It is time for Europeans to consider dropping out of the European Union

I can remember back to the election of SY.RIZ.A./ ΣΥΡΙΖΑ and the high hopes the electorate had that this party would bring relief from the austerity measures inflicted on that country for national loans. But within days the negotiations stopped and the people of Greece had been stabbed in the back as the SY.RIZ.A party relented and agreed to austerity measure that were hardly different from those before the election.

They could blame the SY.RIZ.A. but chances are that was just part of the problem. The real problem may be that Greece is part of the European Union. As long as Greece belongs to that governing institution it may not matter who they vote for. Small countries as Greece just don't have the autonomy they once had as an independent country. They are like the State of Kansas were I live in the US. The Federal Government has more authority over Kansas citizens that state politicians. It's not much difference from member countries in the EU.

So maybe the real solution is to pull out of the EU.

In parts of Europe that idea is taking root. The following is from Democracy and Class Struggle:

"By refusing to join the EU Norwegian workers and trade unions have enjoyed many an advantage over their British counterparts.

Now they want Britain to follow their example and leave the union, writes DOUG NICHOLLS

Trade Unionists Against the EU has been invited to several trade union conferences in Europe and received best wishes from workers’ organisations throughout the continent.

Perhaps not enough has been done over the last three decades to link up in solidarity with our nearest neighbours in the EU as they have faced the full wrath of EU neoliberalism.

We sent a delegate to respond to the request of Greek unions to share our views. They strongly concluded, as reported in the Morning Star previously, that as a smaller economy with acute EU-related difficulties there was only so much they could do alone to resist the beast, and now they were looking to British workers to be resolute and campaign for a vote to leave the EU.

French workers face a fundamental threat to their Labour Code mirroring the attack on us through the Trade Union Bill and reflecting the EU wide attempt to sweep away workers’ and trade union rights and particularly collective bargaining."

For the rest clickhere.

And Democracy and Class Struggle have posted many other attacks on EU member ship. For example:

"One of the main faults of the “Social Democrats” of the 2nd International (apart from backing the “Great War”) was their failure to understand the nature of the State.  ( Jeremy Corbyn is making the  same mistake in 2016)

The view of Scientific Socialists,  (Marxist/Leninists) is that the state is not a neutral body assisting government but is an instrument by which one class imposes its rule over another. This applies to the capitalist state and the state under socialism.

“The state is the product and the manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms”(p.12 The State and Revolution” V I Lenin.

Many advances in Social Services, Pensions, Health Care and Education have also blurred the perception of the British State.

However, these advances can easily be lost as we have seen recently, exposing the true nature of the bourgeois state its laws, police, civil service and judiciary.

How then should we view the role of the European Union, its institutions and political direction?"

Since being agreed in 1957 and established in 1958, the “Common Market” or The Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (TEEC) “Treaty of Rome” there have been many incremental and insidious changes.

For the rest click here.

In the more mainstream press Matthew Schofield has written, for McClatchy, about the end of the EU in an article called "Europe’s hope for unity fading as it confronts rising discontent."

In his article he looks at several countries where anti-EU sentiments run high. He writes:

"Iain Begg, an EU expert at the London School of Economics, said the future of the EU is at best complicated. While he doubted that the EU would allow other nations to renegotiate their deal with the union, “the U.K. deal has the potential to weaken the commitment of the EU as a whole to maintaining, let alone deepening, integration.”

And the EU might not be the end of it.

In a paper published Wednesday, Paul J.J. Welfens, president of the European Institute for International Economic Relations in Germany, blamed Germany’s open-door refugee policy for hastening European disintegration and giving a boost to the British campaign to desert the union.

“If the EU continues to be destabilized, the next field of instability will be NATO,” he wrote, referring to the military alliance that also includes Canada and the United States. “That would be highly dangerous.”

Other articles are popping up on this subject as well. It may be time Europeans to seriously look at leaving the EU. This is especially true of Marxist revolutionaries who may find that changing one small country is way easier than trying to bring about change within the EU.

Even Marxists I know are reluctant to support ending participation in the EU. They look to all the so called "advantages' and the "nationalist arguments" and insist this can't be done. But from a revolutionary perspective I think it needs to begin.

-សតិវ​អតុ

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