The Alternative of the Red-Green Alliance to the EU-Constitution

1. Introduction

The political perspective of Enhedslisten/the Red-Green Alliance is international, not Danish or European. We therefore dissociate ourselves from both old-fashioned nationalism and "modern" Euro-nationalism. Our alternative contains both socialist and democratic elements. Socialism, to us, is an essential condition for full-fledged democracy, but a number of democratic reforms can obviously be implemented under capitalism.

The EU has been created to adapt Europe to the needs of European big capital, and as such forms part of the global liberalisation project of the bourgeoisie. EU integration has steadily increased in intensity with the establishment of the framework for the formation of a real European state, as well as with the continued liberalisation of European societies.

Economic integration and the concentration of capital in Europe have steadily increased, as have trade and movement of capital between European countries. The concentration of capital has meant that trans-national and multinational companies have been economically strengthened compared to other capital.

This development at the economic level is paralleled and has been reinforced by developments at the political level. The construction of a new European super-state is primarily due to the wish to create an internal market that can promote economic growth and increase profits. It is also due to the wish to strengthen European big capital in competition with American and Japanese big capital. As a consequence the EU is restricting or removing the gains made by the labour movement and popular forces in relation to welfare, democratic rights, environmental protection and so on. The aim is growth and maximisation of profits. The consequences are environmental destruction, increasing unemployment, social exclusion and deteriorating social standards.

The desire of the EU to bring the countries of Eastern Europe into the EU has to be viewed in the context of the efforts being made to strengthen European capital. The objective of the enlargement of the EU is to secure these areas as objects of investment for Western European capital, in the long term as well. It is also part of the expansion of the Western sphere of interest towards the east, and is intended to stabilise these areas in terms of security.

The construction of the EU state means that power is centralised within the closed system of the EU, where monetary power prevails through lobbying. The problem is not just that the EU is a tool of European capital. The entire structure of the EU is undemocratic. An EU super-state can never become democratic, and the Red-Green Alliance therefore rejects all illusions about a red EU super-state.

As power is transferred to central EU level, so a corresponding undermining of the democracy of societies in the individual EU countries is taking place. The distance between people and decision-makers is increasing. It is becoming increasingly difficult for popular movements and organisations to gain influence. More power to the European Parliament is therefore not synonymous with more democracy, but primarily entails an undermining of the power of the national parliaments and consequently the ability of popular movements to exert influence.

The EU therefore must be dismantled and replaced by democratic international cooperation between independent states with a full-fledged democracy, and focusing on full employment, solidarity, human rights and the environment.2. The alternative of the Red-Green Alliance

The socialist alternative of the Red-Green Alliance is a society where production takes place primarily to meet human needs and not to gain profits. Private ownership and command of the means of production will be abolished and replaced by various forms of collective ownership, characterised by full-fledged democracy in relation to both what is produced and how. This goal fundamentally conflicts with the objective of the EU of deregulation, liberalisation, privatisation and maximum economic growth.

The Red-Green Alliance therefore demands a break with the principles of the EU internal market regarding free movement of capital, services, goods and labour, so that it is always permissible to introduce higher standards nationally and to demand that other countries comply with these standards if they wish to export goods to Denmark.

Free movement of capital must be restricted to escape from the intolerable situation of today where international financial markets have acquired a life of their own, and where more than 95 per cent of transactions have nothing to do with real investments but are quite simply gambling. The opportunities to use what are known as derivatives for short-term speculation must therefore be abolished, and a Tobin tax must be introduced on financial transactions.

In agriculture, the re-introduction of veterinary borders is absolutely essential for animal welfare and consumer health.

People must be allowed to move freely to the country where they wish to live and work. In all respects they must be assured the same standards of wages and employment as the local population – and any form of discrimination must be combated. An active aid policy must be pursued to help developing countries prevent massive brain drain.

Grassroots, popular movements, NGOs, trade unions and other popular organisations are the forces which can and must promote radical, social, democratic and environmental improvements in Denmark, Europe and throughout the World. Unlike sections of the Social Democratic Party and the Socialist People’s Party among others, the Red-Green Alliance is under no illusion about the ability of the state bureaucracy (in the EU or Denmark) or of the economic and political establishment to ensure such improvements.

