European Parliament President Roberta Metsola meets with Rusian Stefanchuk, Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian Parliament) in November 2023 to sign a Memorandum of Understanding for parliamentary democracy support. (Photo: European Parliament, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

This article was originally published by La Marea on 19 March 19 2024 and translated by John Collins.

From June 6-9, elections for the European Parliament, the only genuinely democratic institution in the community’s institutional framework - its members are directly chosen by the citizenry, whereas the rest are intergovernmental in nature - will be held. It is a good moment to think about the challenges facing the European Union (EU) and, I would say, the entire planet.

The first thing to dismantle is the fallacy - whose constant repetition doesn’t make it true - that reinforcing economic integration, consummating a long-term process that began long before the implementation of the single currency, is beneficial for all, especially for the most lagging economies and the most disadvantaged groups. From this perspective, convergence would have been the motor and the result of the construction of the European project.

But it hasn’t been like that. The really existing Europe, the one that should be at the center of all the debates, has nothing to do with that idealized and false vision. The divergences among economies and regions, between the center and the peripheries, and the inequalities in wealth and income have stayed at high levels or even worsened.

“I am among those who believe that in this scenario, a radical, 180-degree turn in the European dynamic is needed. It is not about recovering the lost “essences” of a European project that has been lost or distorted by an especially difficult situation; rather, it is about changing its fundamental parameters. More Europe? If this slogan is designed to reinforce the existing parameters, my response, and I think the only acceptable response, is a capital NO.”

The outbreak of the pandemic and its management by the EU institutions demonstrated the vulnerability associated with the globalization of markets, whose benefits the EU had championed. Likewise, fragile public services - especially those related to health - needed to confront the disease and its consequences with a clear lack of human and material resources, a shortage that didn’t fall from the sky but rather was the result of austerity and privatization policies applied with particular harshness during the financial shock of 2008. Finally, the growing penetration of community institutions by big corporations, which imposed and continue to impose their designs, became clear, converting the anxieties and needs of the citizenry into a formidable business for their directors and large shareholders.

The sharp price hikes, which only recently have softened (although food prices continue rising today at a rate much higher than salaries, especially for the most disadvantaged parts of the population), have put the European Central Bank at the center of the struggle against inflation. This institution has carried out a policy of raising interest rates to historic levels, making excess demand the main trigger of inflationary tensions. This mistaken diagnosis has had and continues to have a tremendous social and productive cost, favoring financial institutions by fattening their income statements and enabling companies to pass the highest interest rates on to their clients.

And the European strategy in relation to the so-called global south? Also deceptive. Faced with the clamor coming from these countries to remove the intellectual property of the vaccines from the hands of the big pharmaceutical companies, the community institutions aligned themselves with the companies, preserving their privileges. Nor have they been willing to commit themselves to the initiatives, promoted by the countries of the south, aimed at reducing the burden of unsustainable and indefensible debt that further impoverishes their people. Of course, Europe, violating international human rights law, has continued its consistent policy of building walls designed to prevent the entry of people fleeing poverty, war, and climate disasters, and outsourcing to other countries the management of migration flows.

The return to the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) - whose application was suspended during the pandemic due to the impossibility of governments complying with it - says everything about the roadmap of a Europe that is firmly anchored in a deeply conservative ideology and in the interests of the countries with the greatest competitive potential and the most privileged groups. The SGP returns with a few changes that don’t alter the fundamentals: budgetary austerity will continue being the cornerstone of the EU community and the structural transformation of its economies. Left off the agenda, therefore, are a substantial increase in the EU budget, which is now slightly over one percent of the community’s gross national income, the introduction of progressive taxation at the European level, and decisive and strategic government intervention toward the transformation of the productive fabric in terms of equality and sustainability.

Backstage of a Plenary Session of the European Parliament. (Photo: European Parliament from EU, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Going beyond the economic sphere but decisively influencing it, it must be said that the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the genocide that the state of Israel is carrying out against the Palestinian population in Gaza represent a qualitative balance in the geopolitics of conflict that has dominated the international scene for years. One constantly hears and reads in the dominant media that in general, the European response to this critical situation is an adequate one. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The decision to send growing amounts of weapons to the Ukrainian military and to show - what can I call it? - a complacent and rhetorical attitude in the face of the brutal aggression that the defenseless Palestinian population is facing every day gives the measure of a “European project” trapped in the evermore powerful interests of the military-industrial complex and the war strategy of the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

The sharp increase in the EU military budget - which, in a context of budgetary discipline and containment of public spending, forces a reduction of the amounts allocated for social and productive spending - the irresponsible declarations of some European leaders that it may be necessary for NATO troops to fight in Ukraine (in fact, many logistical and other resources from this organization and from the US are already on the ground there), the recent incorporation of Sweden and Finland in the Atlantic alliance and the possible future incorporation of Ukraine and other countries in the region takes us directly to a scenario of global confrontation, with dramatic and unpredictable consequences.

I am among those who believe that in this scenario, a radical, 180-degree turn in the European dynamic is needed. It is not about recovering the lost “essences” of a European project that has been lost or distorted by an especially difficult situation; rather, it is about changing its fundamental parameters. More Europe? If this slogan is designed to reinforce the existing parameters, my response, and I think the only acceptable response, is a capital NO: we can’t and we shouldn’t follow this path which, in addition to having disastrous economic and political consequences, situates the EU as an irrelevant actor in the international sphere (in fact, it already is), always following the interests and strategies of the American power.

The pieces of another Euruope involve, among other things, stopping the policy of exterminating the Palestinian people, committing to a negotiated solution of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, launching a credible and ambitious plan to stop climate change and reduce inequality, and leading a strategy of solidarity and support for the countries of the south. Without these foundations, all doors will close and the Europe of war and merchants will have prevailed. Hopefully we will not witness a continuation of the policies applied up until now.

It will be necessary to see whether the upcoming European Parliament elections allow this scenario to open - if there is an ambitious and brave Left that bets in this direction.