By now most people in the European Union countries will have started handling [euro] bank notes. Will the symbols on these notes seem blurred and vague to them - indeed like the notion of Europe itself? European integration, as it has taken place up until now, is often seen as one of the motors of globalization in its ultraliberal form, rather than as a brake on its excesses; even less is it seen as an alternative process that could lead to another kind of globalization. Thus there are not a few who believe, more or less explicitly, that resistance to ultraliberalism means, just as much as fighting the American policy that it represents, opposing the European Union policy that accompanies it. For many of those who gathered in Nice in December 2000, their contestation of the European summit stemmed directly from the “anti-globalization” demonstrations that took place in Prague at the International Monetary Fund meeting or the World Trade Organization summit at Seattle.
However, there are many who, on the contrary, stress that the European integration process could act as a balancing factor against deregulation - in other words, the beginning of a counter-model. For some, this could be done by making substantial corrections to current European mechanisms; for others, these need to be thoroughly overhauled. But they all agree that the continental dimension is an appropriate political space for confronting globalization mechanisms, that adding the local (or national) dimension to the global is not enough and that the building of Europe is an essential precondition for democratic and social struggle.

From this viewpoint, the political stakes in a European summit like those of Nice and Gothenburg are not the same as those of Prague, Seattle and Genoa. At Nice, the questions being put to the government representatives (democratic mechanisms, charter of fundamental rights and so on) had to be answered, as the Union is supposedly a politically democratic structure, with (insufficient) parliamentary control, precedures which cannot be limited to secret negotiation between governmental experts, etc. One can contest the way the Union functions, while accepting its framework.

At Prague, Seattle and Genova, faced with “technical” non-transparent structures, with irresponsible experts who are not held politically accountable, the most important battle was precisely to subject the IMF and the WTO (not to mention the shadow theatre of the G8) to democratic control, and thus to contest their very frameworks and demand they be suppressed or recast on a new basis.

1. How the debate on Europe has regressed

In many ways the debate on Europe has regressed since the fall of the Berlin wall, while at the same time a new wave of social movements began to develop. That people can liken an IMF meeting to the biennial summit of the European Union says much about the state of the debate on the building of Europe. The subject remains very confused in European countries, including those who have been member states for a long time. This confusion is also quite real among the movements that are
simmering in the civil societies of Europe, while the latter are undergoing a remarkable renewal. The confusion is due less to divergences - although these of course exist - than to the fact that the activists seem to have a very different perception of the importance of the [Union’s] structures. It is not so much a question of political stances on the “really existing” European Union, as ideological reactions that are influenced by the national context (of even an unconscious nationalism), which varies greatly. Thus issues that are essential from a European viewpoint are perceived in very different ways, as are the political responses (or the lack of such responses).

This can be seen from the number of major European issues that the movements or the parties have not debated (or hardly) at the European level, or even among themselves. Examples include: the confrontations between the peoples of ex-Yugoslavia, European-Mediterranean relationships and the Palestinian question, relations with countries in the former sphere of the Soviet Union, peace and security issues and the relations between the EU and NATO, the problems of freedom of movement and immigration, cultural and social issues (for example around the notion of services of general interest or cultural creation), the powers of European bodies, the European juridical domain, etc. On each of these questions some will react by saying that a satisfactory response will depend on deepening the European integration mechanisms, while others, on the contrary, even if they are active in movements that have similar objectives and programmes, see possible solutions only by defending national sovereignty. And most of them would in any case have great difficulty in organizing the debate on a continental level.


2. The new social compromises

All this explains why in many ways the European debate has regressed during the last decade, while a new wave of social movements has developed in a number of European countries, although to a very different degree.. These movements which are more or less new in their forms and objectives developed in a very specific context during the 1980s. They were the years of the victory of ultraliberalism in Europe, with Thatcherism as its most advanced form but whose deregulation ideology has also influenced French policies (the left being in power), the Italian (in the context of the crisis of the “first republic”) and, gradually, the German. The social compromises elaborated by the social democrats and christian democrats everywhere in Europe were destined to end up badly - brutally with the Thatcherite revolution in Great Britain, and more gradually on the continent. The collapse of Soviet “real socialism” provided a formidable legitimization of the ultraliberals, as the radical left, social democrats and social liberals were in no way prepared for it, although it could have been foreseen.

