If the Lisbon Treaty is passed, it will give a further impetus to the right wing, neo liberal agenda which the European Union has been driving hard through its structures.
The EU Commission likes to give the impression that it is a neutral body which approaches economic policy in an impartial way. It is anything but. The Commission has vigorously pushed measures to secure the privatisation of public enterprises and services which is grist to the profits of big private corporations.
Big business interests are highly organised within the EU. For example, 45 of the biggest EU based multinational corporations are organised in a group called The European Roundtable of Industrialists (ERT). Included are giants like Siemens, Royal Dutch Shell, Nestle and Heineken. Between them, they have an annual turnover of €1,300 billion and employ 3.8 million workers. Siemens alone employs 472,000 workers equal to almost one quarter of the total workforce of the Republic of Ireland!
This economic power gives big business organisations like the ERT huge political influence also. They have ready access to the EU Commission and to the governments of Member States. It is their agendas in reality that have shaped EU economic policy for decades. What is considered good for the profits of big business is good for Europe.
Little wonder then that the economic policy of the EU has been hostile to public ownership of infrastructure and services and has pushed for opening up these areas of society to profit seeking business interests. Postal services and electricity supply are just two examples.
The Lisbon Treaty lays the basis for a further extension of privatisation. It calls for a system in the ‘internal market’ to ensure ‘that competition is not distorted’ and calls for ‘uniformity in measures of liberalisation.’ This is code for hiving off to the corporate sector important parts of public services, the most profitable parts of course.
Over the last ten years, Fianna Fail/Progressive Democrat governments have implemented very right wing economic policies. Taxes for big business and speculators were slashed while vital companies like Telecom Eireann and of Aer Lingus were privatised.
Lisbon provides the mechanism for a further twist to the privatisation agenda. The EU Commission is nominated to negotiate international trade agreements on a global basis with organisations like the World Trade Organisation. With its firm neo liberal stance, the Commission can be expected to recommend that public services including health and education are obliged to allow profit seeking private corporations in.
It can then recommend this to the European Council, made up of the heads of government in the EU. Individual Member States could only exercise a veto against this if ‘these agreements risk seriously disturbing the national organisation of such services and prejudicing the responsibility of Member States to deliver them.’ But of course, the EU Commission doesn’t believe that privatisation causes such problems.
Should disputes arise between Member States and the EU Commission with the European Court of Justice being called in to make a judgement, decisions can generally be expected to go in favour of the rights of private business to make a profit. EU decisions routinely give business interests clear priority over the integrity of public services and indeed over workers’ rights.
The alternative to the neo liberal policies in the Lisbon Treaty is a socialist approach. The main corporations and major financial institutions should be put under public ownership and democratic workers’ control. In this way, resources could be planned for the benefit of the majority, public services could be improved dramatically and decent wages and working conditions implemented for workers. In essence we stand for a democratic workers’ Europe, rather than the big business club that currently operates.
