INFO : Nice D7 menu
MichaelP
ANANOVA (London) December 7
Riot police and protesters in battle at EU summit
Riot police are fighting pitched battles with thousands of protesters at
the opening of the EU summit in Nice.
Clouds of teargas erupted outside the conference centre in the South of
France as the 15 heads of state and government prepared to meet leaders of
applicant countries wanting full European Union status.
What the French had hoped would be a dignified summit ending with an
historic treaty descended into running battles between thousands of
anti-globalisation demonstrators and police.
The protesters hurled fireworks and furniture at the police, who responded
with volleys of teargas grenades and what sounded at times like stun
grenades.
There were reports that as many as 50,000 demonstrators had taken to the
streets and there was alarm in diplomatic circles that they had come
within 200-300 yards of the main conference venue.
Officials waiting outside the Acropolis Centre at times had to cover their
faces to protect themselves from the effects of the teargas which blew
back towards the police who had released it.
From behind the police lines, several riot officers could be seen leading
apparently injured colleagues to safety - though it was not clear whether
they had been hurt by demonstrators or simply suffered the effects of the
gas.
Last night tens of thousands of demonstrators marched through Nice on the
eve of the meeting.
Heavily armed riot police monitored the protest and were later involved in
a clash with about 500 demonstrators at Nice's main train station.
Two police officers were slightly injured, local authorities said. No
arrests were reported.
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INDEPENDENT (London) 7 December 2000
By John Lichfield in Paris
Police mobilise against gathering of EU anarchists
Up to 100,000 people are expected to demonstrate against the "infernal
machine of the European Union" at the summit in Nice that begins today -
the largest protest at an EU gathering.
Most demonstrators will come from the far left and will reunite the
anti-capitalists who protested violently against globalisation at the
world trade summit in Seattle last year.
More than 6,000 police have been mobilised to protect the summit at the
Acropolis palace, known as "the bunker". And with up to 1,500 Italian
anarchist "zapatistas", and anarchist groups from France, Britain,
Portugal, Denmark and the US planning to attend, confrontation seems
inevitable.
Scuffles broke out at French railway stations on Tuesday when members of a
French anti-unemployment group demanded the right to free travel to Nice.
Police were called to the Gare de Lyon in Paris and to stations in half a
dozen other cities when the demonstrators tried to block ticket offices
and tracks. One group that boarded a Nice-bound train was violently
ejected by police at Valence.
About 50,000 mainstream trade unionists from the 15 EU countries marched
through Nice yesterday to demand protections for workers' rights, but the
"counter-summit" proper will begin today, with demonstrations and
conferences that will allege that the EU is an ultra-liberal Trojan horse
for globalisation.
Several of the anti-globalist leaders prominent in Seattle will attend,
including the French small farmers' leader, Jos Bov.
Unlike Prague and Geneva, sites of the last two anti-globalist jamborees,
Nice has declared it intends to continue business as usual. The Gaullist,
but former National Front, mayor of the city, Jacques Peyrat, dismissed
the counter-summit as an "extravagant hotch-potch of protest".
The decision to hold the summit in Nice was taken by the French President,
Jacques Chirac, against the wishes of Lionel Jospin, the Prime Minister,
who feared that the city's far-right tradition and the far-left
demonstrations might prove an explosive mix.
French national authorities will police the event, not Mr Peyrat. A no-go
zone has been drawn around the summit itself, and there are efforts to
prevent some demonstrators from reaching Nice; a train booked by Italian
anarchists was cancelled on Tuesday and the EU's Schengen open-borders
agreement is being suspended at the Italian-French frontier for four days
to allow police to refuse entry to anyone seen as a likely trouble-maker.
"Nice is not, and will not be, under a state of siege," declared Jean-Rene
Garnier, the Prefect (senior national government official) of the
Alpes-Maritimes dpartement, who will be leading the security operation in
Nice.
======================
World Socialist Web Site
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/dec2000/nice-d07.shtml
European Union summit in Nice shrouded in controversy
By Peter Schwarz 7 December 2000
The European Union summit beginning today in Nice has long been considered
crucial for determining the future development of Europe. It is set to
initiate the accession of further member-states starting in 2003. The EU
would thus grow from its present 15 members to 20, and finally to 27 or
more. It would then extend from the Atlantic in the west to the borders
with Russia, White Russia and the Ukraine in the east.
If the summit ends in failure, the expansion to the East will be put off
indefinitely or will fail. Even if the conference succeeds, the
accomplishment of eastern expansion is not by any means guaranteed;
numerous political and economic obstacles remain.
The focus of the Nice summit is the reform of the EU institutions. The
decision-making structures are to be tightened up, the larger states given
more weight and the veto-right of individual members limited. If the
present rules were retained, the entry of many relatively smaller and
economically weak countries would either paralyse the EU completely, or
the smaller countries could outvote the larger ones.