The “models” were no longer applicable and while the English welfare state was demolished, the continental models have been upset to the point of reversal. The Dutch “Polders model”, once the “jewel of Dutch democracy”, is a good example. Since 1945, the main political parties, unions and employers had negotiated agreements concerning economic policies. In exchange for control over wages and reductions of social budgets, the unions obtained (weak) guarantees from both the government and the employers as concerns unemployment and social services. But after a few years, these guarantees for the Dutch wage-earners changed: the social protection net remains, even if it is less substantial, above all for the more vulnerable sectors (youth, women, migrants). However, it no longer serves the stabilization of employment, but its flexibility.

This development is also perceptible in the Scandinavian countries, where the same inversion mechanisms, although they are not provoking gaping divisions in society, are still creating upheavals and increasing inegalitarianism. The system is deteriorating in Finland too. People’s dependence on society has increased and everyday problems have intensified, mainly because of unemployment. At the same time social expenditure has been reduced. The Nordic countries are nevertheless considered the most egalitarian, secure and stable societies in the world. Finland still has the smallest difference in income (even if wages are decreasing), the second most powerful union [in Europe] and a system for health care and social protection which is highly valued. Nevertheless, the same mechanisms have produced the same effects in the whole of Western Europe - being more brutal in the South, where previous compromises were less firmly rooted.

3. Resistance to deregulation

There have been various degrees of resistance to these developments, depending on the intensity of the attacks, the tradition of popular struggle and the weight of those sections of the middle classes benefiting from the new situation (particularly in outlying countries like Ireland and Portugal). These defensive struggles have been against the relative de-industrialization of Europe caused by the new economic organization of the world, as well as deregulation and privatization. But, on the whole, this oppposition has not succeeded, the British miners’ strike being symbolic of this failure.

Other forms of struggle, in those situations where power relations have permitted, led to adaptation to the new situation, particularly to large-scale unemployment. The aim had been to defend at least some of the social gains for the majority and to propose new compromises. This is particularly the case of struggles to reduce the working hours in France, Italy and especially in Germany. The battle for the 35-hour week, conducted mainly by IG-Metall, dominated trade union politics during the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s. Ten years passed before the 35-hour week was introduced in the metallurgy and printing fields. But, in the end, the result did not redistribute work at all, nor did it lead to the new social compromise that had been anticipated. During the 1980s a political domination had established itself in Germany but things changed during the 1990s. The unions have to a large extent lost the initiative as far as working hours are concerned. Nowadays it is business interests that have won out in this field and imposed flexibility in function of market and production requirements.

All this, finally, has not impeded the triumphal march of ultraliberalism. And yet, by the end of the 1990s, it is clear that increasingly broad strata of Europeans are not prepared to accept that the deregulation logic be pursued any further. In Finland, for example, most people still believe in the benefits of the welfare state and want it to continue. A public opinion poll in March 1999 revealed that 9 Finns out of 10 believe that public services are important for security and that they should be maintained. More than 70% of those interviewed considered that the reduction in social benefits had already gone too far. Another sign was the popularity of the huge strikes in the public services (in health, education, transport) that took place in France in 1995.


4. New forms of social struggle

New forms of struggle and/or contestation of the dominating model have thus developed outside the traditional social struggles of the wage-earners and their usual forms of union organization. Christophe Aguiton, trade unionist and activist in various French movements, distinguishes this development in three phases. The first was the attempt by [the European Confederation of Trade Unions] to transfer national social compromises to the European level, but it ended up in failure. The second was the beginning of resistance to deregulation (particularly through the struggles of the railway workers). The third phase was the spontaneous struggles that emerged and relaunched the dynamics of the various movements - the unemployed, the homeless, the sans papiers (those without documents). It was in this context that the European marches against unemployment, organized from 1998 to 2000, tried to transfer this new dynamism to the European level, particularly at the summits of Amsterdam and Cologne.

These movements are organized against the different forms of exclusion, which the traditional unions do not deal with at all - or very little, concerned as they are with defending wage-earners in protected or stable sectors of the economy. They are the precarious workers, the unemployed, the homeless, immigrants with or without documents - all those that the French movements call “those without”. In France the movements of those without documents hit the headlines between 1996 and 1998, as in other countries, like Switzerland, where immigrants and refugees received the support of solidarity movements. These movements, most of which have been active for several decades, have shown extraordinary perseverance, even though suffering various setbacks, particularly concerning the right to asylum, which has forced them to restrict their activities to more modest tasks.

