Democracy is always a deception, but in the case of the European
elections it reaches the point of ridiculousness. ---- The European
Union has its center of power in the European Commission, made up of a
delegate for each member state. It represents and protects the interests
of the European Union as a whole and, having the monopoly on the power
of legislative initiative, proposes the adoption of EU regulatory acts,
the final approval of which lies with the European Parliament and the
Council of the European Union; it is also responsible for the
implementation of political decisions by legislative bodies, manages EU
programs and the spending of its structural funds.
The role play between the Commission and national governments ensures
that the actions of both are free from any control. Governments are
forced to adopt anti-popular measures because they are bound by the
stability plans of the European Union, while the Commission is forced to
adopt these policies because some national governments want it that way.
Ultimately, neither one nor the other ends up being bound by the
so-called popular will that would be expressed in elections.
The European Parliament, for which the elections were called on 8 and 9
June, has in practice no power, except that of ratifying decisions taken
in other institutions. It's just an expensive platform where MEPs give
essays on the art of oratory.
Today the proletariat nominally has a more or less large participation
in the election of the government. In fact, universal suffrage exists;
it is a concession that the bourgeoisie has made, both to take advantage
of popular participation in the struggle against real power and the
aristocracy, and to distract the proletariat from the struggle for its
own emancipation by giving it an appearance of sovereignty.
Historical experience shows us that if universal suffrage could ever be
anything other than a mirror to deceive the people, if it were capable
of expressing a government that hinted at wanting to change the economic
basis of society, the bourgeoisie, threatened in its interests, would
hurry to rebel and would use all the strength and all the influence that
comes from the possession of the means of production to recall the
government to the function of its simple gendarme.
This applies to all democratic regimes, and even more so to a Parliament
that is the laughing stock of the European Commission and national
governments.
The new lines of the European Union will certainly not emerge from the
polls in June. Almost two months before the elections Mario Draghi
outlined the essential indications: concentration of production in large
continental monopolies, public financing of the large infrastructures
necessary for large companies, training oriented towards the supply of
specialized manpower. While in Europe almost 100 million people are at
risk of poverty, public services are faltering and pensions continue to
be reduced, the European Commission is concerned with the
competitiveness of businesses, not their ability to satisfy social needs.
A high-level conference on the European Pillar of Social Rights was held
on 15 and 16 April 2024 in La Hulpe, Belgium. The final objective of the
conference was to adopt an interinstitutional declaration preparing the
future social agenda for the period 2024-2029. So well before the
elections took place, the European Commission had already outlined the
commitments for the next legislature. The report that Mario Draghi
presented to this meeting demonstrates how much the problems of the
majority of the population are taken into account by the European
bureaucracy, and what margins there are for a parliamentary majority to
change these limits.
As I said, in his report Mario Draghi puts the economy of scale first:
the political fragmentation of the Union slows down the competitiveness
of businesses, while Europe's main competitors take advantage of the
fact that they are already continental economies. In the war industry
sector, and it is no coincidence that Draghi starts from this sector, in
the United States the top five capitalist groups represent 80% of its
largest market, while the top five in Europe represent 45%. To solve
this problem, Draghi proposes to "intensify joint procurement, increase
the coordination of our spending and the interoperability of our
equipment, and substantially reduce our international dependencies."
The same is true for telecommunications: in the European Union there are
450 million consumers; In this market there are at least 34 capitalist
groups plus other smaller ones that divide the market among themselves,
while in the United States there are three and in China four. In
Draghi's eyes, the size of companies is crucial, so the Union and
national governments must harmonize regulations and encourage
consolidation and to encourage research and "innovative companies" he
raises the idea of modifying the current prudential legislation on bank
financing.