CONTROVERSY BETWEEN GERMANY AND FRANCE
While in principle agreement prevails over the necessity for reform, every
attempt to carry it out upsets the unstable equilibrium within the EU and
unleashes fierce conflicts. In the long run, it is not a matter of
administrative regulations, but of political influence and power.
In particular, sharp tensions between Germany and France arose on the eve
of the summit, feeding speculation about a possible failure. The central
point at issue is the weighting of the votes in the Council of Ministers.
The actual EU decision-making centres presently comprise the Council of
Ministers - made up of the respective specialist ministers of the
individual member countries - as well as the Council of government chiefs
and heads of state. Currently the four largest countries - Germany,
Britain, France and Italy - each have 10 votes and the smaller countries
less, down to Luxembourg with just two votes.
If this remained unchanged, after the accession of 12 new member-states,
Germany, Britain, France and Italy would have only 40 of some 134 votes in
the Council of Ministers, although almost half the entire EU population
resides in these countries.
Germany in particular is pushing for relative population levels to be more
strongly reflected in the future distribution of votes. With over 80
million inhabitants, Germany is the most densely populated EU country,
followed by Britain, France and Italy with almost 60 million each. The
ÒItalian proposal", inspired by the German government, foresees that in
the future Germany would have 33 votes, and the other three large
countries 30 each. The scale goes down to three votes for Luxembourg.
This suggestion encountered vociferous resistance in France. It runs
counter to the principle of Franco-German parity, which has formed a basic
condition of the process of European integration since the 1950s.
Speaking to the National Assembly, France's European Affairs Minister
Pierre Moscovici pointed out that de Gaulle and Adenauer had agreed on an
"eternal equilibrium" of the two states. The equality of France and
Germany's votes in the Council of Ministers has never been based on
demographic equality. When the treaty of Rome was signed in 1957 -
establishing the European Economic Community (EEC), predecessor to the EU
- the respective populations of France and Germany were 45 and 57 million.
The dispute has gone beyond the bounds of diplomatic etiquette. French
Foreign Minister Hubert VŽdrine accused his German counterpart Joschka
Fischer of "rabble rousing". Speaking in Madrid, President Chirac recalled
the many French dead who had fallen in wars with Germany, "until two men -
de Gaulle and Adenauer - thought that things could not continue in this
way, and concluded a pact of equals." He added that Germany's larger
population was balanced by the fact that France possesses nuclear weapons.
Berlin acted with restraint in public, but in background discussions with
the media denounced Paris. Chirac was accused of using the French
presidency of the European Union in order to promote France's national
interests, instead of preparing a compromise settlement for the summit.
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder even undertook a round trip, in order to win
other governments to the German point of view.
Along with the ÒItalian proposal" Berlin would also accept the principle
of a "double majority". According to this, a measure would pass if it is
supported both by the majority of the member states and by a majority of
the EU's population. But France rejected this solution, since it would
further increase German predominance.
Despite the harsh disputes in the run-up to the summit, it is hardly to be
expected that it will fail on this question. Too much is at stake for the
German government, since it has the greatest interest in a rapid expansion
of the EU to the east. German trade with the entry candidates already
exceeds that with the USA and Canada. With eastern expansion, Germany
finally moves politically into the centre of Europe, while France is
pushed to the edge. Moreover, a failure at the summit threatens a further
collapse of the euro and the stock markets.
The German government has signalled that it can live with French parity in
the Council of Ministers. But has added that in this case, other countries
might also ask for more votes. "I cannot accept a distribution of votes,"
Chancellor Schroeder told German news weekly Der Spiegel, "that would give
Spain or later Poland - if you only think of their respective gross
domestic products - just as many votes as Germany, which possesses twice
the number of inhabitants. That is not on, everything would fall apart at
the seams."
The force with which the argument over the distribution of votes is being
conducted makes clear how much the Franco-German relationship has changed
in the last 10 years. Whereas after German reunification the Kohl
government still took French reservations into consideration and respected
the principle of equilibrium, the Schroeder-Fischer government now
unashamedly calls for German primacy to be acknowledged.
FURTHER CONFLICTS
The distribution of votes in the Council of Ministers is not the only
cause for conflict threatening failure at the Nice summit. The future size
of the Commission and the restriction of the veto-right have also
unleashed controversy.
The Commission, responsible for a 17,000-strong authority with a budget of
80 billion euros ($70.4bn), presently has 20 members. The five largest EU
states each have two Commissioners, with the 10 smaller states having one
each. Proposals to reduce the size of the Commission, which has been
afflicted by numerous corruption scandals, have failed so far because of
the resistance of the smaller states, who would no longer retain direct
representation.