The movements are not limited to those dealing with the excluded, for they include what seem to be more classic types of movement, which are concerned with the strategic sectors of present-day society. Either they bear on the public services that are being challenged by ultraliberalism and that were at the heart of previous social compromises (public transport, health, education, energy,water supply, etc.) or they are concerned with environmental problems linked to European-level questions (transport, agriculture, energy, water supply and certainly financial services in the future), or they touch on major ideological issues (culture, education, etc.). Thus the great strikes in France in 1995, which in many ways marked the beginning of this new phase of social struggle, were mainly concerned with health, before tackling all aspects of public transport, while at the same time considering social security as a central issue.

At the end of the 1990s, the movements against industrial agriculture were the most visible, especially in France with the fight of the Confédération paysanne which questioned both the management of Europe’s agricultural policy (from the social and environmental viewpoint) and the diktats of the World Trade Organization (in the context of the agricultural economic war between Europe and the USA); This dynamism is not confined to France. In Switzerland, the UPS, a member of the [European Peasant Coordination] and through it, Via Campesina, called on its members to participate in the very first European - and even world - peasant demonstrations, which were convened in Geneva against the launching of WTO’s agricultural policies. In the Netherlands, too, with small organizations like NAV and NAJK, and in Germany and Spain, etc., the actions of minority movements received considerable public attention because of the dramatic developments of the mad cow (BSE) and foot and mouth crises.

Alongside these new or renewed social movements, groups and associations developed in many European countries who were taking action directly against globalization or its excesses. The battle against the attempt to impose the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) was often a defining moment in the crystallization of these groups. Significantly, it brought together, beside ecologists like Friends of the Earth, the Third Worlders, the Christian movements (Jubilee campaign), the feminists, radicals who were often libertarians and sometimes, as in France, representatives from the cultural world (association of film directors). Very soon movements developed almost everywhere against the IMF policies, against the WTO, but also against privatization (in Finland, the Pro-Koskenkorva campaign). The ATTAC movement for the taxation of capital movements (Tobin tax), which started in France, has rapidly spread to other countries. In Switzerland, People’s World Action, created in the wake of the PWA meeting held in Spain, organized an event which was a landmark in the long series of mobilization and anti-globalization meetings that have developed these last years. The large-scale mobilization of people as at Seattle and Porto Alegre have highlighted the movement as a whole, which is as diverse as it is dynamic.


5. The quest for an alternative

But to what extent do these mobilizations contain the germs of an alternative to the current dominant system? How can these movements influence the way in which Europe becomes integrated or do they even wish to do so? Even if certain decision-makers do not quite dismiss the movements (European Commissioner Pascal Lamy has addressed ATTAC militants), the latter are far from constituting a coherent whole.

Taking the German situation as an example, should one believe that, for lack of a credible political outlet - seeing that the Red/Green coalition is solely concerned with obtaining a better position for Germany in the world market - will the alternative nevertheless come from the union movement? Or, to take up the questions posed by Manuel Monereo Pérez, of the Izquierda Unida (the United Left) in Spain, should one believe that the everyday practices in the social struggles point the way to the future and are more significant than the dozens or hundreds of beautiful programmes that are socially impossible to put into operation? Does the forum of Porto Alegre provide a response to these questions, insofar as it has facilitated an encounter betwen the three major components of the workers’ movement - libertarian, socialist and communist and an alliance between critical intellectuals and the alternative social movement? It is providing an opportunity for a rigorous confrontation of various analyses of the present situation and strategies for the future and trying to translate shared values and principles into feasible political proposals, as well as attempting to build a collective dynamic of counter-power. Do these efforts contain an answer to the quest for an alternative? One can only hope so.

