Home > APPEAL AGAINST THE PROJECT OF EUROPEAN CONSTITUTION

APPEAL AGAINST THE PROJECT OF EUROPEAN CONSTITUTION

by Open-Publishing - Wednesday 11 May 2005
9 comments

Edito Europe Referendum

All member states of the European Union will soon have to agree to or reject the project of European Constitution. A European campaign has just been launched in
order to contribute to develop a large movement against this project of constitution. You can support it and join it by subscribing to the
following text.

SAY NO TO THE CONSTITUTIONAL
TREATY TO BUILD ANOTHER EUROPE!

We citizens, trade unionists, associations and organisations,

URGE TO SAY "NO" TO THE PROJECT OF EUROPEAN CONSTITUTIONAL TREATY

The project for Europe that is being proposed to us is entirely
organised around a unique principle: the market, the generalisation of
competition. This allows and organises the attack against public
service and pensions, the incentive to the extension of working time
and flexibilisation as well as the encouragement to social regression
in each of the countries of the European Union. Whereas the aim of the
constitutional treaty which is submitted to us is to set the broad
lines of what will be tomorrow’s Europe, we note that the future the
treaty prepares for us is everything but the future we long for.

For too long, we have accepted that the construction of
Europe develops without the participation of the European citizens and
against their social "acquis". We refuse to imprison our future in
a neoliberal constitutional text whose adoption would constitute a
major obstacle to the European construction we want.

WE REFUSE THE ADOPTION OF THIS CONSTITUTIONAL TREATY IN OUR NAME

- because it confirms an ultra-liberal vision of the economy and the future of Europe,because it considers the "principle of an open market economy with freecompetition" as the guide and highest value of the initiatives of the
European Union and prohibits therefore any real future discussion about
its social and economic trends;

– because it buries the project of a social Europe
by i.a. forbidding any restriction of the free movement of capital, by
confirming the independence of the European Central Bank, by
subordinating any social and fiscal harmonisation to the paralysing
rule of unanimity and thus favouring social regression, dumping and
relocations;

– because it does not recognise the fundamental social rights

(right to work, to income substitution, to a basic income, to
housing...) as being actual rights whose respect must be guaranteed by
the European Union, but only as objectives which have to be achieved.
Neither does it recognise the European right to strike;

– because it does not provide a satisfying frame for the future of public service
but, on the contrary, confirms the attack against public service in the
framework of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), which
aims at their dismantling;

– because it foresees a close cooperation of the European Union with NATO and involves the EU in an escalation of military budgets;

– because it denies equality of rights to those who live in Europe
without being nationals of a member state and submits them to
administrative and police harassment;

– because this treaty project, which claims to be "constitutional", is
neither the result of a real constituent assembly specifically charged
by citizens to draft a constitution, neither the result of a real
democratic debate;

– because, by setting in detail essential political, economic, and social choices, this project of constitution would prevent citizens from questioning these choices in the future, as unanimity of the 25 member states would be required to bring about the slightest change!

All these defects already broadly affect the existing treaties.
We refuse to give them a new legitimacy and make them untouchable by
transforming them into constitutional principles.

WE WANT TO BUILD ANOTHER EUROPE

Allowing today’s Europe to keep going favours the dangerous expansion of reactionary populisms and xenophobic extreme right. This Europe, which excludes citizens from decision making, is not our Europe.

We are determined supporters of a Europe which grants everyone
the right to work, a Europe mobilized against unemployment,
precariousness and damaging of the living environment. A Europe which
reinforces social guarantees, implements an economic development
compatible with ecological balances, defends cultural diversity,
respects the separation of the Churches and the State, attends to the
strict application of equality between men and women. We want a
democratic Europe based on the plain citizenship of all its residents.
We propose a Europe whose peoples would be the actors of an authentic
constituent process which allows them to really decide on political
choices and to control their implementation.