The other strand suggested by Mario Draghi is that of public goods, as
defined by him, that is, those infrastructures that no government alone
is able to address and which benefit everyone. In his speech he gives
two examples: one is energy networks, a topic that the European
Commission is already addressing with the REPowerEU project; the other
is the European supercomputing infrastructure, a world-class public
network of high-performance computers (HPC), but of little benefit to
businesses. The first problem is how to finance them: naturally public
budgets and therefore (Draghi does not say it but it is implicit) the
increase in debt have the main role. But Draghi is also thinking of
raking in the money from current accounts and putting it at the service
of the Union's financial adventures: "The EU has very high private
savings, but they are mostly channeled into bank deposits and do not end
up financing growth as could in a broader capital market. This is why
advancing the Capital Markets Union (CMU) is an indispensable part of
the overall competitiveness strategy."
The last topic addressed by Draghi is that of resources, both those
consisting of raw materials and human resources. For Draghi, first of
all, it is necessary for the European Commission to strongly coordinate
the entire chain of fundamental raw materials by building "a European
platform dedicated to critical minerals, mainly for joint procurement,
security of diversified supply, pooling, financing and storage". As
regards human resources, Draghi complains about the shortage of
specialized workers, but does not indicate precisely the paths to
follow. What is certain is that when he states that "multiple interested
parties will have to work together to guarantee the relevance of skills
and define flexible paths for improving skills" he echoes the inspiring
philosophy of the technical-professional supply chain, with capitalists
entering schools and the enslavement of education to industry.
If we strip the report of rhetoric, Draghi gives us a European Union
centered on large financial and industrial groups at a continental
level, supported and favored by the European Commission which
centralizes on itself responsibilities which until now were the
responsibility of national governments, and makes them available to the
finance and large industry. The Commission's policy will be to defend
and increase the primacy of the Union, starting from the wider
Mediterranean and the Greater Middle East, conquering markets and
sources of raw materials also with weapons, to the detriment of
oppressed peoples and competing imperialisms. There is little doubt that
this path leads to war, as has already happened in Ukraine, the Sahel,
the Gulf of Guinea and the Red Sea.
The major issues of public debt and more generally of state intervention
in the economy are therefore addressed by the Draghi report in the sense
of greater public commitment and greater debt. He doesn't leave. When it
is said that MORE investments are needed, the money must be taken from
somewhere and, since there is certainly no thought of taxing large
assets, it will be the increase in public debt that will provide the
financial resources to implement the pharaonic plans of European
imperialism .
Therefore the increase in state intervention in the economy does not
necessarily lead to an improvement in the conditions of citizens. Those
who believe in progressive capitalism, regulated by the government, rest
their hearts. Governments have as their sole objective the progress of
capitalism, that is, the increase in accumulation. The philosophy behind
Mario Draghi's proposals is not that of Adam Smith, but that of Colbert,
who saw the development of French industry as the path to achieving
supremacy in Europe. Today, with Mario Draghi's proposals, the European
Union government aims to strengthen its monopolistic groups to gain
supremacy in the world.
In this context, what role can the next elections play, what
possibilities does the next parliament have to change the direction of
the European Commission? Virtually none. On the one hand the
institutional limits that we have seen, on the other the behavior of the
various "families" to which the lists presented refer. According to the
materialist conception of history, the person is not what he says he is,
but what he does. The same argument can be applied to electoral lists,
which should not be evaluated on the promises they make on the eve of
the elections, but on the behavior held in the assemblies of
representatives. If we think that the current Commission is the result
of an alliance in which the People's Party, the Socialist Party and the
Liberal Party participated, the main families that today compete for the
consensus of the electorate, it is easy to understand how the
conflicting electoral promises will vanish like fog in the sun since the
first sessions of the new Parliament.
The stages of the commission will be dictated by the Draghi agenda
unless we stop it with fights. Abstaining from the European elections
means dissociating oneself from the Union of big capital, it means
launching a challenge to Fortress Europe.
