By François Vercammen
In June, European leaders will meet in Amsterdam to amend the Maastricht Treaty, reform the institutions of the European Union, fix the details of east European membership in the EU and approve steps towards common domestic and foreign policy.
This will be the last in a series of inter-governmental conferences designed to fix the strategy for the next wave of European integration, including the creation of a common currency between a number of core states before the end of the century.
The December 1996 Euro-summit meeting in Madrid coincided with the first major social movement against the neo-liberal logic of the Maastricht Treaty for monetary union: a massive public sector strike in France.
While the events in France opened the first cracks in the neo-liberal consensus, the west European labour movement has remained perplexed and largely silent about "Europe".
The European Trade Union Confederation is dominated by conformism and apathy concerning the project. It has striven to mobilise concerned workers, but without challenging the Maastricht criteria, which underpin and "justify" cuts and attacks across Europe.
With the top of the labour movement still trying to square the circle, a modest collection of trade union representatives, unemployed groups, social movements and radical left currents met in Turin to try to provoke some kind of reaction in the labour movement.
We met again in Florence in June 1996, where we launched a brief appeal and a proposal: coordinated marches across Europe, converging in Amsterdam at the same time as the inter-governmental conference.
March organisers knew that behind the official discourse, European unification was beset by monetary and political contradictions. The process of capitalist integration could not be painless and straightforward.
We also realised that Europe's persistent mass unemployment had created a "new" and explosive social question in the "rich" countries. Official figures report 18 million unemployed EU residents. A further 18 million work part time but would rather work full time.
The challenge was to find the lever that would shift this enormous question into the centre of European societies, something the official structures of the labour and social movements were not doing. We wanted to provoke a reaction corresponding to the size of the problem.
The collective which formed around the "Marches against Unemployment, Exclusion and Insecurity" project was exceptional for three reasons.
First, there was a strong moral commitment on an issue around which we could legitimately demand a radical change in the priorities of the labour and social movement, a change to concentrate on the social aspects of integration, rather than the single currency.
Secondly, the marginalised and excluded were at the centre of this coalition. It brought together all those who were ready to act — young and old, immigrant and Europe-born, in work and out of work — and was supported by activists from a wide range of trade unions, and the ecological, feminist and anti-racist movements. The breadth of such a grouping incarnated our radical critique of neo-liberal policies and the desire for a more egalitarian world.
Thirdly, it was an all-European coalition.
In February 1997, more than 600 people participated in the Brussels assembly which launched the marches. By then we had a committee in each of the 15 member states, as well as Norway and Switzerland.
More than half the participants at Brussels were from groups that almost never dominate public meetings: homeless people, immigrants without legal documents, unemployed people, including many whose benefits had expired.
The tone of the meeting was set by representatives of the striking Liverpool dockers, workers from the Belgian steelworks Forges de Clabecq (threatened with closure) and a representative of the French "immigrants without papers movement".
After discussing the participants' various forms of struggle and demands, the assembly began to elaborate common demands: a tax on top fortunes, equality for women workers, a shorter working week, special measures for young people and so on.
Participants agreed on 18 main marches, converging on Amsterdam, with local welcome committees along the route; activities targeting job centres, schools, universities and town halls; public meetings and debates; and festivals.
It was not easy to establish a common program because of the very varied social contexts and political backgrounds, values and priorities of the participants. There were disagreement about the details, and even about the basic aims of the campaign, but consensus was slowly reached.
Participants stressed that the march committees should launch a debate, within the march movement and in the wider labour movement, about alternatives that could be proposed to the current EU policies.
Some currents and individuals saw the marches mainly as a chance to transmit radical opinions to a wider audience. Others reflected the desire of a new generation of militants for clear socialist goals and demanded greater precision in the platform of the movement.
While the forces actively involved in the project were almost all from the most radical part of the social movement, the platform documents were very broad and open, aimed at all those who had previously supported or accepted the supposed necessity of the Maastricht process, while struggling to oppose the its antisocial consequences.
The clear goal was to defeat, or damage, the Maastricht process and the EU integration plans. There was a chance that the marches would provoke an echo among more important currents in the labour movement, as more and more people became critical of the EU's neo-liberal policies.
The leaders of the political and labour wings of social democracy face a terrible dilemma. If they continue to support the EU and monetary union, they will have to confront a growing section of their membership who are realising that the Maastricht convergence criteria mean neo-liberalism.
As European integration intensifies, it provokes more synchronised labour and social struggles than ever before, particularly in the more active sectors of the labour movement and in the core countries: France, Germany, Belgium and Holland.
Trade union bosses and social democratic politicians can try to take charge of these rumblings from below, but they can't do so without challenging elements of their previous support for integration, Maastricht and the euro. The longer they hesitate, the more discredited they will be.
In the final weeks of the pre-march preparations, organisers have adopted a double strategy. First, they have created a synergy with labour struggles, such as around the closure of the Clabecq forge and a Renault car plant in Belgium. At the same time, the EuroMarch collectives have maintained an open-spirited attitude towards the broader labour movement in order to win over those sectors of workers which are beginning to recognise the disastrous effects of the Maastricht process and draw conclusions about the consequences for labour strategy and demands.
The demand, that unemployment and a reduced working week without loss in pay take centre place in European policy debates, can be the basis for a convergence of dissatisfied sectors of the labour and socialist movements.
[Abridged from International Viewpoint.]