Social Europe Journal Vol. 2 No. 4

Social Europe

Volume 2 • Issue 4 Spring 2007 Suggested Donation 5₏

the journal of the european left

Contributions by Lowell Turner Detlev Albers Henning Meyer Marina Kargalova Peter Bofinger Anatol Lieven Jo Leinen Jan Kreutz Richard Corbett

www.social-europe.com

Dimensions of the European Social Model An initiative by the Party of European Socialists

Social Europe the journal of the european left • Volume 2 • Issue 4 • Spring 2007

Editorial Board Detlev Albers Chief Editor Giuliano Amato Italian Interior Minister, Former Prime Minister Karl Duffek Director Renner Institute Please make sure that there are more issues of ‘Social Europe: the journal of the european left’ by paying the suggested 5€ donation for this issue or become a Sponsor Member. Visit our website www.social-europe.com for more details and payment options.

Thank you very much!

‘Social Europe: the journal of the european left’ is published by the Global Policy Institute at London Metropolitan University.

Elisabeth Guigou French MP, Former French Europe and Justice Minister Zita Gurmai President PES Women Stephen Haseler Chief Editor Poul Nyrup Rasmussen President of the PES Angelica Schwall-Dueren Vice Chair SPD Bundestag Group Giuseppe Vacca President Gramsci Foundation Jan Marinus Wiersma Vice President Socialist Group European Parliament Henning Meyer Managing Editor

Editorial team Ben Eldridge & Ian Gardiner Design & Layout In co-operation with:

Ruth Davis & Katerina Hadjimatheou Sub-editors

Friends Jean-Marc Ayrault, Stefan Berger, Antony Beumer, Matt Browne, Proinsias De Rossa, Harlem Désir, Guglielmo Epifani, Patrick Diamond, Antonio Guterres, David Held, Andrea Manzzella, Jacques Reland, Donald Sassoon, Adrian Severin, Martin Schulz, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Livia Turco, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, Christoph Zöpel

Social Europe the journal of the european left • Volume 2 • Issue 4 • Spring 2007

Editorial T

Henning Meyer Managing Editor

HE EUROPEAN SOCIAL Model (ESM) is a shared political value calling for the collective protection of life risks. There are however many different national routes for the implementation of this value and each version has got its strengths and weaknesses. The ESM thus has many dimensions that need to be understood independently before one can conceptualise it on the supranational level in any meaningful way.

In this issue, we investigate a variety of thematic dimensions of the ESM focussing on the role of trade unions, the interaction between the ESM and Globalisation as well as the concept of the Social Market Economy. By doing so, we also invited some outside views – in this case from Lowell Turner from Cornell University and Marina Kargalova from the Russian Academy of Sciences – which bring in valuable insights and prevent the debate from becoming too Eurocentric. The future of the ESM will depend as much on the wider world than on inner-European issues; therefore it is becoming increasingly important that political debates about social policy are led on a global scale.

Several articles of this issue were also presented to the 2nd international conference on the ESM that took place in Rome in May 2007. Social Europe

Journal was co-organiser of this conference, but we would like to thank the people – above all Marco Ricceri from EURISPES and Michael Braun from the Friedrich Ebert Foundation – who did most of the work for this excellent event. This conference also saw the launch of the international ‘Network Social Europe’ (further details at www.global-policy.com/ index.php?id=network) which will further increase international cooperation in the study of the ESM. Additionally to the ESM related articles, Anatol Lieven starts our debate about foreign and security policy – which will be the focal point of the next Social Europe issue – with his outstanding contribution and Jo Leinen/Jan Kreutz and Richard Corbett provide us with the latest views from the European Parliament on the vital issues of European citizenship and the future of the Constitutional Treaty.

Last but not least, we have successfully launched our ‘Social Europe Blog’ (www.blog.social-europe.eu) which is a new space for up-todate political debate where every reader has a role as commentators herself/himself. It is normally updated several times a week, so please join our debates and make it a lively place for political discourse.

Social Europe the journal of the european left • Volume 2 • Issue 4 • Spring 2007

Contents 147

Advantages of Backwardness: Lessons for Social Europe from the American Labour Movement Lowell Turner

154 160

The European Social Model and Participation Detlev Albers

164 167 171 179

A Russian Perspective On The European Social Model Marina Kargalova

183

Thinking Globally: The Reform of the European Social Model is also a Reform of Globalisation Henning Meyer

The Social Market Model in a Globalised Economy Peter Bofinger On the Marriage of Progress and Realism Anatol Lieven The Evolution of a European Citizenship: From a Europe of States to a Europe of Citizens Jo Leinen and Jan Kreutz Britain and the Constitutional Treaty Richard Corbett

Click on the flags for links to foreign language versions

Advantages of Backwardness: Lessons for Social Europe from the American Labour Movement

T

Lowell Turner Professor of Collective Bargaining at the School for Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR) at Cornell University

HE EUROPEAN UNION has many admirers around the world, including here in the United States, in the neoliberal heartland. Many of us view the idea, if it is not always the reality, of Social Europe as a benchmark for human-centered economic integration in a global economy.

We look to our ‘old European’ friends for inspiration, as we endure the collapse of our own lame-duck regime and look to a better future.

Yet we know all is not well in Social Europe. Social democrats and trade unionists struggle to impose a social model on what is essentially a project of market integration. Social standards are inadequate at the European level, even as they are weakened at the national level. The pages of this and other journals are filled with criticism of the underdeveloped levels of democracy, inclusion, legitimacy, and

‘Progressive reforms are dependent to a significant extent on the strength of trade unions and their capacity to promote standards and reform policy, at local, national, regional and international levels’ 147 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

labour and social standards as the European project proceeds – or more recently, stalls. Experts, officials and activists call for reforms in all these areas, to embed social rights and standards more deeply in processes of economic integration.