Tiziano Antonelli
https://collettivoanarchico.noblogs.org/post/2024/06/09/non-votare-una-sfida-alla-fortezza-europa/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
elections it reaches the point of ridiculousness. ---- The European
Union has its center of power in the European Commission, made up of a
delegate for each member state. It represents and protects the interests
of the European Union as a whole and, having the monopoly on the power
of legislative initiative, proposes the adoption of EU regulatory acts,
the final approval of which lies with the European Parliament and the
Council of the European Union; it is also responsible for the
implementation of political decisions by legislative bodies, manages EU
programs and the spending of its structural funds.
The role play between the Commission and national governments ensures
that the actions of both are free from any control. Governments are
forced to adopt anti-popular measures because they are bound by the
stability plans of the European Union, while the Commission is forced to
adopt these policies because some national governments want it that way.
Ultimately, neither one nor the other ends up being bound by the
so-called popular will that would be expressed in elections.
The European Parliament, for which the elections were called on 8 and 9
June, has in practice no power, except that of ratifying decisions taken
in other institutions. It's just an expensive platform where MEPs give
essays on the art of oratory.
Today the proletariat nominally has a more or less large participation
in the election of the government. In fact, universal suffrage exists;
it is a concession that the bourgeoisie has made, both to take advantage
of popular participation in the struggle against real power and the
aristocracy, and to distract the proletariat from the struggle for its
own emancipation by giving it an appearance of sovereignty.
Historical experience shows us that if universal suffrage could ever be
anything other than a mirror to deceive the people, if it were capable
of expressing a government that hinted at wanting to change the economic
basis of society, the bourgeoisie, threatened in its interests, would
hurry to rebel and would use all the strength and all the influence that
comes from the possession of the means of production to recall the
government to the function of its simple gendarme.
This applies to all democratic regimes, and even more so to a Parliament
that is the laughing stock of the European Commission and national
governments.
The new lines of the European Union will certainly not emerge from the
polls in June. Almost two months before the elections Mario Draghi
outlined the essential indications: concentration of production in large
continental monopolies, public financing of the large infrastructures
necessary for large companies, training oriented towards the supply of
specialized manpower. While in Europe almost 100 million people are at
risk of poverty, public services are faltering and pensions continue to
be reduced, the European Commission is concerned with the
competitiveness of businesses, not their ability to satisfy social needs.
A high-level conference on the European Pillar of Social Rights was held
on 15 and 16 April 2024 in La Hulpe, Belgium. The final objective of the
conference was to adopt an interinstitutional declaration preparing the
future social agenda for the period 2024-2029. So well before the
elections took place, the European Commission had already outlined the
commitments for the next legislature. The report that Mario Draghi
presented to this meeting demonstrates how much the problems of the
majority of the population are taken into account by the European
bureaucracy, and what margins there are for a parliamentary majority to
change these limits.
As I said, in his report Mario Draghi puts the economy of scale first:
the political fragmentation of the Union slows down the competitiveness
of businesses, while Europe's main competitors take advantage of the
fact that they are already continental economies. In the war industry
sector, and it is no coincidence that Draghi starts from this sector, in
the United States the top five capitalist groups represent 80% of its
largest market, while the top five in Europe represent 45%. To solve
this problem, Draghi proposes to "intensify joint procurement, increase
the coordination of our spending and the interoperability of our
equipment, and substantially reduce our international dependencies."
The same is true for telecommunications: in the European Union there are
450 million consumers; In this market there are at least 34 capitalist
groups plus other smaller ones that divide the market among themselves,
while in the United States there are three and in China four. In
Draghi's eyes, the size of companies is crucial, so the Union and
national governments must harmonize regulations and encourage
consolidation and to encourage research and "innovative companies" he
raises the idea of modifying the current prudential legislation on bank
financing.
