Workers face lean times in the enlarged EU

VALÉRY GISCARD D’ESTAING’S draft constitution for the enlarged EU does not even state as an aim that they should work towards eliminating poverty. The draft is silent on the misery caused

What is really behind the drive towards the new Europe is the maximisation of opportunity for big business to exploit workers across borders and to set up the most favourable conditions for Europe to become a trading bloc to rival the US.

Multinationals will find it easier to move production and service centres. There will be increased harmonisation of employment laws which will mean levelling down working standards and conditions.

The other worrying aspect of the undemocratic, capitalist vision of Europe is the potential threat to undermine a socialist or other left-wing government coming to power in a European country. No one should underestimate the big business backlash to further success for the left. The new Europe, controlled by people with a similar outlook to Blair and Ahern, Harney, McCreevy and McDowell, would be in the vanguard of such attacks.

In the past, under right-wing governments such as Thatcher's Tories in Britain and our own Fianna Fáil/Progressive Democrat Coalitions, the EU seemed to provide some hope for the most basic of workers' rights.

In comparison, many of our European neighbours enjoyed better rights and the EU was seen by some on the left as a means of mitigating the worst of the attacks from the extreme right at home and abroad.

But the real agenda of those at the heart of the EU is completely opposed to socialism. Everything, including outdated vehicles such as 19th century-style nation states, must be sacrificed at the altar of capitalism. The task facing socialists is to separate the justified arguments against the EU constitution from the right-wing opposition to it. Like the campaign against the euro, what is required is a movement capable of embracing all groups who are against the big business agenda of the EU, but who also reject the racist, narrow-minded outpourings of the right.

When the referendum on the EU constitution takes place, a similar broad-based campaign should be initiated, or the anti-euro one widened to incorporate opposition to the constitution. The battles ahead will be challenging for the left, but well worth winning.

Paul Kinsella,

53, Lorcan Grove,

Santry,

Dublin 9.