The democratic alternative of the Red-Green Alliance is based on the view that democracy must be increased as an integral part of the socialism that the Red-Green Alliance is fighting for, but democracy is also an important aim in itself. The Red-Green Alliance therefore fights to increase democracy, so that representative democracy is supplemented by better opportunities for direct participation and influence, and to improve the real content of collective and individual democratic rights.3. Intergovernmental cooperation

The present-day centralist EU structure, which is well on the way to becoming a new superpower, blocks the realization of both the socialist and democratic objectives of the Red-Green Alliance. It also makes it difficult for the popular movements to gain influence over political decisions. As an alternative the Red-Green Alliance will advocate a more flexible and elastic form of European cooperation apt to take into consideration and respect the diversity in Europe. The vision of the Red-Green Alliance is not just a vision for Denmark – it is an international vision. This model of cooperation could be called the Organisation for European Cooperation (OEC). But fundamentally it is not important whether the OEC is called the OEC, the EU or some third name, but in this discussion paper the OEC will be used as the name for the alternative of the Red-Green Alliance to the present-day EU, in order to make clear what this alternative is about.

The OEC is to be based on intergovernmental agreements entered into between the various European countries in those areas where the individual countries consider this necessary. This applies to all relevant political areas, such as the environment, drug smuggling, refugees, agriculture, fisheries and so on. An agreement being intergovernmental means that a Member State has the right of veto – or is assured at all times of the right to give notice that it is not interested in entering into an agreement, if an agreement is not satisfactory for the country concerned.

But the intergovernmental aspect also means that the individual countries are entitled to set up political organisations, institutions or forums differing from those that already exist. It may be, for example, that we in the Nordic countries might decide to set up a ‘Nordic Environmental Council’, or that Mediterranean EU countries might decide to establish a ‘Mediterranean Council for the Environment’ together with the North African countries. As such, the vision of the Red-Green Alliance is based on regional cooperation forums being set up and geared to solve specific problems.

The Red-Green Alliance also believes that the intergovernmental cooperation in the OEC must be based on the assumption that it will always be permissible to ‘go ahead’ with better rules in the various areas, i.e. be able, for example, to introduce better environmental and social standards in the individual countries than the minimum rules which will be adopted in the OEC. Foreign manufacturers must then be obliged to comply with the standards that are higher than the common minimum rules. The opposite – taking a step "backwards" – should not, however, be allowed, because this would entail infringing an international agreement which has been entered into, and in these cases it would be necessary to withdraw from the relevant forums or agreements entered into under OEC auspices.

Nor must the Member States of the OEC under any circumstances act in contravention of the obligations incumbent on the OEC in the UN. In connection with the rules of the UN, however, the OEC would obviously – in the same way as within the OEC – have the right to ‘go ahead’.3.2 OEC – a flexible structure for European cooperation

The structure of the OEC ensures that rules are only laid down in areas where the individual countries feel it is relevant in connection with the specific problems that need to be solved – which obviously may be as complex as refugee problems or the fight against poverty, the environment or economic growth, for example.

This will mean furthermore, contrary to the present-day EU, that the populations of the individual countries under the OEC will have a far greater opportunity to influence policy-making under the OEC, because the political battle arena is transferred from a supranational system (the EU) to the individual states. In this way it becomes easier to avoid a situation in which a political and economic elite implements policies over the heads of the people of the individual countries, as we see at present in the EU.

Efficiency is not achieved under the OEC by out-voting others. It is attained on the other hand, by ensuring that political decisions are taken at the right levels suited to the local, national or regional level. This avoids the stiff and rigid ‘one-size-fits-all’ legislation of the EU, where all rules are strictly imposed to apply to all the countries, even though there are many differences between the present-day EU countries. At the same time, there is a greater likelihood of not ‘cheating" in areas where a country is simply out-voted in the EU. There are 117 ways of circumventing a decision in the EU, even if a country is out-voted – something at which the civil-service apparatuses of the individual countries are highly adept. In the OES, recommendations are the only thing that can be decided on by majority voting.

The fact that intergovernmental cooperation is both possible - and necessary - is illustrated by the fact that at present the EU in a number of areas actually chooses not to proceed to a vote, because it is known that a decision which, for example, runs counter to vital French interests will not be accepted by France – majority decisions or not. This has been the case with France on several occasions in connection with EU trade cooperation with other states and organisations under what is referred to as Article 133 (formerly Article 113). Even when majority decisions are taken formally, they are in reality intergovernmental decisions.3.3 Intergovernmental sanctions

If a country fails to comply with agreements entered into – and if a sensible compromise cannot be reached in some way – it is the legitimate right of other countries within a given agreement complex under the OEC to implement economic/trade or political/diplomatic sanctions and penal measures.

Before such penal measures will be considered, however, negotiations should take place within the framework of the mediation bodies made available by the OEC, if the countries in disagreement cannot reach agreement without the involvement of the mediation body of the OEC.