During the 1980s it seemed that all ideas for a political and social alternative had evaporated. When, by the end of the 1990s, the centre-left dominated by the social democrats had replaced the centre-right in most Western European countries, it resulted in only marginal measures - sometimes going further towards neoliberalism than certain right-wing parties. In fact, at the beginning of the new millennium, the alternative seemed to lie in the opposite direction (as in Austria and Italy), creating a great risk of accentuating negative effects. For lack of an alternative, various forms of dissociation vis-à-vis the present political management have developed: electoral absenteeism among the young and the working class, retreat into corporatism, xenophobic regression, entrenchment of the extreme right, violent dissociation among certain categories of the excluded. In some cases, dissociation has provoked intellectual dissidence against “the one and only way of thinking” and gradually their arguments seem to be making sense. Certain currents on the extreme left and the greens have obtained significant electoral results in some countries. But if the process for a renewal of their political thought is to become “operational” in the new ideological and cultural context, it has still far to go (if indeed it has started). The initiative is more at the level of civil society and social movements than in politics itself.

What indeed can these movements bring? To what extent can they change power relationships and feed their proposals into politics? As Christophe Aguiton has stressed, the diversity of these movements must be kept in mind, particularly in their radical expressions: the Spanish libertarian extreme left or the German autonomous movement, the Italian militants from the social centres or the British eco-warriors, all of which are composed of young people (Great Britain, Germany, Netherlands) or young people and cadres of the older generation (Italy, Spain). It is especially important to understand to what extent they are an expression of a deep change in ideology. As Patrick Viveret from the French magazine Transversales has remarked, civil society today is recognized as an actor on the national and international scene, which was not the case in the seventies. The great novelty is that these movements are fully conscious that the political issue is one of power. Because of the reasons for their struggles, they find themselves torn between the logics of resistance and the logics of experimentation. It is without doubt the “best of radical reformism” that is the most suitable for enabling alternatives to emerge, these being far more capable of transformation than revolutionary logic, which is too much concerned with the question of order.
The latter movements can be radical in the struggle - and they are - but they must also work on short-term solutions to concrete problems and therefore start experimenting.

These movements have appeared at a precise moment in European history. As the original electric shock - the Second World War - recedes further in time, the European Union project becomes more diluted; the more its peaceful aims become commonplace, the more the project loses its drive and national sensitivities gain the upper hand, according to Patrick Viveret’s analysis. “This Greater Europe”, which is being elaborated for 28 or 40 member countries, is a hybrid system which is naturally unsatisfactory, but all the same fundamental when constructing a zone of peace. Market logic dominates but it does not have the monopoly of dynamism. Thus it becomes possible to formulate the following hypothesis: it is necessary to achieve the two projects at the same time, that of a vast zone of peace and a confederal Europe as a laboratory for helping world democracy to emerge.

However the militants of the movements in Europe are far from being unanimous on this issue. At a time when 75% of national legislation is directly influenced by European directives, it might seem evident that the European Union is the most important battlefield. For it is there, in the advances and reverses of legislation that the power relations between classes and social forces can be measured, that political projects take form. But this evidence is not widely acknowledged: the European movements not only experience problems in being represented at the European political level, they also have difficulty in representing Europe. Social struggles for the most part are limited to the national or sub-national level. Politics are national. Close interconnections between movements (including trade unions) in the different European countries have hardly progressed over the last quarter of a century (in fact, they have often regressed). And this applies even on subjects which everyone realizes are fundamentally European (certain public services, like transport and energy, the questions of freedom of movement and immigration, the environment, etc.) Cultural and historical realities indicate that it will continue to be like this for a long time.

Yesterday’s internationalist movement concerned the great strategic questions and it is still very much the case today. But the European level has, for years, also been concerned with everyday local issues. It therefore becomes urgent to find new forms of interaction, co-operation, representation and lobbying which, being exercised at the level of the Union, are no longer national - but no longer, either, part of yesterday’s international. It is up to the political and social forces to experiment with new forms of action between the local, national and European levels; building transversal liaisons by firms, themes, etc.; finding out how the different national experiences can serve as inspiration for others, for example, the defence of the public services in France, local initiatives in Germany, the defence of individual rights in the Netherlands, etc.

The social movement must also appropriate the political debate. For example, the idea of the European constitution which is utilized by certain politicans as an instrument or a deterrent, must be used by the social movement as an opportunity to promote discussion, at the European level, on a model for society, the rights of citizens and in particular economic and social rights. There is much more at stake in the European question than the Europeans themselves. For, as Patrick Viveret reminds us, Europe is being pulled towards an “informational” capitalism that is deregulating the welfare state. Hence the tough battle between the two regulatory models: that of the welfare state versus that of the WTO or MAI. Europe is still at the heart of this contradiction and has not yet come down on one side or the other.

Autor: Bernard Dreano