It is not my intent to enter these discussions by way of policy recommendations or suggestions for reform. The last thing Europeans need at this point in history is more Americans telling them how to do things.

What I do want to suggest, however, is that progressive reforms, whether in Europe, the U.S., or anywhere else, are dependent to a significant extent on the strength of trade unions and their capacity to promote standards and reform policy, at local, national, regional and international levels, based not only on a defense of existing standards but also on a vision of expanded democratic participation in political, economic and social decision-making processes of all kinds. The weakened influence of unions in so many countries around the world, including Europe, is a major factor that has permitted the spread of what Joseph Stiglitz and others have called ‘market fundamentalism’, and at the same time limited the potential expansion of social standards.

In the crisis of declining union influence, the United States has played a vanguard role. The weakness of labour in the U.S. has opened the door to the neoliberal policies developed here and then imposed on the global economy. More recent efforts to revitalise the labour movement aim, among other things, to reverse such policies. In suffering union decline and grappling for new strategies, we have what Alexander Gerschenkron once called the ‘advantages of backwardness’. Ironically, European unions and social democrats can perhaps derive lessons not only from our failures but also from our efforts to turn the tide.

Institutional change

While employer opposition and government policy drove union decline in the U.S., unions must also bear responsibility for their inadequate strategic response.

The institutional literature, including its latest ‘varieties of capitalism’ incarnation, obscures the fact that New Deal institutions once incorporated American unions in a recognized position within the political economy. Labour movement upsurge in the 1930s drove institution building and processes of inclusion – never as strong as postwar social partnership relationships in northern Europe but quite substantial nonetheless.

What can be won, however, can also be lost. This is the challenge now facing many European unions, as membership declines along with economic and political influence, even in countries where unions remain anchored in strong labour institutions.

Thus a varieties-of-capitalism breakaway literature on institu-

tional change, associated, for example, with the work of Wolfgang Streeck and Kathleen Thelen, identifies the incremental hollowing out of once strong institutions of social policy and economic regulation. Over time, incremental changes at the national level lead to transformation, in ways hardly favourable to the building of a social Europe.

In a market economy, labour and social institutions I would argue need periodic revitalization through pressure from the grassroots. The social movements of the 1960s, for example, applied pressure that strengthened national labour institutions, most dramatically in Italy but in Germany and other countries as well, and opened the door for a period of social activism in the 1970s at the European level.

One problem for contemporary social institutions and policies of the E.U. is that they have been built up over the past 15 years without the pressure of grassroots mobilization. For labour such institutions include, for example, the welcome expansion of the European Trade Union Confederation and the spread of European works councils – but largely from the top down. In a 1996 article in the European Journal of Industrial Relations, I called this ‘structure without action’. The argument, and the hope, was that European-level labour structures would open the door for the grassroots engagement necessary to breathe life into the new institutions. Examples today include recent Europe-wide actions organised through the European Works Council at General

148 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

Motors. For the most part, however, European-level labour institutions have remained structures without enough grassroots action.

Proponents of social Europe have argued, in the pages of this journal and elsewhere, for expanded social rights, codetermination, a better balance between democracy and economic progress, a clearer vision for the European society of the future and its role in the global arena. These are grand ambitions for which success will surely require sustained struggle. Against great opposition in a context of global liberalization, real breakthroughs are unlikely without the active participation of large numbers of European workers and residents in campaigns for reform. And it is hard to imagine the mobilization of such participation in the absence of leadership from revitalized trade unions.

National strategies and grassroots mobilization

This is where the U.S. labour movement has lessons to offer.

The dubious distinction of early, sustained decline has driven unions to experiment with innovation. In the 1980s and 1990s, efforts to build firmlevel ‘labour-management cooperation’ largely failed, both to reform the workplace and to renew union strength.

Concessions and cooperation from a position of weakness did little to revive a continually declining labour movement.

More promising since the early 1990s have been comprehensive campaigns based on strategic union leadership, grassroots mobilisation and coalitions with other social actors.

Organising the unorganised is a central goal of many such campaigns. Given intense employer opposition to unions in the U.S., organising here is quite different from ‘in-fill’ in the U.K. or the recruitment of union members by works councilors in Germany. The latter two cases assume that unions already have a meaningful presence in the workplace, a reality that is less and less true as employment expands in weakunion sectors. In retail, hospitality, building services and information technology industries, for example, union presence is generally much weaker than in manufacturing. Private sector sales clerks, hotel housekeepers, security guards, cleaners and computer repair technicians are far less likely to belong to unions than are skilled factory workers, truck drivers, construction workers or public sector employees. At the same time, membership density even for the traditionally unionised is also dropping, in Europe as well as in the United States.

New strategies to rebuild union membership are necessary, both where unions have been strong and especially where unions are weak. Two examples from service sector organising in the U.S. illustrate possibilities based on innovative tactics and strategic, comprehensive campaigns. One is ‘Justice for Janitors’, a strategy developed at the national union headquarters of the SEIU (Service Employees International Union) when John Sweeney was president of that union in the 1980s. The campaign aimed to organise thousands of janitors, most of them working in large office buildings, on a city-by-city basis. Building

‘New strategies to rebuild union membership are necessary, both where unions have been strong and especially where unions are weak’ owners typically sub-contracted this work and claimed no responsibility for what in most cases were the extremely low wages and poor working conditions of the armies of workers who cleaned their buildings.

The key to the campaign was to frame the issue not simply as union organising but as a matter of social justice. The lavish wealth obvious in shiny corporate headquarters contrasted sharply with the poverty of the building services workforce.

With tactics borrowed from the civil rights movement, the union used the campaign to shine a bright light on the growing economic and social polarisation in American society. Details are many and much has been written on this case for those wanting more specifics, but the key elements include the following.