A source of conflict may, for example, be that a country has company taxation below the level agreed in the OEC, and that this country is unwilling to raise the level of company taxation. In this case the other countries in the OEC are free to impose duties and taxes on imported goods from this tax-haven country, equivalent to the amount of tax that is not paid by companies in this country.

Another example may be if a country in the OEC fails to respect employee rights agreed on an intergovernmental basis (or in the UN). Countries with higher employee standards are then fully entitled to refuse to allow businesses from countries with poor employee rights to sell goods in the countries with better employee rights. Or duty could be imposed on these goods to use the money for improving working conditions in the Third World.

The establishment of the OEC does not prevent countries wishing to do so from constructing an EU at the supranational level and these countries from additionally being able to enter the OEC. The aim of the Red-Green Alliance is, however, to dismantle the EU, and we see Danish withdrawal from the EU as part of this process.4. System-breaking demands for reform in the EU

In the actual reality of the EU, the following are examples of system-breaking demands on the EU, which are steps in the right direction.

* Re-introduction of the right of veto on vital issues

* Introduction of a real environmental guarantee

* No imperialist foreign policy and security policy in the EU. The EU must not become the world's policeman. Instead of building up a new superpower that will help undermine the UN, along with the USA, each individual country must regain its power to act in foreign policy. All great powers and superpowers to date have used their military to safeguard their own interests. Global redistribution from rich to poor is the best peace-making measure that exists. The sharing and decentralisation of power is an important principle for the Red-Green Alliance. There is nothing inherently negative about more territorial states – because this can lead to a division of power in the international arena and weaken the monopolisation of power in a few hands.

* The EU must not concern itself with defence policy. NATO is a relic from the Cold War and must be abolished. Defence policy must be pursued in the UN and OSCE, with the emphasis on conflict prevention.

* Denmark and the other Nordic countries should withdraw from the Schengen Agreement. We say no to Fortress Europe and yes to international solidarity. People fleeing from starvation and destitution must be welcome in Denmark.

* Europol must be abolished. We are opposed to an FBI of the EU, which is a state within the state, where the staff have complete immunity and work completely behind closed doors.

* Denmark must speak with its own voice in the WTO and the UN.

* Applicant countries to the EU must be entitled to permanent opt-outs – not just transitional arrangements.

* The principle of subsidiarity must be interpreted by the individual Member States – and not by the European Court of Justice.

* All texts on closer integration, the precedence of EU law and what is termed enabling provisions must be abolished.

* Complete transparency must be introduced into the EU system. EU laws on public access must allow access to the citizens to documents under the rules applicable in the most advanced EU countries in a given area. Negotiations on laws must be held in public in the Council of Ministers. Secret declarations must be abolished, and secret declarations already existing must be made available to the public. Voting must be public, and all votes cast must be made public. An independent agency must be set up to make assessments for example of rules in the environmental area as a counterweight to the lobbyists from trans-national and multinational corporations. Information on what Board positions etc. are held by officials and politicians in the EU alongside their jobs must be made publicly available. Information on what gifts and services politicians and officials in the EU receive from private firms must also be made publicly available.

* Rules for refugees and immigrants must be agreed at intergovernmental level. The Red-Green Alliance is not in favour of majority-decision compulsory quotas, which result in refugees being poorly treated, and that many people will not regard them as legitimate refugees, because they may only be in a country because the EU has forced the country to take them. The road to a humane refugee and immigration policy is not found through EU compulsion but through political battle and popular debate in the individual EU countries.

* The EU anti-terror package and warrant for arrest are fundamental assaults on the basic rights in a country governed by the rule of law. In an attempt to combat terrorism, democracy is undermined and politically active people are turned into suspects and criminalized. The best protection against terror is a long-term strategy to create friends – and not enemies, as centuries of Western imperialism and suppression have done. A generous policy toward developing countries is an essential requirement in this context.

* The Red-Green Alliance wishes to improve veterinary standards, animal welfare and food quality. The veterinary borders must be re-introduced immediately.

* The EU must not enact common legislation in the labour market. The right of free bargaining and free negotiation on industrial dispute and agreement must be ensured.

Implementing these demands will mean that the EU is "rolled back" with the long-term objective of strengthening the OEC – at the same time as motions promoting social, democratic and environmental progress can be adopted.

The Red-Green Alliance never votes for motions that increase the power of the Union – even when these would mean improvements. In such cases the Red-Green Alliance will propose motions that are at least as far-reaching in the Danish Folketing (parliament).