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50 Caietele Echinox, vol. 32, 2017: Images of Community Vladimir Bor]un The EU is Naked: The Progressive Clothes of a Capitalist Project Abstract: The purpose of this essay is to decon- Introduction struct, from an openly Marxist and politically engaged perspective, the false progressive hat is the dominant image of the image that many on the left ascribe to the Euro- WEuropean Union (EU), both in- pean Union. I argue that the EU has been from ternally and externally? That it emerged in the very beginning and continued to be a proj- the aftermath of the Second World War to secure peace and democracy in Europe – a ect of the capitalist elites in Western Europe, project of free and equal nations overcom- as reflected by its the entire institutional archi- ing their past divisions and uniting forc- tecture. Moreover, contrary to a widely-held es for the benefit of all. Indeed, the EU perception, the EU has not been acting as a has been widely perceived as some sort of bastion of the “European social model” against guardian and promoter of the so-called the neoliberal counter-reform but has in fact “European social model” of capitalism, led that counter-reform in Europe. Indeed, where the welfare state is strong and social even the seemingly progressive aspects of rights are inherently cherished, as opposed the EU are mere concessions that either serve to the deregulated, laissez-faire version of capitalist interests too or are simply ineffective. capitalism that would characterise the An- I conclude by showing why the EU cannot be glo-Saxon world. realistically reformed and why the left needs This essay argues that, just like in An- to urgently oppose it in the current context of dersen’s famous story about the emperor’s the crisis of capitalism and the growing popular clothes, the EU is actually “naked” and 1 disillusionment with this system. that its supposed “progressive clothes” are Keywords: The European Union; The Left; meant to obscure the hegemonic aim of Neoliberal Hegemony; Capitalist Crisis; Social ensuring the trans-class and trans-nation- al consensus required to make the EU the Rights; Austerity; Far Right. highly integrated entity that it is today. I argue that, in fact, the EU has been from Vladimir Borțun the very beginning a project of capitalist University of Portsmouth elites in Western Europe and their politi- [email protected] cal representatives. The entire institutional DOI: 10.24193/cechinox.2017.32.04 architecture of the EU, from the founding The EU is Naked: The Progressive Clothes of a Capitalist Project 51 Treaty of Rome in 1957 to the highly-top- the British left and beyond, where most ical CETA and TTIP of today, reflects and left-wing groups and personalities – even reinforces that embedded class character of among those positioning themselves on the the EU. radical left – called for a Remain vote. Their Moreover, the EU proved to be very arguments reflected the entire mythology quick in endorsing the neoliberal count- that the false progressive image of the EU er-reform of the 1980s that started in the is based on. On the one hand, there were US and Britain rather than trying, as many those pointing out at workers’ rights and still believe, to provide an alternative, more free movement as progressive aspects of socially-oriented, route for capitalist glo- the EU that need to be defended.5 Indeed, balisation. Indeed, the EU has been one of it was said that the EU is the best chance the main vehicles for American economic the left has in order to counter neoliber- domination after the Second World War, alism and (re)build a “social Europe.” On ensuring a deep level of integration be- the other hand, there were those acknowl- tween American capitalism and European edging the current neoliberal and undem- capitalism over the last decades, as reflect- ocratic character of the EU while arguing ed more recently in the state management that it is better to try and reform the latter of the 2007-2008 financial crisis that saw from within than revert to the anachronic the Federal Reserve injecting cash in the (and potentially dangerous) framework of US franchises of European banks.2 the nation-state. Their main argument was For precisely such reasons, the left that the EU needs to be saved in order to and particularly the radical left initially preserve peace in Europe, even more so in opposed the creation and development of the context of a resurgence of the populist the EU. However, that opposition started and far right across the continent.6 to fade away in the 1970s and by the 1980s, In what follows, I will try, from an all social democratic parties and most rad- openly radical left perspective, to decon- ical left parties in the member states had struct these arguments and argue instead come to fundamentally endorse, albeit to that the EU is fundamentally a capitalist various degrees, the process of European project, why it cannot be otherwise, and integration.3 Even today, despite the multi- why the left urgently needs to start build- ple structural crises faced by the EU – from ing an alternative to both the EU and the the eurozone crisis to the resurgence of the re-emerging far right. far right to the so-called “refugee crisis”4 – there seems to be a continuous consensus The EU is Not as Much about Peace on the left in the support for the EU, apart as it is About Capitalism from a handful of communist and socialist parties openly calling for an exit (although obody can honestly deny that securing their number might increase in the near peace in Europe was indeed one of the future, as discussed in the last section of Ngoals of establishing the European Steal and the essay). Coal Community in 1951, which would lat- This consensus has been recently illus- er develop into the European Union.7 But trated by the debate around Brexit within that has less to do with pacifism as such than 52 Vladimir Borțun with capitalism: as a general rule, capitalists barriers to the free circulation of capital, la- prefer peace to war, as peace is – with some bour, products and services; and it did. obvious exceptions – more favourable to the 3. The EU was not only capital’s trans- maximisation of profits than war. War is a national answer to the welfare state but last resort for capitalist elites, that is, when- also to the demise of European colonialism ever the international competition between – five out of the six founding members of them over markets and resources cannot be the EU (i.e. France, Germany, Italy, Bel- confined in the limits of diplomatic foreign gium and the Netherlands) were former or policy. So peace has always been secured, soon-to-be former colonial powers, who first and foremost, in order to secure and, found strength in unity (i.e. a deregulated indeed, increase the rate of profits. common market) after losing their privi- However, the creation of the EU – leged access to cheap labour, resources and largely carried out by right-wing political markets in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. elites, by the way – also represented the 4. After the Second World War, a realignment of Western European capital- strengthened US capitalism, with vast sur- ism as a reaction to a range of major trans- pluses to export, became the main promoter formations in the post-WWII period: of global economic liberalisation, as reflect- 1. The threat of communism in the ed in the emergence in less than a decade immediate aftermath of the war, both from of an entire range of US-backed institutions the East and from within Western Euro- such as the World Bank (1944), the Inter- pean countries like France and Italy, where national Monetary Fund (1944), the Gen- communist parties were particularly strong eral Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (1947), after the war, represented a compelling in- the Organisation for European Economic centive for integration in Western Europe Cooperation (1948) etc. The EU was an im- – in many ways, the EU came about as a portant piece in this emerging US-led free counterbalance to the Eastern Bloc, for the trade institutional framework, as Ameri- benefit of both Western European powers can big corporations found it much easier and the American power alike. to locate and do business across the newly 2. The balance of class forces that result- founded European Common Market than ed from the war in an economically ruined having to deal with different national regu- Europe compelled capitalist elites, fearful lations of different countries. Thus, the EU of a radical change, to make the historical was from the start a vehicle for the interna- tactical concession that was the welfare state tional expansion of US capitalism. (which has been rolled back over through the neoliberal counter-reform of the last thirty Preserving the “European Social years) – it was better for the elites to give Model” and Taming Neoliberalism? something rather than risk losing everything. But the profit losses that the welfare state ven most of those who agree that the entailed could be partly compensated for by EU is fundamentally a capitalist proj- creating a common European market that Eect tend to believe that the EU stands for a would dismantle, as stipulated by the found- different type of capitalism. They rest upon ing Treaty of Rome of 1957, the national the assumption that European capitalism is The EU is Naked: The Progressive Clothes of a Capitalist Project 53 generally more “humane” and socially-ori- White Paper on Completing the Internal ented that the laissez-faire version of cap- Market drafted by Lord Cockfield, the Eu- italism that prevails in the United States.

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