The national union brought the campaign to local unions in cities where conditions seemed right. The national office offered strategic guidance and a serious commitment of resources – money, staff, advice and other support. The local union used trained organisers to take the issues to the workers, who often responded with great enthusiasm. Demonstrations, rallies, support from churches, community and civil rights organisations: such tactics brought the campaign into the open to win over local politicians and garner

149 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

public support. Demands targeted building owners and large corporate tenants, insisting they take responsibility even though the workers who cleaned their offices were not technically their employees. Pressure came from many directions, including the ‘shaming’ of wealthy companies and their CEOs. In Denver in 1986, Los Angeles in 1990, and in many other cities including a recent breakthrough victory in largely non-union Houston, owners and contractors were brought to the table and forced to sign management neutrality agreements.

With employer opposition pushed aside, the union signed up thousands of janitors in each city case. The campaigns also resulted in spillover: in Los Angeles, for example, the Justice for Janitors victory became a launching pad for the revitalisation of the labour movement, now a powerful force in a city where unions had been significantly marginalized since the 1980s.

In Houston, Denver and Los Angeles, janitors are largely Latino, many of them recent immigrants from Mexico, and this is also true in other cities.

Union organising efforts blended with immigrant rights campaigns, offering a mechanism for the mobilisation of excluded low-wage workers and their integration into American socie-

ty. In a society of great inequality, not only between rich and poor but increasingly between the rich and everyone else, Justice for Janitors offers a campaign model in which the interests of low-wage workers coincide with broader struggles for a socially sustainable society, a ‘social America’ if we dare use that term.

A more recent example is the Hotel Workers Rising campaign of 2006. In the U.S., hotels are typically organised and collective bargaining takes place on a city-by-city basis, at individual hotels or in some cases with a local association of hotel employers (which includes some but not all hotels in a given city). Thus some Hyatt hotels are unionised and some non-union, and each hotel in each city confronts organising campaigns separately and at different times. Extreme decentralisation makes it extremely difficult for the union to organise workers or bargain contracts.

Over a period of several years, the union representing hotel workers, UNITE HERE, negotiated contracts set to expire in the same year, 2006, in a number of major cities in the U.S. and Canada, including New York City, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Honolulu and Toronto. San Francisco was already in the midst of a protracted struggle and was thus also included in the campaign.

The union crafted a national strategy, to be implemented city-by-city, with the implicit threat of a national strike or rolling strikes at particular firms or cities, supported by solidarity actions in other areas. In each city, the union developed alliances of support with social

actors, especially churches, immigrant rights groups, local politicians and elected officials, and with an extensive network of groups such as the Sierra Club, ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) and Jobs with Justice, itself a broad coalition of local unions and social justice organisations.

Because many hotel workers are housekeepers, most of them women working for low wages with few rights, many of them immigrants or AfricanAmericans, the union was in this case also able to frame the issue in terms of social justice.

Through press conferences, spirited rallies that drew large numbers of participants and attracted media coverage, through publicity within supporting religious, community and political organisations and by other means, the union was able to broadcast its message.

The great advantages of union representation were highlighted: for non-union hotels, wages typically not far above the legal minimum with no health care or pension benefits; at union hotels, even belonging to the same company and sometimes in the same city, twice the wages with full health and pension coverage and in some cases training rights as well.

Because most large urban hotels are owned by one of the major chains, and because profits are accumulated at national and even global scales, companies had long been able to take strike losses at single hotels or cities without undue loss. The union, therefore, targeted the major companies – Hilton, Starwood, Hyatt, Marriott – with simultaneous campaigns

150 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

across a range of large cities.

Demands included not only pay and benefit raises at unionised hotels but, most importantly, neutrality agreements which allow the union to sign up workers at non-union hotels without major employer opposition.

By the end of 2006, the campaign had achieved significant success. Beginning in New York City, where hotels are most heavily unionised, and moving across the country, UNITE HERE won impressive settlements for its members, gained public and political support, and signed up thousands of new members. In many cases, the union also won management neutrality agreements, opening the door for many more new members in 2007 and beyond.

Keys to victory included an innovative national strategy based on simultaneous campaigns across the country, led in each city by well trained staff committed on a full-time basis to the campaign; the active support of religious, community and other social actors as well as political organisations and officials; public support based on compelling demands for social justice; and grassroots mobilisation, the active participation of both union members and workers at non-union hotels, at demonstrations, informational picket lines and in ongoing organising efforts.

A final example concerns politics and election campaigns.

Although labour’s numbers are low, unions have over the past decade increasingly mobilised members and their families to get out the vote. Together with environmental, anti-war, community and local political organ-

isations, African-American and immigrant rights groups, internet activist organisations and other allies, unions contributed significantly to the election of a Democratic Congress in 2006.

And in a break with earlier practice, labour did so conditionally, case-by-case, based on explicit candidate support for labour’s agenda, from minimum wage to expanded health care coverage to fair trade (meaning trade agreements that include basic labour and social standards).

Most importantly for the future of unions and a litmus test for labour support, unions demanded candidate commitment to the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) legislation, designed to remove major employer-led barriers in the way of union organisation and growth. In the new Congress, the House of Representatives passed this critical piece of legislation soon after taking office in early 2007.

Although our current president would never sign such a bill, the groundwork is laid for a better outcome after the 2008 elections – for which unions will mobilise like never before. Again keys to success are national strategy and resources, local mobilisation, and broad alliances with other organisations.

A final note: many European unionists and social democrats are puzzled by the 2005 labour movement split, resulting in two major federations, the AFLCIO and Change to Win (CTW).

