WHEN BRITAIN JOINED THE Common Market - or 'European Economic Community" (EEC) as it is more formally known - at the beginning of 1973 leading capitalist circles proclaimed it as the answer to all the ills of British capitalism.
But today, instead of proving to be a gold mine for British business, the EEC is itself racked with crisis and its very existence is threatened.
The growing difficulties of the EEC canie to a head in the so-called "oil crisis', during which the various countries making up the EEC were unable either to agree on a common policy or to negotiate a joint agreement with the oil producing countries.
But the rot hassunk even deeper. The breakdown of the arrangements that governed the relations between the various national currencies in the Market, the dramatic decision of Denmark and Italy to control imports from fellow-EEC countries (thus defeating one of the fundamental aims of the Market), and the decision of the Labour Government in Britain to Tenegotiate" the terms of Britain's membership, are the latest nails in the EEC's coffin.
SHAKY
To understand the crisis which is now rocking the EEC we must understand just what the Common Market represents. It is a limited, and therefore shaky, arrangement between nine imperialist countries that goes part way towards linking up their various economies.
These countries decided to permit the free trade of goods, and the free movement of investment capital within the Market. But they did not extend these measures to include the creation of a common EEC currency. Nor did they give the economic measures lite essential political backing of a common capitalist state or a common government.
The political institutions that do exist within the Common Marker are phony. The 'Commission' (which is supposed to represent the interests of the EEC 'as a whole', as against the particular interests of individual countries) has no real power except with repard to questions of trade and Investment.
The real power within the Common Market is the 'Council of Ministers. This body, made up of government ministers trom the member countries, is necessarily a hodgepodge reflecting all the different national interests in the Market. countries, rather than by creating real multi-national giants.
Thus the devclopment of big business beyond national boundaries has not reached the pout where the various national' groups of capitalists leg those of Britain, France, or Germany) have lost their power and influence to multi-national giants without any national "homeland'.
This is the big problem facing the Common Market. It is an institution set up over and above the various nations that belong to it, but it lacks any state power to back up its "supernational tasks.
Worsestill, it finds itself in this MARKET German premier Schmidt together with French president Giscard d'Estaing — who will foot the bill?
time try to come to grips with the real multi-national furns (carrying plane and controlled Jointly by and of those firms whose business operations are spread throughout several countries, eren though they country. genuine multi-national firms. Only such a body could effectely defend their varied interests and at the same economic crisis. This is true both of countries. on their business on the international several national groups of capitalists)
are owned by capitalists from a single For example, the interests of the Philips electronics monopoly could sions. not be defended by measures taken in its homeland (Holland/ alone. For them an effective policy for the crisis would have to be a policy followed in all mine of the Common Market However, given the absonce of any such superstate, the ruling classes of the various European countrics must make do with what they have, The more serious the crisis that cach of them lace, the more pressure there will be on them to junk the Common Market and "do their own thing' as The only real alternative is to do nothing at all.
RECESSION
Given the relatively strong pos ition of the organised workers" move ment in every European capitalist country, it is out of the question tha any capitalist class could just stand by and let the economic crisis biow Its top, producing massive unemploy ment and all the social upheavals tha would involve. Such an attitude would provoke struggles between workers and capitalists that would quickly take on revolutionary dimen The upshot of all this is that the Common Market could only survive a serious economic recession if it had first been able to turn itself into a real European government by the Lime the recession hit.
But it has already missed the bus An cconomic recession is now under wuy in most of the main capitalist countries. It in already serious in the United States, and has bemin in Brit ain, Italy and Japan. West Germany is teetering on the brink. France is the only one that has yet to be hit.
Unemployment is on the rise throughout the imperialist countries In the winter of 1970 a record was set with a tolal of 10 million jobless in the umperialse countries. The win ter of this year will almost certainly see this figure topped, with unemplo ment probably hitting the 15 mon Under these conditions, lacking a "superstate" (or even the firm beginnings of one), it was inevitable that the capitalist class throughout the Common Market would turn to anticrisis economic policies on the nation al level, adopting new protectionist тезиса шеса ca acren папон: capitalists from foreign competition Denmark and Italy have taken the Jead here The Governments of there countries have effcctively placed limite on imports. These are directed not just at imports i general, but especsily at imports from their Common Market "partner"
'ACCIDENT'
Some capitalist economic experts suggest that the present crisis is tex ceptional". just a "temporary accident touched off by the so-called oil crisis". Te is this last factor which is said to have upset the economies of several Europcan countries (Britain Italy and Francel by pushing up the bill for oil imports, and thus creating