This is why we appeal to give a majority NO to the
constitutional treaty: a progressive NO, at odds with the liberal
system and able to translate into vote what has been expressed by
social, trade union and alterglobalist mobilizations during the last
few years. If tomorrow the peoples reject the project of constitutional
treaty, the Europe we want will not enter a crisis. On the contrary, for the first time at this level, we will together make our will of change heard.
Saying no to the constitutional treaty is just a first step, a
necessary step in the right direction: the direction of another Europe,
more democratic, social, pacific, ecological and showing more
solidarity.

We urge the citizens to say "no" to this project,
through vote at the time of the referendum in the countries where it
still has to be organised and through all other means likely to make
their voices heard. We also urge the representatives sitting in the various national parliaments to refuse to ratify this project of constitutional treaty.

We urge all European progressives to build a large front in favour of the "no"
to the project of constitution and we commit ourselves to take part, as
much as we can, in the consciousness-raising actions carried on in that
direction.

http://www.noeuconstitution.net/

Forum posts

  • Instead of doing that we the European are obliged to spread our standards, which means nothing which is related to Anglo/American business ethic should survive.
    Health care, shelter, education and decent incomes are a basic human rights. And it seems that around the world besides that stoneage performing countries: America and Britain, people agree with
    that approach.
    We don’t need another ism (capitalism, communism) to label the better world.
    Some European countries still think they can fence their communities, but this means spreading more
    poverty in the third world.

  • I am an American. Originally I thought the EU was a good idea because it would provide a necessary counter weight to the United States.

    I had felt that through constant cooperation and negotiation, member states would learn to work together to the benefit of all without having to sacrifice their national identities. With so many different competiting states, I thought it would not be possible for one to dominate another.

    However, the "tip off" came when I read that the EU was going to open its own bank. If Europeans are aware of the history of the Federal Reserve in the United States, then they know that it is nothing more than a private bank run by the ruling elite.

    "The Fed" has virtual control over our monetary system. It has no constitutional basis, is illegal, and removed control of our common currency from the public domain and placed it into the hands of private bankers. The Fed can print money whenever it wants to without having to use hard currency to back it up. As such, it is also free to engage in any number of "Ponzi schemes" whereby it can lend out the same money it just borrowed from someone else.

    The next "tip off" was the call for the creation of a European constitution.

    The EU, in effect, is being established by your ruling elites who will seize control of your monetary system. Since you now all share a common currency, they have completed the first step. Such corporate profiteers will seek to privatize your public utilities, transportation, schools, health care, day care, pension plans and all other social programs. They will also work to dismantle any labor unions. Such privatization will destroy your infrastructure and increase your overall rate of poverty.

    The "federal" constitution will attempt to eliminate national and cultural differences in favor of a more homogenous "norm" so that people can be more easily controlled..

    What you will have, in effect, is the "Americanization" of Europe where a "federal government" has undue authority over its member states; and the monetary system is in the hands of your private bankers.

    As long as global capitalism is the driving economic system behind these moves, then the elite will seek to control and exploit you and to militarize your country to wage aggressive wars for profits in other parts of the world.

    So it doesn’t matter if it’s the EU, China or Russia who becomes the new superpower. As long as global capitalism is the financial system that fuels the economy, that country will become another "America."

    This is a time when smaller is better; decisions should be made at the local levels; diversity should be respected; people should cooperate to build interlocking networks of commerce and support from the ground up; not from the top down.

    It’s time to replace compeitition with cooperation.

    • At last, some else who has seen the same direction of political movement that I have. I sometimes felt, as a Brit, that I was a voice crying in the wilderness.

      That is why I am so glad that we still have our own currency; this is why our economy is so far ahead of the rest of the EU. But I don’t know how much longer we will be able to hold out, since Tony "Smiling Boy" Blaire’s aim seems to be to become President of Europe at some time in the future. This might go a long way to explain why he has sided with the Americans in the Iraq war, since it makes us look more like a part of the United States of Europe.