That story is too long to tell here. But the reality is that although SEIU and UNITE HERE (the unions that led Justice for Janitors and Hotel Workers Rising) are CTW unions and that federation has made the strongest commitment

to organizing, a parallel expansion of innovative organising is also on the agenda at the AFLCIO, including unions such as the Communication Workers of America (CWA) and the United Steelworkers (USW). And the two federations have worked together on the political front, each of them devoting massive resources to voter education and get-out-the-vote drives in the 2006 elections, with more to come in 2008. Both federations are actively campaigning for EFCA, with its promise to kick open the door for renewed union growth.

Transatlantic Social Dialogue

My argument is not that these organising and campaigning strategies are directly transferable to Europe – any more than we can adopt works councils legislation to strengthen labour’s hand any time in the foreseeable future. Rather I believe that new strategies, based on innovative activism on the part of unions and workers, perhaps drawing a few lessons and some inspiration from current union efforts in the U.S., could strengthen unions and thereby help to revitalise the social Europe project.

The British Trades Union Congress, for example, used lessons from U.S. organising

efforts to build an Organising Academy in the 1990s. Over the past two years, the Transport and General Workers Union has for the first time hired large numbers full-time organizers.

The T&G has also worked with SEIU in common efforts, to organise cleaners at Canary Wharf and in other campaigns.

In April of 2005, I attended a remarkable week-long conference called Never Work Alone, hosted in Hamburg by ver.di (the consolidated service workers union in Germany) and cosponsored by the Hans-BöcklerStiftung and the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University, organised together by ver.di and OrKa, a small consulting firm dedicated to the spread of organising and campaigning strategies among German unions. Activist-minded ver.di officials drew on an earlier successful campaign at the Schlecker drug store chain, a 1994-95 comprehensive effort – led by HBV (the banking, insurance and retail union that merged into ver.di in 2001) in Mannheim – that looked very much like Justice for Janitors and Hotel Workers Rising in the emphasis on innovative strategy, grassroots engagement and coalition building. Conference planners invited organisers from SEIU, UNITE HERE and CWA to

‘New strategies, perhaps drawing a few lessons and some inspiration from current union efforts in the U.S., could strengthen unions and thereby help to revitalise the social Europe project’

151 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

share experiences and offer lessons from their own successes in the U.S. It was clear that ver.di officials in attendance, including the national vice president, were impressed. Ver.di subsequently hired its first fulltime organisers, to target building security guards in Hamburg, and invited an SEIU organiser to spend a year working with them on the campaign.

Such experiences have also laid the groundwork for nascent transnational campaigns to organise workers in building services (cleaners, security guards and maintenance workers), food service (for cafeterias, workplaces, schools, stores), hotels and retail stores, aimed at multinational corporations doing business on both continents.

Although breakthroughs take time, organising and campaigning strategies offer possibilities for strengthening labour movements on both sides of the pond.

Labour and the revitalisation of social Europe

None of this is meant to imply that unions in the U.S. do not have more to learn from European unions than you do from us, from social policy to labour institutions and labour market regulation. In most countries, European unions have much stronger institutional anchors on which to build renewed union growth, if and when this becomes an organisational priority. In NordrheinWestfalen, for example, IG Metall has developed an innovative strategy based on proactive plant-level negotiation, ‘besser statt billinger’ initiatives, and member recruitment. The regional union in NRW considers the latter to be most crucial, the key

benchmark by which other strategies are evaluated. The heightened priority on membership growth is new for IG Metall, as it would be for many European unions. Aided by export strength and renewed economic growth, there are significant signs of success. The active training of works councilors and union members to recruit new members parallels the American emphasis on organising the unorganised, in a far more favourable context that includes institutional support and a tradition of union strength.

This is the kind of strategy that many more European unions could be taking.

An important point to repeat here is the emphasis, in the United States, on organising low-wage workers. This makes great sense in the U.S. given the vast ‘low road’ portion of our economic structure (from unprotected day labourers to Wal-Mart ‘associates’). Here again we have the advantages of backwardness, for what is now also a growing concern in Europe as inequality there increases. Union organising can raise the low-road threshold, improve living standards for millions of underpaid workers, and promote broader social integration. Especially important in the U.S. case is that so many of these low-wage workers are women, immigrants and from racial or ethnic minorities.

In the previous issue of Social Europe, Jürgen Habermas called for policies of inclusion for the growing numbers of immigrant and migrant workers and families in countries throughout the European Union and incidentally mentioned that Europeans can learn something from the

152 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

U.S. in this area. Union organising drives that target such workers are a potentially powerful mechanism for social inclusion.

Contrary to popular belief, organisers in the U.S. have found that immigrants and women are in fact more receptive to joining unions than native-born white male workers, when unions reach out to them.

This is also consistent with what we know about nativeborn African American workers, who have long been the most receptive population group in the U.S. when it comes to union organisation.

While low-wage workers are most in need of union representation and the civic integration that unions can offer, union organising and collective bargaining are also much needed in mid-range jobs, in health care, education, transportation, construction, telecommunications, light manufacturing and more.

Strategies must be appropriate for particular industries and occupations, but comprehensive campaigns of one kind or another have clearly demonstrated potential at many levels in the U.S. Thus efforts to organise nurses, bus drivers and flight attendants often look quite like the campaigns aimed at janitors and hotel housekeepers. It must be said that neither these nor any other strategic approaches have yet reversed the decline of the American labour movement.

Innovative organising and campaigning efforts, however, have breathed new life into the movement and offered the best chances for a revival of membership and influence.

The main point of this article is not to suggest that European unions adopt organising and

Independent Thinking from Polity Europe in the Global Age

Europe

Anthony Giddens The author argues that reform of the European social model is a matter of urgency and has to go hand in hand with the quest to regenerate economic growth. Life-style change has to be brought into the heart of what ‘welfare’ means and environmental issues must be directly connected to other citizenship obligations.