The other strand suggested by Mario Draghi is that of public goods, as
defined by him, that is, those infrastructures that no government alone
is able to address and which benefit everyone. In his speech he gives
two examples: one is energy networks, a topic that the European
Commission is already addressing with the REPowerEU project; the other
is the European supercomputing infrastructure, a world-class public
network of high-performance computers (HPC), but of little benefit to
businesses. The first problem is how to finance them: naturally public
budgets and therefore (Draghi does not say it but it is implicit) the
increase in debt have the main role. But Draghi is also thinking of
raking in the money from current accounts and putting it at the service
of the Union's financial adventures: "The EU has very high private
savings, but they are mostly channeled into bank deposits and do not end
up financing growth as could in a broader capital market. This is why
advancing the Capital Markets Union (CMU) is an indispensable part of
the overall competitiveness strategy."
The last topic addressed by Draghi is that of resources, both those
consisting of raw materials and human resources. For Draghi, first of
all, it is necessary for the European Commission to strongly coordinate
the entire chain of fundamental raw materials by building "a European
platform dedicated to critical minerals, mainly for joint procurement,
security of diversified supply, pooling, financing and storage". As
regards human resources, Draghi complains about the shortage of
specialized workers, but does not indicate precisely the paths to
follow. What is certain is that when he states that "multiple interested
parties will have to work together to guarantee the relevance of skills
and define flexible paths for improving skills" he echoes the inspiring
philosophy of the technical-professional supply chain, with capitalists
entering schools and the enslavement of education to industry.
If we strip the report of rhetoric, Draghi gives us a European Union
centered on large financial and industrial groups at a continental
level, supported and favored by the European Commission which
centralizes on itself responsibilities which until now were the
responsibility of national governments, and makes them available to the
finance and large industry. The Commission's policy will be to defend
and increase the primacy of the Union, starting from the wider
Mediterranean and the Greater Middle East, conquering markets and
sources of raw materials also with weapons, to the detriment of
oppressed peoples and competing imperialisms. There is little doubt that
this path leads to war, as has already happened in Ukraine, the Sahel,
the Gulf of Guinea and the Red Sea.
The major issues of public debt and more generally of state intervention
in the economy are therefore addressed by the Draghi report in the sense
of greater public commitment and greater debt. He doesn't leave. When it
is said that MORE investments are needed, the money must be taken from
somewhere and, since there is certainly no thought of taxing large
assets, it will be the increase in public debt that will provide the
financial resources to implement the pharaonic plans of European
imperialism .
Therefore the increase in state intervention in the economy does not
necessarily lead to an improvement in the conditions of citizens. Those
who believe in progressive capitalism, regulated by the government, rest
their hearts. Governments have as their sole objective the progress of
capitalism, that is, the increase in accumulation. The philosophy behind
Mario Draghi's proposals is not that of Adam Smith, but that of Colbert,
who saw the development of French industry as the path to achieving
supremacy in Europe. Today, with Mario Draghi's proposals, the European
Union government aims to strengthen its monopolistic groups to gain
supremacy in the world.
In this context, what role can the next elections play, what
possibilities does the next parliament have to change the direction of
the European Commission? Virtually none. On the one hand the
institutional limits that we have seen, on the other the behavior of the
various "families" to which the lists presented refer. According to the
materialist conception of history, the person is not what he says he is,
but what he does. The same argument can be applied to electoral lists,
which should not be evaluated on the promises they make on the eve of
the elections, but on the behavior held in the assemblies of
representatives. If we think that the current Commission is the result
of an alliance in which the People's Party, the Socialist Party and the
Liberal Party participated, the main families that today compete for the
consensus of the electorate, it is easy to understand how the
conflicting electoral promises will vanish like fog in the sun since the
first sessions of the new Parliament.
The stages of the commission will be dictated by the Draghi agenda
unless we stop it with fights. Abstaining from the European elections
means dissociating oneself from the Union of big capital, it means
launching a challenge to Fortress Europe.
Tiziano Antonelli
https://collettivoanarchico.noblogs.org/post/2024/06/09/non-votare-una-sfida-alla-fortezza-europa/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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