corporations hold power - Guardian on Gothenburg

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20Jun2001 UK: Stealing Europe. 
George Monbiot Neither protesters nor national governments drive the EU:
corporations hold that power

`If people did not sometimes do silly things," Wittgenstein observed,
`nothing intelligent would ever get done." In a world in which intelligence
is banned from public life, baring our buttocks at George Bush is one of the
few means we possess of expressing our dissent. We are forced, as
protesters, to talk through our bums.
But behind the bottoms lies a profound and complex understanding of some of
the dangers the world now faces. The protesters' concerns about climate
change, the expansion of Nato and Bush's plans to scrap the anti-ballistic
missile treaty are now well-understood. But nearly all commentators and
political leaders remain baffled by their opposition to the expansion and
better integration of the European Union.
The enemies of the European project are supposed to be little Englanders and
polluting industries. Why on earth should people who describes themselves as
radicals, who want to protect the environment, distribute wealth and defend
workers' rights, seek to oppose the world's most successful social
democratic project? Tragically, though 25,000 peaceful campaigners gathered
in Gothenburg for the European summit, their message was killed in the
crossfire between a handful of moronic rock-throwers and a thuggish and
disorganised police force. Tony Blair was able to dismiss the entire
anti-European protest as `an anarchists' travelling circus that goes from
summit to summit with the sole purpose of causing as much mayhem as
possible".
It is easy for people of my generation to forget what an extraordinary
achievement the establishment of the European Union was. We struggle to
understand that until 56 years ago Europe, like the Balkans today, had been
engaged in centuries of almost perpetual war. But nearly all the radicals I
know are well aware that the union has shifted wealth from its richer to its
poorer members, that it has fought discrimination, promoted fairness at
work, raised environmental standards and infuriated the rightwing press by
regulating companies. So why are so many of them now fighting what has, by
and large, been a force for good? They perceive that the great European
dream, of mutual benefit and peaceful coexistence, has been subverted.
Integration is giving way to colonisation.
If, like Tony Blair, you believe this claim is groundless, then take a look
at a document produced by the the union's most powerful lobby group, the
European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT). It's called `The east-west
win-win business experience", but the title is a little misleading. All the
winners appear to live in the west.
European enlargement, the document reveals, provides an opportunity to solve
the `problems" faced by the ERT's members in central and eastern Europe. New
member states can be forced to re duce their taxes, prevent `delays in the
privatisation process", remove the `restrictions on the purchasing of land
by foreign companies" and combat the `dominance of national players"
(`national players" are local companies). Nations seeking to join the union
must `ensure that programmes to privatise and liberalise local
infrastructure continue without delay".
As an example of how the businesses it represents can prosper in eastern
Europe, the ERT cites the case of British American Tobacco, which has
`invested" in Hungary. BAT's problem, the document reports, was that `demand
for cigarettes in western Europe, the US and other developed markets is
highly mature. Competition is intense and margins are tight. Growth in
profitability and shareholder value must therefore come from other,
developing markets ... With the collapse of communism and the gradual
emergence of a free market economy, central and eastern Europe represents a
major growth opportunity for BAT." By buying a cigarette factory in Hungary,
BAT was able `to gain access to new growth markets, both in Hungary and in
other central and eastern European countries" and `grow the value of the
company".
The European Round Table is no ordinary lobby group. It has little need to
call on governments, for governments call on the round table. For the past
17 years it has been the principal architect of European integration and
expansion.
In April 1983 the chief executive of Volvo brought together the heads of 15
other corporations, among them ICI, Unilever, Nestle, Philips and Fiat, to
see if they could find a way of `harmonising" trade rules in western Europe.
This, they noted, would allow their companies to reach `the scale necessary
to resist pressure from non-European competitors". In January 1985, the ERT
presented its proposal to the European commission.
Two months later, the European Council commissioned Lord Cockfield to
produce the white paper on which the Single European Act would be based. It
was precisely what the lobbyists ordered. The round table became the act's
enforcer, working closely with the commission to ensure that the single
European market was completed in 1992. The ERT, Jacques Delors later noted,
was `one of the main driving forces behind the single market".
In 1984, the round table published a paper demanding a tunnel under the
English Channel, a roadbridge connecting Denmark to Sweden, a European high
speed train system and a new, Europe-wide roadbuilding programme. It got
everything it wanted. In 1987, it started proposing some of the key
components of European monetary union. The schedule for enlargement agreed
at the European summit in Helsinki in 1999 precisely mirrors the sequence
suggested by the ERT a few years before.
In Nice last year European leaders agreed, as the ERT had requested, to
bypass their national parliaments by handing international treaty-making
powers to the European commission. Future trade agreements will be
negotiated not by the member states, but principally by the trade
commissioner, Pascal Lamy. Mr Lamy is a corporation in human form.
Now the lobby group is seeking what it calls `a minimal regulatory system
with the maximum of flexibility". Having harmonised European regulations so
that the same big companies can sell the same goods and services everywhere,
its new task is to diminish those common rules, to allow these firms to dump
their costs on to the environment and other people. It appears to be
winning. According to its website, `every six months the ERT makes contact
with the government that holds the EU presidency to discuss priorities". Its
former secretary-general boasted about phoning European leaders whenever he
wanted policy changes.
All this has been accompanied by the effective abandonment of future social
democratic reforms. Thanks in part to Tony Blair's efforts, the EU's
proposed `fundamental charter on human rights" appears to have been
scuppered. There is now no realistic prospect of harmonising corporate taxes
to prevent companies from threatening to move to another part of Europe if
their host nation doesn't reduce its rates. While the EU still enforces the
progressive measures it has adopted in the past, its new legislative
programme is, in effect, confined to helping big business to get bigger.
In Gothenburg Tony Blair insisted that protesters `must not and will not
disrupt the proper workings of democratic organisations". That role has been
reserved for corporations.
comment@guardian.co.uk. 
Source: GUARDIAN 20/06/2001 P15 
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