2006 | 176 pages | 978-0-7456-4012-9| Pb | £12.99

Global Europe, Social Europe Edited by Anthony Giddens, Patrick Diamond & Roger Liddle What future is there for Europe’s cherished social model? How will the EU deal with the competitive pressures coming from India, China and other industrialising countries? In this volume, leading contributors from a range of countries offer answers to these questions.

An Unfinished Adventure Zygmunt Bauman Bauman argues that despite the odds Europe still has much to offer in dealing with the great challenges that face us in the twenty-first century.

Through sharing its own hard-won historical lessons, Europe can play a vital role in moving from the Hobbesian-like world in which we find ourselves today towards the kind of peaceful unification of humanity that was once envisioned

by Kant.

2004 | 160 pages 978-0-7456-3403-6 Pb | £12.99

2006 | 320 pages | 978-0-7456-3935-2| Pb | £16.99

To order: phone Marston Book Services: + 44 (0) 1235 465500 For more information: email breffni.o’connor@oxon.blackwellpublishing.com

www.polity.co.uk campaigning strategies developed by unions in the U.S., except where such approaches make sense to leaders and activists. Rather, the central argument is that active grassroots participation, in political, economic and social reform projects, is an essential component for the revitalization of social Europe, and in such efforts innovative unions have an important role to play.

Transparency, electoral and institutional reforms, a constitution with clearly defined social rights, stronger directives and regulations for social and labour issues – all of these are important. Coming largely from the top down, however, such reforms are unlikely in themselves to relaunch a project of European integration that addresses not only the expan-

sion of internal markets and external influence but popular legitimacy and support as well.

In the development of new approaches that combine strategic leadership, grassroots engagement and broad social alliances, European unions and other social actors just may find useful lessons from the crisisdriven innovations of their counterparts across the sea.

153 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

The European Social Model and Participation* What are the Core Principles of the European Social Model?

Detlev Albers Professor of Politics at Bremen University

*In the English translation I use the word ‘participation’ for the term ‘Mitbestimmung’. Only when I refer to the equal representation of capital and work in advisory boards of big companies, I use the word ‘co-determination’, which catches more precisely the original meaning of the German word ‘Mitbestimmung’.

The so called ‘Bremer proposal’ for a new Party Programme of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) defines so clearly and briefly the core principles of the European social and societal model that I want to use them for this article. I am sure that the entire German EUPresidency, including the Christian Democracy part, agrees on these principles too.

In the ‘Bremer proposal’ it is said: ‘A developed and capable state, welfare systems for the protection of fundamental life risks, developed public services, stipulated work conditions as well as Participation and CoDetermination rights for employees are essential for all welfare states in Europe.’

It is mostly undisputed that both a developed and capable state and robust welfare systems need to be included into the European social model.

Also, public services and stipulated work conditions are normally counted in. Participation and Co-Determination rights for employees on the other hand do not attract so much attention. In the Anglo-Saxon area, they are sometimes completely ignored. This article wants to explicitly argue against such a shortcoming.

154 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

I deliberately focus my thoughts regarding the relevance of Participation in the European context on the question about the joint characteristics of the European social model. Hence, I am primarily interested in finding out what would be the advantage when the principles of Participation and Co-Determination would be extended into all parts of European welfare states.

Furthermore, which advantages would be gained when a consensus on such a step in terms of common objectives and activities could be reached among the different parties involved, notably the European trade unions? And finally, what kind of societal benefits could be expected on the EU level after such a consensus?

From this European angle, I want to begin outlining some principles of Participation as it is understood in Germany after Bremer labour economist Wolfgang Däubler had created the striking phrase ‘basic right of Participation’.

Excursus: the German Example

The special place the Participation principle receives in Germany must be linked to Germany’s social history in the 20th century. Only when one looks at the revolutionary onset

of the Weimar Republic in 1918/1919 and at the new beginning of Germany’s second republic, our federal republic today, which emerged after the catastrophes of Nazi Germany, it becomes clear how such extensive employment rights could evolve in Germany. It also explains why strong structures of interest representation and social partnership, which after 6 decades of dramatically economic upheaval and expansion still exist and even could partly be extended over time, developed.

After the collapse of the German empire in 1918 and also indirectly as an answer to the October Revolution in Russia, a double structure of interest representation within companies, so called works councils, which are elected by all employees and are bound to the ‘well-being’ of companies, and trade unions, which are responsible for all questions on collective bargaining policy, was established. Although an allembracing council concept quickly appeared impracticable, it nevertheless was obvious that the right to participation should not only be applied to private economy. Instead the Participation principle should also be applied to all public companies and administration,

thus to the state – from municipalities to state level – as well.

The foundation of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949 was overshadowed by the Cold War and Germany’s division.

Also, broad majorities of people, for example in Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia, voted in favour of the immediate nationalization of the primary industries when in each state referenda on the state constitutions took place. Even, the Western allies strived for a vast unbundling of these core industries. Only against such a backdrop, one can understand how in 1952 an agreement on co-determination based on equal representation in advisory boards of the coal and steel industry could be achieved.

This historical compromise between Konrad Adenauer and Hans Böckler soon became the symbol of the Participation principle in Western Germany.

Considering Participation in Germany from a European perspective, however, we can only properly understand its establishment in today’s Federal Republic by examining a number of further developments which have happened in the meantime since 1952. The division of interest representation between works councils and trade unions has proved its

‘EU directives on European incorporated companies, relocations of companies and cross-border fusions threaten to undermine Germany’s Co-Determination principle’ 155 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

value despite some rivalry-related problems; together with advisory boards they comprise senior managements of almost all big companies (since 1976 equal representation of capital and labour has to be guaranteed in all big incorporated companies although some exceptions apply). Apart from works councils, there are staff councils with roughly the same rights on each level of the state – in every federal ministry and administration, in all 16 states and in more than 16.000 municipalities.