    • Thanks to the authors, great report.

      re: build from the ground up

      how do we do that when the big boys have all the advantages? don’t we need to break up those monopolies first, then build?

  • Frankly, it is laughable to vote No on account of the principles espoused in your article. There is hardly any difference in principle from those championing a Yes vote. The so called "right" want a No vote for entirely and diametrically opposed reasons form the so called "Left" vote of No. Why don’t they allow a free referendum in each of the constituent countries ? Let the principles of the constitution and their consequences be tabled in each of the countries making up the membership of the club and let countries decide. Whether there is a Yes or a No vote the ultimate result, in the current ideological climate, will be the same.

  • I doubt that the EU constitution is going to matter in 50 years time. By then europe will have become Eurabia and you will all be ruled under Sharia. All the freedoms and rights you enjoy right now will only be a memory.

    • Eurabia, Euroislamia,Eurafrica, all banal and inane epithets of empty intellectual brains. However the demographic time bomb is clicking slowly and with dead certainty.Europe the homeland of the white nations is subjected to a relentless invasion byt the rest of the globe. In the end game it will be irrelevant whether you are of the Left, or the Right, whether you vote Oui or Non , both Left and Right will continue with their squabbling whilst marching surefooted to their oblivion . Unlike Socrates, there is no cup of hemlock to make the exit from history painlessly and serenely. I have a huge semantic problem with the label of America becoming fascist. Fascism is national,and folkish. Comunism is international and today’s Globalism is international, the ruling elite in U.S.A. and Europe is international, Internationalism is anti national and therefore anti fascist. Both ideologies are centripetal. I would say the USA and Europe by default is begining to resemble the old USSR rather than Fascist Italy or National Socialist Germany .

    • an astute and accurate evaluation. As long as europe is full of europeans, nothing will change.

  • This my friends is not unique to Europe but in all g8 countries it is a corporation of multinational investors and profits that are going to enrich a specific small group of people by the general use of tactics like export labor, import products, and many other tactics of the corporate oligarchy which has striped away the social participation of many working people, educators, engineers, and a whole range of value producing individuals whose lives and livelyhoods are now at the complete mercy of multinational corporations as they lock down their power through the consolidation of the reality management systems they have put into place through the media and the use of legal government devises available to countries at war.

    And this war on terroism is a war against the working educated individuals who are now seen as an "expense" on the books of the corporations whose investors care little about the lower and middle class tax paying worker. For if they did they would not invest in multinational corporations and their socially devisive methods of investment which is simply a set of legal decisions that the jobs that the worker will gain his spendable income with is less important now to the coropration class then the use of military agendas to control and thus dominate people by using the easily propagandanized institutions of religion, patriot appeal to military action against other working people all in the final name and profit of the corporation controlling investment oligarchy.

    It is clear that any socially progressive open channel of communication and education is a large threat to the psychological warfare practiced against the working class people through the corporation dominated media propganda worldwide. It is also clear that people need to form their own global agenda for resource management and peaceful interactions that is outside the money control and corporation owned investor class which now seeks total domination based on the unknown enemy - which we can not see - which we can not hear - but we can be TOLD ABOUT it from the corporate media which obviously has an agenda, and it is definitely not in alignement with the needs of the common working person.

    We must reject the government sponsered terrorism that is driven by the propgandizing of our cultures, turning one working person in one part of the world against the other. We need to reject the divisive use of title ownership puting in the hands of the few and the greedy the future and the present outworkings of our social interactions and our dreams.

    – Rise above domination of life by money and propaganda, aspire to a live of responsie global open verifiable resource management which is held in the hands of power by all working people for their own benifit and not to the legacy and destructive failing institutions of the past - namely the use of capital to control humans, instead we should use the human capital of creativity to evolve humanity.

    Peace through Independent non money controlled Jourlanism and the Free Flow of Information - the life blood of any responsible social institution that serves its own memebers.