I-3-2: "L'Union offre à ses citoyens un espace de liberté, de sécurité et de justice sans frontières intérieures, et un marché intérieur où la concurrence est libre et non faussée."
I-3-3: "L'Union œuvre pour le développement durable de l'Europe fondé sur une croissance économique équilibrée et sur la stabilité des prix, une économie sociale de marché hautement compétitive, qui tend au plein emploi et au progrès social, et un niveau élevé de protection et d'amélioration de la qualité de l'environnements. Elle promeut le progrès scientifique et technique...."
So there are references to both a "free market" (marché intérieur où la concurrence est libre...) and to a "social market" (économie sociale de marché...). About the fear that the new Constitution will create an Anglo-Saxon style "free market" I don't see what it refers to since it would be hard to notice any major difference between the American internal "free" market and the European "internal" (not so ?) free market (there are a lot of excellent papers on related issues, in Harpers for ex, I remember quite well one was published 2-3 years ago about sugar cane industry state heavy subsidizing in the US etc).
I think the two paragraphs attempt to distinguish between the private exchange market and the public "exchange" market. The state provides social goods for a cost that it specifies without referring to private exchange market rules. The struggle between the "all private exchange market" proponents and the "not all private" ones is an eternal one and I don't think a European constitution is going to change much about that. Well, considering the neo-liberal trend that seems to have been making it in Europe in the last decade it will only make things worse, but maybe it will be what it takes for a wake-up call ?
I think what matters here is to give arguments to people who want to vote "no". Most politicians on whatever side today were on the opposite one before (Rome/Nice Treaty for ex) and my understanding (confirmed by the BBC article) is that a lot of what is included in the constitutional draft was already included in the previous treaties. So instead of saying "yes, we voted for this in Rome, but this time it is different" they count on us forgetting Rome and the other treaties voting and found this "anglo saxon" thing trendy since most of Europe's citizen are basically against what the "Anglo-Saxon" world is (and has been for the last 14 or so years) about: colonialism in Irak and Central Asia etc...
Slightly off topic, but considering what happened in Denmark and Ireland last time they had to vote on EU related stuff, I would not worry too much about the issue of the vote this time. Power mongers have all the necessary tools to make us fit their agenda...
Pessimistic ?
JC
On 2005/05/18, at 21:36, Daniel Carrera wrote:
Hi all,
Could someone help me understand what a social market is? It seems to be a contenious issue in France, for the upcomming vote on the EU constitution. Though the EU constitution has the term "social market" in it, there seems to be concern in France that it'll create an Anglo-Saxon style "free market".
Now, from bits and pieces I've read, I think I have a vague idea of how "free market" and "social market" compare and contrast. It appears that a social market pays more attention to a high standard of living in the population (low unemployment, welfare, etc) and a "free market" has fewer rules. But this is mostly guessing on my part.
I'd be interested to hear an explanation from someone in the know.
Cheers, Daniel.