Works councils and staff councils are normally closely linked to individual trade unions as well as to the Confederation of German Trade Unions (DGB).

They are used by the unions as their organisational basis in companies and administrations, whereas the councils can benefit from the fighting power of the unions.

The negative side however cannot be ignored. For years, business associations have fought against equal representation in advisory boards. EU directives on European incorporated companies, relocations of companies and cross-border fusions threaten to undermine Germany’s Co-Determination principle. I will come back to that point later. Moreover, the Participation rules for the working as well as the corporate level include a number of shortcomings, loopholes and infuriating concessions made to the capital side. One should also not keep quiet about the recent cases of outrageous corruptions of some works councils representatives by corporate managements. Of course, such cases will be picked by CoDetermination’s opponents to

question the whole principle of Participation.

In sum, we can say: The fundamental idea behind Participation in both the private and public sector in Germany is inseparably linked to other elements of the welfare state, for example to public services. ‘Democracy shall not end in front of companies’ doors’ – this slogan is almost unquestioned in Germany. One could add to that slogan: democracy shall also count for state administration by giving their employees Participation rights too. The principle of Participation has often served as a link to other parts of civil society, notably education and media. For example, the so called ‘group university’ arose out of the student movement of 1968 as a till then unknown form of institutional Participation of students and employees in universities’ selfadministration. Initiatives aiming at editorial Participation in the media, for instance in the weekly journal ‘Der Spiegel’, headed in the same direction.

But let us go back to our actual topic, Europe’s social structure and Participation. In the following paragraphs, I want to deal with the employees’ Participation rights as part of the European social model according to three aspects: firstly, the importance of the Participation principle within the European integration process; secondly, its relevance as regards to globalisation and thirdly, Participation’s contribution to the ecological question.

In conclusion, I want to develop a number of proposals deriving from the examination of the three aspects.

Participation within the European Integration Process

Since the accession of the Middle and Eastern European countries to the EU, the EU has been confronted with challenges, with which on that scale neither a democratic state nor a democratic entity like a state have dealt so far. The huge wealth and poverty gap between the EU member states (per head as well as on national average) is unprecedented in the Union’s history. The EU must therefore more than ever look for possibilities and mechanisms to strengthen and enhance social cohesion among its citizens.

The old ‘richer’ member states can not wait in times of globalisation till the new ‘poorer’ member states caught up.

Material redistribution between old and new member states, which is of course indispensable, is severely constrained.

A particular strength of Participation lies in that point – although I want to add that I do not want to suggest the other countries copying the German experience. However, we have to analyse the democratic construction logic behind the German example so that we can reveal its ‘European added value’. In my opinion, one general European added value of the German Participation principle is that it links a strong form of institutionalised and formalised employees’ Participation in companies and public administration to trade union organisations based on voluntary membership. By combining these two elements a special duration of interest representation has been created, namely the combination of Participation rights for all

156 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

employees, which has been borrowed from democratisation principle, and accession to trade unions in civil society.

After having established the general value of the German Participation principle, its advantage for a EU facing currently the above mentioned problems is that the German Participation form could be realised as a qualitative improvement of industrial relationship independent from national income per head. For example when West-Germany introduced Participation in the coal and steel industry, living standard was not higher as today in Poland or Czech Republic. Accordingly, excuses, like Participation could not be introduced, applied or enhanced because a country is not ready for such a step yet or because a country already possesses enough wealth, could not be made. Considering these strategic aspects, one must say that there is no other principle than the Co-Determination and Participation principle which would better suit best-practicecomparisons, mutual learning processes, or in the EU jargon so-called ‘open methods of coordination’.

At this point, we need to have a look at the different experiences made by the civil societies of the Western and Eastern European states and at their today’s situations. Generally in the new EU member states, there is hardly a powerful, selfconfident trade union organisation to find. Reasons for that are the decade-long control of the state apparatus by the communist party, later often obscure ‘rope team’ parties, the decadelong absence of independent

‘The fact that the European social model and the Participation principle are to the same extent challenged by globalisation shows how much they belong together’

trade unions (except for Poland) as well as recent traumatic privatisation experiences. The sanctioned Participations of a third of employees in big companies’ advisory boards in most of these countries do unfortunately not carry weight against the above mentioned problems.

The establishment of a farreaching Participation culture in the new EU member states, which would include both the private and public sector, therefore must be accompanied by a strengthening of their trade unions.

In the West European countries, the situation looks totally different. There, the trade unions mostly have a proud organisation history which has lasted over generations. In these countries, the trade unions’ history is intimately connected to several pillars of the European Social Model; often the introduction of the social model had originally emerged from trade unions’ self-help initiatives. The idea of institutionalised participation forms however did not have many supporters among the British and Romance trade unions. In those countries, worries to lose the ability to manage conflicts with capital and state prevailed. Also, the hope of the British and Romance countries

rested longer in the benefit of nationalisation than it was the case in Germany, Austria or the Nordic countries.

Since the completion of the single market and the introduction of the Common European Currency, it has become apparent that European trade unions need to move together.

Otherwise, loss of social significance in their countries and inevitably in the entire EU as well is unstoppable. This leads to the question whether the above outlined combination of institutionalised and trade unions’ participations on both the economic and governmental level should not become one of the central joint objectives of European employee unions.

This would not mean to introduce the exact same form of the German institutionalised and trade unions’ Participation to the other EU member states but only some of its basic principles. The word ‘combination’ does already imply that.