In order to prevent a further ballooning of the Commission, each of the
five larger countries would lose one of their Commissioner posts, which
would then be available for the new members. As a second step, a rotation
principle is to be introduced, according to which all members would
temporarily forgo their own Commissioner. But this proposal is also
disputed. The smaller member-states are suspicious that Berlin, Paris and
London are only prepared to take such a step because they want to weaken
the Commission and strengthen the Council of Ministers where they
dominate.
The national veto-right directly concerns the EU's ability to act. At
present, the EU treaty still designates 72 points requiring unanimity, and
the Council of Ministers can only make decisions if no country uses its
veto. One aim of the summit is to increase the instances where decisions
can be reached by a majority - especially in matters of foreign and
domestic policy, law and security issues. This is a basic condition if
Europe is to be able to act as an independent and cohesive force in world
affairs.
So far all undertakings in this direction have failed because of the
reservations of individual members. Germany and France insist in upholding
their veto in asylum and immigration questions; Britain and Denmark insist
on theirs when it comes to tax matters; Spain, Portugal and Greece want it
for decisions regarding billions-worth of structural funds; Germany,
Denmark and Spain say it must stay for social policies, etc. Britain is
altogether sceptical about the transfer of decision-making powers to the
EU. While it endorsed expansion to the east - because it sees this as a
counterweight to the Franco-German axis - it wants to keep the EU
institutions weak wherever possible.
THE FUTURE OF THE EU
The strains surrounding EU reform that preceded the Nice summit - which
will probably determine its course - reflect sharp political and social
tensions in Europe.
For a long time, the process of European integration has developed under
two countervailing forces: the intra-European rivalries on the one hand,
and the conflict between Europe and America on the other. Since the
signing of the Treaty of Rome, every step towards greater economic and
political integration has been accompanied by bitter eruptions of national
interests, which often delayed it for many years. On the other hand,
European governments were always ready to sacrifice national interests to
European integration if relations with the USA were particularly strained.
In the 1970s, the ending of the post-war Bretton Woods monetary agreements
by the USA provoked the first great thrust for integration. The original
six EEC members were extended to include Britain, Denmark and Ireland,
there were regular meetings of the Council of Europe, the introduction of
a directly elected European parliament and a European monetary union.
At the start of the 1990s, the end of the Cold War meant a loosening of
the ties between Europe and the USA. A new wave of integration followed.
In 1992 the Maastricht Treaty foresaw completion of European economic and
monetary union by 1999 at the latest. The year 1994 began with membership
requests from Hungary and Poland, starting the process of EU expansion to
the east. Since then not only has the common currency became a reality,
Europe has also taken great strides in setting up its own army and is
increasingly competing with the USA as a major power.
This has intensified the tensions inside Europe. The large and
economically strongest countries - above all Germany - are throwing their
weight round, at the expense of the weaker members. This is a significant
consideration in the reforms planned in Nice. Above all, however, social
tensions are intensifying.
Ordinary people have long regarded the EU's institutions as doing the
dirty-work for the transnational corporations and financial markets, which
set the tone in today's modern, global economy. An anonymous and in no way
democratically legitimised authority implements regulations and measures
that effect the lives of millions and drive forward welfare cuts and
deregulation.
Social tensions will intensify with the expansion to east. The descending
social gradient between west and eastern Europe is enormous. The economic
power of all the entry candidates together only comprises seven percent of
the EU's gross domestic product. In the east, wages are far lower and
unemployment far higher than the current EU average.
In contrast to when the southern European countries joined, the EU will
not be able to lessen this downward gradient by paying out generous
subsidies. Quite the opposite is the case. The EU is insisting upon fiscal
discipline and liberalisation, which will cost millions of people
dependent on backward agriculture or outdated factories their livelihoods.
Unemployment and low wages in the east will be used as a lever to lower
workers' living standards in the west. At the same time, the costs of
eastern expansion will drain the finances for paying subsidies in the
west.
One thing concerning the governments meeting in Nice, and intensifying the
controversy over reforming the EU, is how this can be pushed through
against the mass of the population.
So far it has mainly been nationalist and right-wing populist forces that
have sought to capitalise on opposition to the EU - Joerg Haider's
Austrian Freedom Party, Umberto Bossi's Northern League in Italy, Edmund
Stoiber's Christian Social Union in Germany, right and leftwing
nationalists in France, and the Tories in Britain. Chirac's hardline
stance before the summit can be attributed to the fact that elections will
soon be taking place in France. Neither Chirac nor his rival Prime
Minister Lionel Jospin can drop their guard as both confront nationalists
within their own camps. Moreover, Chirac is further exposed due to an
ongoing corruption scandal.
Failure at the Nice summit would put wind in the sails of rightwing
forces. Success would strengthen the authoritarian and undemocratic
structures of the EU. The only way out of this vicious circle is via an
initiative from below - by a common offensive of the European working
class with the aim of constructing the Socialist United States of Europe.
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