Socialism & EU A Land War Hero Fanfani & Guilds Joe Keenan Jack Lane Labour Comment page 4 page 12 back page IRISH POLITICAL REVIEW October 2012 Vol.27, No.10 ISSN 0790-7672 and Northern Star incorporating Workers' Weekly Vol.26 No.10 ISSN 954-5891 Political Resolution Of The Euro Future referendums "Step By Step" on 'Europe'. It is said that, in the current crisis of the Euro, power has shifted to the bankers. The appearance is of a technocratic monetary policy dictating political developments, which John O'Hagan, Professor of Economics is hardly surprising in a technical monetary crisis. But it is only an appearance, as what at Trinity College Dublin, had an agonising is being resolved through what modern jargon might call technical-monetary "adjustments" piece in the Irish Times on how future is the unresolved political contradiction at the heart of the Euro project since its launch. referendums on EU Treaties should be In mid-October the leading foreign policy functionary of the Austrian State, Stefan handled. It is a topic over which our Lehne, is addressing Brendan Halligan's Institute of International and European Affairs Europhiles are losing sleep. He wrote: (IIEA). He will, apparently, tell the gathering of Irish officials and foreign policy "The European Central Bank and academics the basic facts of life of the current crisis and the three possible "scenarios" German constitutional court have calmed of how it will develop: "prolongation of the crisis; the end of the crisis with a durable the waters in relation to the euro crisis for accommodation between the UK and the EU; and a massive deepening of integration in now. Such calm though will not persist the Eurozone", with the outcome being determined by the actions of the 'Big Three' for long unless very significant action is taken at a political level to deal with the Member States: France, Germany and the UK. longer-term issues that the crisis has And there is the rub. For a "massive deepening of integration in the Eurozone" means thrown up. In particular many EU treaty its political integration and, as Lehne has pointed out in papers he has written for the changes are very likely in the coming Brussels "Carnegie Europe" Institute, this "might weaken and even destroy the EU's years" (Irish Times, 14 September). overall coherence" and marginalize the UK. Earlier in the Summer the IIEA discussed the role Ireland might play in keeping the UK involved in the resolution of the Euro crisis He goes on: or, as The Irish Times put it, acting as a "bridge" between the UK and Europe. The current "Here a treaty change supported by the Dublin regime seems enthralled by the notion of the "political leverage" it might gain by vast majority of the democratically making itself a pawn of Britain in this regard, with issues such as opposition to a Financial elected representatives can be rejected Transaction Tax, defence of low Corporation Tax rates and defence of financial via the vagaries of a referendum. This is particularly worrying when many may derivatives trading all seen as "common interests" with the UK. This, in our view, would have voted in the referendum on some place Ireland at the reactionary end of the Eurozone, minimizing its integration by aspect of Irish government policy totally retaining UK influence. unrelated to the EU issue on the ballot As regards the political resolution of the Euro crisis, in the judgement of one who paper. Given the extreme seriousness of should know, the future of the Euro is now secure. That is the reluctant conclusion of the the present euro zone banking and continued on page 2 continued on page 3 Armistice Day British Empire's unbroken record of an Irish Parliament up to 1801. It is why defending the weak against the strong in the building was used as the backdrop for At the beginning of the year the Irish the years between. British Army recruiting posters and Times reprinted from its Archives "An On the original Remembrance Day in postcards. One such chocolate-boxy Irishman's Diary" from November 1951, 1919, Ireland's capital city, Dublin, was postcard was in danger of giving Schmalz believed to have been written by Bertie treated to the spectacle of massed tanks, a bad name. Smyllie, its Editor from 1934 to 1954. The terrestrial Dreadnoughts or land battleships It showed rosy-cheeked gossoons, Diarist waxed indignant and lyrical in paraded past a saluting base at the Bank of virgin soldiers in British uniform, being turn, as he described being called an Ireland.The tanks were at the service of cheered by winsome, rosy-cheeked Imperialist So-and-So by a young Dubliner the British Government and their role was virginal colleens as they marched off to for wearing a Poppy on Britain's Remem- to Shock and Awe the citizens of