Globalisation and Participation

The fact that the European social model and the Participation principle are to the same extent challenged by globalisation shows how much they belong together. Indeed, they both have been accused by sup-

157 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

porters of absolute economic globalisation of jeopardising competition, building protective barriers against international competitions and thus hindering the triumphant success of innovation and ‘productive destruction’ in the global economy.

In our globalised era, we nevertheless need Participation as a consequence of ESM. Participation as well as ESM are able to create the necessary space for preserving social cohesion. In fact they are motivation and driving force behind an economy, which is not only controlled by the market and the quest for profit. This is already true for each of two elements alone. When the European Social Model and Participation support and complement one another, they even become more important for the economy. I will explain this argument in the following paragraph.

It is unquestioned that from an economic point of view every aspect of Europe’s social structure is a huge expense factor. Moreover, globalisation increases the value of location factors. The respective tax revenue, the financing of the welfare system and public services – all are taken into account when unit labour costs are calculated. The competition is therefore stronger than ever.

Nonetheless, Europe’s goods and services can withstand international competition since in terms of innovation or macroeconomic productivity they have a lead over American and Asian competitors. The focus of the Lisbon strategy is to guarantee that lead in the future.

Employment rights including the right to strike, trade union freedom (right to organise), col-

lective bargaining autonomy as well as Participation rights in companies and public administration do not come for free.

However, they offer the priceless advantage to give everyone – workers and organised employees – decisively more opportunities of Participation and self-determination. As a result, advantages in competition arise which exceed the costs of employment rights.

Since it is obvious that with the proceeding of the globalisation process the external pressure on Europe’s economy will increase, we need all available synergy effects, which evolve from the interaction of the ESM’s material and immaterial (for example improved employment rights) elements.

Hence in a first step, all employees’ Participation rights, which vary widely between the EU member states, should be lifted to the level of the Participation right in the highest developed country. This should not only be a demand of the European trade unions but in the self-interest of the whole EU. In Germany, for example, every crucial decision on Participation, like in 1952 the agreement on Co-Determination based on equal representation in advisory boards of the coal and steel industry and in 1976 the extension of equal representation in the Participation law, was supported by a broad political spectrum, which did not only include social democrats and trade unions but the Christian democratic union too.

Whilst the social argument need to be separately fought in each member state and due to different national backgrounds there can be various ‘road maps’

to settle the arguments, the European level must be used to agree together on an optimal participation concept. The European Works Council Directive and the European Company Statute (SE) are only first (albeit important) steps to attain such a concept. The competences of European works councils need to include real Participation rights besides the information and hearing rights.

Also, the election procedures should be simplified and the quorum needed for the establishment of a council should be lowered.

The European Company Statute offers an acceptable solution in order to protect the interests of companies with branches in countries which have broad Participation rights.

Nevertheless, it is a strictly defensive approach. We have to strive for company constitution, which are based upon the principle of equality between capital and work. Such constitution should be made obligatory for all European companies at a certain scale. Of course, the EU directives on cross-border mergers and relocation of company seats have to be orientated on such company constitution too.

Before I leave the topic of ‘globalisation and Participation’, I want to raise a question which does not address the people in Europe, but rather people from other continents. Is it not the case that for example people in South- and North America, Russia, China and India would become more attracted to the European Social Model as a whole when employee rights within the European Social Model would be strengthened? I do not want and I am also not

158 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

able to anticipate the answer to that question. Nevertheless, I dare to set up the hypothesis that a fundamentally important, never used, element of international solidarity is included in that question.

Sustainability and Participation

I reach the last point of my article. Is there a positive correlation between the ecological question and the Participation principle as part of the European Social Model? The existence of such a relationship should be proved by investigating the debate over today’s and tomorrow’s most important challenge to sustainability – human caused climate change.

It would go beyond the scope of this article to dwell on the details of the recent dramatic reports of climate researchers.

Beyond all details, however, the conclusion of the former World Bank economist Sir Nicholas Stern takes effect, who suggested in his report presented to British government in October 2006 that ‘ climate change presents a unique challenge for economics: it is the greatest and wide-ranging market failure ever seen’.

We need to draw consequences from this acknowledgement and map out strategies which will prevent such fatal market failure. In doing so, overlapping points to the Participation principle will emerge. The prevention of market failure is the actual starting point for both climate protection and Participation, although each context is a completely different one. Of course, that does not have to mean much. The chance that a common alliance between climate protection and

Participation could arise from their hostile stance against pure business logic might be opposed by the danger of an excluding instrumentalisation of one principle against the other one. In Germany, for example, we remember well when employees working in the energy industry strongly supported building a new nuclear power plants in order to guarantee their own as well as new jobs. Only after the Chernobyl catastrophe a new understanding slowly emerged.

A difficult learning process is demanded to accept that sustainability must take priority over productivity and faith in technology.

Yet, in the long run, the chances, which will evolve from the joint support of both climate protection and a strong Participation position, will outweigh. This can be proved when considering the individual action programmes for reduction of global warming and their implementations. It does not matter whether one wants to increase the use of renewable energies, improve resource and energy efficiency, or save energy in general; it always depends on initiating innovations, drastic conversion of production and changing the way of life. Such measures can be easier and faster implemented when they are not imposed only by company management, government or by external factors but supported, even sometimes started and pushed forward, by a conscious and competent work force. These chances will enhance improved participation rights.

Of course, there is no exclusivity in the relationship between the principles of sustainability

and Participation. Both are independently of each other legitimated. The protection of our life resources and the responsibility for our future demand sustainability. Participation is based upon human dignity and democracy. This is not a disadvantage but rather holds potential that sustainability and Participation could strengthen and stabilise each other. It is essential to use this potential.

