, 1991, p.5.
[12] Lang, T., Food fit for the World: How the GATT food
trade talks challenge public health, the environment and the
citizen. The SAFE Alliance/The Public Health Alliance,
London, 1992, p.l9.
[13] Ibid.. citing Cecchini. P., The European Challenge
1992, European Commission and Wildwood House, London, 1988.
[14] Ibid. citing Trading Standards Department, Report to
the Committee on Meat Content, Shropshire County Council,
1986.
[15] Ibid. citing Millstone. E., "Consumer Protection
Policies in the EC: The Quality of Food", in Freeman, C. et
al. (eds.), Technology and the Future of Europe, Pinter,
London, 1991,
[16] Aubrey, C., "When the Killing has to Stop", The
Guardian Weekend, 17 October, 1992.
[17] "Waste Exports to the Third World and Eastern Europe:
Implications of the Environment Ministers' Decision".
Greenpeace Briefing Document on the Environment Ministers'
Decision of 20 October, 1992. Greenpeace's scepticism was
confirmed when Spanish authorities discovered that a
consignment of plastic waste imported from Germany for
''recycling'' had been dumped illegally. See MacKenzie, D.,
' Europe continues 'poison my neighbour' exports . . .", New
Scientist, 7 November, 1992. p.8.
[18] Lang, T. and Hines, C., "Protecting Our Future: The
Case against Free Trade and for the New Protectionism",
Draft (August 1992), p.28.
[19] For examples in the food industry, see Clunies-Ross, T.
and Hildyard. N., The Politics of Industrial Agriculture.
Earthscan, London, 1992, p. 76. See also: "Focus on Europe",
The Crocer, 9 June. 1990, p.34.
[20] These are Electrolux, Daimler-Benz. Bosch- Siemens,
Whirlpool and General Electric-GEC. See Baxter, A.. "White
goods war washes over Europe", The Financial Times, 24 June,
1992; "What us compete?", The Economist, (Business in Europe
Survey), 8 June, 1991, p.l7.
[21] The Economist. op. cit. 11. p.5
[22] David, K. A., Europe 92: Reflections from the
Underside, The Challenge to Community Organizing, World
Council of Churches, Geneva. 1992, p 30.
[23 Lang, T. and Hines, C., op. cit. 18, p.27.
[24] ''Chasing cheap labour", The Economist, 25 January,
1992, p.80.
[25] David. K. A., op. cit. 22, p.l7.
[26] Buchan, D., "French promise to make Hoover pay dear".
The Financial Times, 4 February, 1993.
[27] David. K. A., op. cit. 22, p. 17.
[28] "The Community's two unions'', The Economist, 14
September, 1991,p.16.
[29] Goldsmith, J., "Maastricht: Ses Effets Sur l'Europe",
Counter Culture, Vol. 5, 1992, pp.54- 55.
[30] L'Union Europeenne: Les Traites de Rome et de
Maastricht, Textes Compares, La Documentation Francaise,
Paris, 1992, p.95 (hereafter: The Maastricht Treaty).
English translations of the text are taken from "The
Maastricht Treaty: What it says and What it means", The
Independent on Sunday (Special Supplement), December 1992.
[31] CEPA. "EC-funded Destruction in Spain", The Ecologist,
Vol. 22. No. 3, 1992.
[32] The Maastricht Treaty, op. cit. 30, p.94.
[33] Ibid., p.87.
[34] Weber, F., "Impact of the Social Charter", Europe 1992:
The Challenge to Urban Organizing, Dublin, 1991, pp.34 and
37.
[35] "Because it works", The Economist, (The European
Community: Survey), 11 July, 1992, p.11.
[36] In a telling comment on such breaches of EEC
Directives, The Economist remarks, "[A single market]
requires a centralised authority to enforce the common rules
that make them possible." See "Neutral against whom?". The
Economist (The European Community: Survey), 11 July. 1992,
p.20. See also "Laws unto themselves", The Economist, 22
June, 1991, p.84.
[37] Quoted in Corporate Location Europe, February 1991.
[38] The Maastricht Treaty, op. cit. 30, Article 109f.4,
p.75.
[39] Ibid., (Protocol: On the Statutes of the European
Monetary Institute, Article 15.4). p.206.
[40] Ibid., (Protocol, Article 3.2), p.200. The same legal
requirements are made of the ESCB (Article 105), p. 66.
[41]. Malaise over Maastricht", The Economist, 6 June, 1992,
p.91.
[42] The Maastricht Treaty, op. cit. 30, (Article 109 A),
p.70.
[43] Ibid., (Protocol: On the Statutes of the European
Monetary Institute, Article 20), p.208.
[44] Ibid., (Article 107), p.68.
[45] Ibid., (Article 104C and Protocol on The Excessive
Deficit Procedure), pp. 63 and 210.
[46] Ibid., (Article 104C:11), p.65.
[47] Ibid., (Article 157), p.l 14.
[48] Ibid.
[49] Ibid., (Article 146), p.110.
[50] Members of the Council of Europe may or may not be
elected, depending on the arrangements within member states.
[51] Ibid.. (Article 189B), p.l27.
[52] Ibid., (Preamble: Article 2), p.5.
[53]Sexton. S., The Maastricht Treat in Plain English, The
Education Unit, IPSET, Warlingham, 1992. p.4.
[54] Greenpeace International. "Subsidiarity" won't save
Maastricht or the Environment, Greenpeace International,
Amsterdam, 1992, p.5.
