Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 14:56:23 -0800 (PST) From: Dennis R Redmond <dredmond-AT-gladstone.uoregon.edu> Subject: M-I: Re: Amsterdam Treaty On Wed, 4 Feb 1998 17428-AT-HHSS.SE wrote: > The national question is very interesting indeed. There are no > legitimate democratic institutions on a European level today and a > prerequisite for building such institutions is that the working class > uses its existing institutions as a power base. Those institutions are > generally nation-based, and attacked by contemporary capital What about the European Parliament? It's popularly elected by the people of Europe, if I'm not mistaken. True, the EP doesn't have a lot of power yet, but it exists, it's set a precedent, and it's been gaining strength. The European Commission isn't elected, but its members are selected by popularly-chosen, democratically-elected Governments. The EU budget has also redistributed some of the wealth of the richer EU countries to the poorer, peripheral ones -- no, it's not enough, but it's a good beginning. Politically, the Greens have been transnational from Day One; other European-wide groups include the European trade union federation and the European association of Social Democratic parties. More importantly still: Europe today is irrevocably multicultural. Fifteen percent of Sweden's population are immigrants, and the other European countries are becoming very multinational very quickly, too. Appeals to the unity of the traditional, national, mostly male working-class can be very easily twisted into Le Pen-style ressentiment against women, foreign cultures and immigrants. Difficult as it may be to imagine right now, in a viciously reactionary period of world history, the global Left has to start fighting for transnational and supranational forms of citizenship, democracy and economic justice, and there's no better place to start than the terrain of the European Union. -- Dennis --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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