Ireland. rescue the equally virtuous Little Catholic brance Day, and the pride with which he The Bank of Ireland was, as the British Belgium from the lustful grasp of the recalled wearing it ever since its first outing well knew, as iconic as the Rock of Cashel Hun. The return of the Bank of Ireland to on Remembrance Day 1919, and of the in Ireland's consciousness, having housed continued on page 9 3) the launch of a single currency; 4) the launch of European political union. C O N T E N T S Page European integration had been derailed Political Resolution Of The Euro, "Step By Step". Editorial 1 by British influence and the Federalists Future Referendums On 'Europe'. Jack Lane 1 were on the back foot. But the Euro would Armistice Day. Donal Kennedy 1 create a "fact on the ground" which would Readers' Letters: A Question Of Finance. Ivor Kenna 3 eventually impel a new momentum tow- Socialism: Utopian Or Incoherent. Joe Keenan 4 ards political integration. This was the Shorts from the Long Fellow (Bank Guarantee .... Again; The Irish Times And case put to Mitterand by Jacques Delors, Germany; Germany And Greece; 8 the great architect of "Social Europe". Queen Of Supermax. Wilson John Haire (poem) 9 The momentum of the currency was Statement From John Young. understood at the time by its chief Report on Eve Morrison and Kilmichael Ambush 10 engineers. Lehne quotes from Commission Goal! Gush Shalom (A Palestinian Poem, contributed by David Morrison) 11 President Romano Prodi in the Financial A Land War Leader, The Bard. Jack Lane 12 Times in December 2001 as follows: "I am Es Ahora. Julianne Herlihy (British Embassy Party; Summer Book Launch Party; sure the Euro will oblige us to introduce a Irish Studies Journal; The TCD Connection; The Marriage Foundation; new set of economic policy instruments. It Colm Tóibín, Vargas Llosa And Roger Casement) 13 is impossible to propose that now. But An Irish Anti-Fascist RAF Volunteer And Some Other Soldiers. some day there will be a crisis and new Manus O'Riordan (Part 3) 15 instruments will be created." Does It Stack Up? Michael Stack (Children's Rights Referendum; Abortion Legislation; Constitutional Law And Children 22 It could be said that Mitterrand failed in Items From Irish Bulletin, September 1920. Part 14 23 the sense that "perfection" was not Team GB—The Anglo-Saxon Is A Sport! Philip O'Connor achieved. The arrangements were—as The Captains And The Kings, poem by Brendan Behan 24 Prodi stated—inadequate and, as Mitter- and well knew, the contradictions would Labour Comment, edited by Pat Maloney: have to be resolved by a future generation Fanfani And The Guilds of politicians when, to paraphrase Soros, Mondragon, Part 12 "its inadequacies became apparent". (back page) But he would not have been dis- heartened. Au contraire! He always said Trade Union Notes: that it was sometimes necessary to provoke Accidents; Earnings; Trade Surplus; Jobs Market; Tax on Workers a crisis in order to arrive at a political (page 25) solution. In the current crisis political leadership has passed from France to Germany. man who bet against the Exchange Rate knowing full well that when they achieved Angela Merkel is now demonstrating the Mechanism in 1992 and won. George it, its inadequacy would become apparent statesmanship of Mitterrand … "step by Soros' long article in the September edi- and require a further step. The process step". The moves towards fiscal integration fed on its own success, very much like a tion of the New York Review of Books is a have been determined and consistent since financial bubble. That is how the Coal denunciation of Germany, but a spectacul- the "Merkozy" initiative launching the and Steel Community was gradually Fiscal Compact and the exit of Britain arly successful finance capitalist cannot transformed in the European Union, step allow his prejudices to obscure the reality by step." from the process at the end of 2011. From of things. Following the Draghi announce- the very start—as reported exclusively (in In other words, it is a political process, ment of "unlimited bond buying" by the Ireland) by this journal—Merkel has and Soros' description also applies precise- European Central Bank, he prefaced his brought the Eurozone with her in a strategy ly to how the project for the Euro currency article just before it went to print with a to construct an integrated monetary and was conceived. Following the collapse of statement reversing the judgement of the banking regime, that will also ultimately the Soviet Union Francois Mitterrand article itself, concluding: deliver debt resolution (see 'Yes vote feared that the impetus for European Union vindicated!', in Irish Political Review, July "The Euro crisis has entered a new would be lost as Germany prepared for phase.