Workers' Party of Belgium ================== International department Boulevard M. Lemonnier 171 1000 Brussels Tel.: +32-2-5040.139, +32-2-5040.111 Fax: +32-2-5040.141, +32-2-513.98.31 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Internet: http://www.wpb.be Brussels, November 26, 2000 Proposal of a common communist platform against the European Summit in Nice (France) Dear Comrades, On the occasion of the European Summit in Nice (France) on 7th and 8th December 2000, we propose to present a common communist platform, endorsed by as many communist parties and organisations as possible. If your organisation supports the platform, please mention hereafter the full name and address (including E-mail address) of your organisation, as well as the name of a responsible with his/her function. ------ Our organisation supports the platform 'No to the European State' Name: Address: Name of a responsible with his/her function ------- You will find the text we propose hereafter (also in attachment). With our fraternal communist greetings Jean Pestieau International Relations Secretary International department ---------------------------------- No to the European State On the 7th and 8th of December, the heads of State of the countries of the European Union will gather in Nice. Their agenda: the reform of European institutions. In fact, it is about the creation of the foundations of a European State. A good thing ? This State is a creation of the European bosses. The group that has the most influence on the European deciders is the European Round Table of Industrialists, an association of 48 managers of the big European multinationals: Philips, Fiat, Renault, TotalFina Elf, Bayer, Siemens, Unilever, Shell, BP Amoco, Suez-Lyonnaise, etc. Founded in 1983 with the support of the European Commission, it was behind the setting up of the single market, the Maastricht Treaty, the creation of the Euro, the expansion to the East and the submission of these countries to Western capitalism. Today these employers want a political entity at the European level. This state is and will be anti-democratic. The Parliament has only very few powers. All power is concentrated in the Commission, in the Council of ministers and in the European Council. Each of them are under the influence of employers' lobbies like the Round Table. Think tanks like the European Policy Centre, where politicians and businessmen sit next to each other, orientate the debates about Europe. All this happens without the workers knowing and against them. For of course this state is also anti-social. The almost unanimous desire of European leaders is to make of Europe a supercompetitive entity, whose companies will be able to beat their American and Japanese rivals. To this end, the workers must agree to make themselves available for employers according to the conditions of the latter : extreme flexibility, decrease of salaries and of social allowances, dismantling of social security systems, night and week-end work, generalisation of temporary employment and part-time work, etc. The Social Charter that is to be ratified in Nice is another example of social regression: no right to employment, no right to housing, no right to income. The European State is and will be a war machine. First against the workers. Then against the East European countries incorporated by force into the net of European multinationals. Finally against the US and Japan. Because the interest of European bosses in such a state is to be able to counter the political and military hegemony of Washington. At the end of the day, it is to be able to replace the US as the world dominant power. It is an imperialist project. We, communists, defend the following : the right to a decent job for every worker maintaining workers' established rights democratic rights for everybody the right for each Third World country to develop in an independent way support for the national liberation movement in the Third World the struggle for peace and against the dangers of war caused by the desire for power of the US, the European Union and Japan the development of the socialist countries For we think that, to destroy this European state, to stop the globalisation of markets and capital, to suppress the wealth gap in the world, in order to create an economy centered on the human being, we have to change society. Join us. Contact address : [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Workers'Party of Belgium)