Conclusion

The objective of my intervention was to determine the valid core of the Participation principle within the European Social Model and thus basically for all EU welfare states. I am aware of the fact that we are still at the beginning of a real intensive European exchange of ideas as regards certain aspects. A broad consensus amongst trade unions, which can only emerge from a joint opinion on strategic objectives of Participation, is for that indispensable.

But this alone is not enough.

If ‘ownership (of the means of production) obligates and its use should serve the collective good’ , as it is said in the German Basic Law and hopefully soon in a European constitution, Europe-wide Participation rights are in the interests of economy and entrepreneurship too. In the end, the strengthening of the European Social Model and therefore of the Participation principle is a common interest of the EU’s society and politics. We have to persuade the European political and societal protagonists of the necessity to embark on common initiatives, especially in view of the challenges which lay in front of us.

159 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

Thinking Globally: The Reform of the European Social Model is also a Reform of Globalisation

I

Henning Meyer Managing Editor of Social Europe Journal (www.social-europe.eu) and Head of European Programme at the Global Policy Institute in London www.global-policy.com

N THE EUROPEAN year of equal opportunities the reform of the European Social Model (ESM) is at the top of the political agenda. Tax dumping, international competitiveness and the right balance between economic flexibility and social security are the central points of debate. On a general level however the discussion about the reform of the European Social Model suffers from a structural shortcoming: it is too much focussed on Europe itself and thus omits to adequately consider the importance of the global framework.

The diverse appearances of the European Social Model, with its varied financial concepts and steering mechanisms, make the discussion about its reform very complex. This complexity also causes the introverted character of the debate.

Questions such as whether one

‘A too introverted debate implicitly accepts global pressures on the European Social Model whereas the reflection of these pressures needs to be an integral part of the reform itself’ 160 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

should emulate more Scandinavian welfare policies or whether ‘flexicurity’ is the silver bullet to combine labour market flexibility and social justice are necessary but not sufficient points of discussion. A too introverted debate implicitly accepts global pressures on the European Social Model whereas the reflection of these pressures needs to be an integral part of the reform itself.

Of course commentators such as Anthony Giddens, who are arguing that there are globalisation-independent challenges for the ESM, for instance ageing societies and home-grown policy mistakes, are right – and these problems have to be dealt with too. But I do not think, as Giddens does, that we are in danger of focussing on the globalisation issue too much.1 The impact of the current globalisation process on the social order is dramatic. Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz describes the present discussion as follows: ‘The globalisation debate has become so intense because so much is at stake – not just economic well-being, but the very nature of our society, even perhaps the very survival of society as we have known it’.2 If this statement is even half true, one must have a very close look at these global

issues if a real reform (preserving the substance and character) rather than the adaptation of the ESM is the aim. Globalisation puts the very society the ESM seeks to establish under great pressure.

Whereas ‘globalisation’ in general consists of many levels, most questions of the ESM reform debate originate in the issue of economic globalisation.

The preservation of welfare systems combined with sustained or even increased competitiveness in the global economy is the objective that determines reform proposals. But this effort is like squaring the circle because the values dimension of the European Social Model conflicts with the contemporary spirit of economic globalisation.

To reveal this incompatibility we have to characterise and compare the two concepts.

What is the European Social Model? The European Social Model in its most basic sense is best understood as a Europewide shared political value of social and risk protection on different levels based on the notion of ‘social sustainability’.

The operational application of this shared value admittedly looks quite different across Europe.3 On a minimum level however, the European Social Model requires a developed and interventionist state, free and compulsory education, a robust welfare state and the limitation or containment of different forms of inequality.4 A wider definition includes also a role for the social partners and the ‘principle of democracy’ in the political as well as socio-economic sphere.5 The European Social Model hence is the expression of a notion of social

justice and a set of political mechanics to implement this idea.

What is economic globalisation and what are its consequences? Economic globalisation has brought down ‘artificial barriers to the flows of goods, services, capital, knowledge and (to a lesser extent) people across borders’.6 But ‘while national economies taken together can gain overall from increased trade, the gains are highly uneven. There are clear winners and losers, both between and within countries. (…) National governments may protect and compensate those who are vulnerable as a result of structural change, but increased demands on and costs of the welfare state tend to be resisted by employers in the trading industries vulnerable to global competition’.7 The ‘[p]olitical space for the development and pursuit of effective government and the accountability of political power is no longer coterminous with a delimited national territory’.8 And ‘[t]he enhanced position of capitalism (…) has resulted in the state losing its predominance as a site of governance.9 The comparison of these characterisations shows very clearly the underlying problem: a social value consensus like the European Social Model is not incorporated in economic globalisation, driven forward by international trade and profitseeking financial markets. Far from it! Welfare policies are too often – wrongly – considered as economic obstacles and undermined. Economic globalisation negatively influences the social justice aim of the ESM by producing increasing inequalities and at the same time weakens

161 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

vital political mechanisms – the interventionist nation state – without providing substitute regional and global governance arrangements. Negative consequences for the principle of democratic accountability and the role of social partners are also obvious. This comparison also explains why in a game – played almost exclusively to the rules of economic globalisation – we have all too often seen social objectives on the losing side. The social climate has worsened in recent years – a social climate change if you wish so – with deteriorating conditions for social policies.

More recently however, increasing resistance against the described character of economic globalisation has developed.

This is because its failures – not just in social issues – have been more and more revealed. The UK government’s Stern report called the problems of global climate change the ‘biggest market failure in history’.10 Other commentators forcefully point to globalisation’s unkept promises to the developing world.11 Political theorists such as the former German development minister Erhard Eppler fight against the marketisation of society and statehood.12 And there are also attempts to make important financial players such as hedge-funds more transparent.13 The suspicion of large parts of Europe’s population towards economic globalisation has been evident for some time.

In a nutshell, the dislocations of economic globalisation are becoming more and more apparent. Against this backdrop, there are signs of a second phase of globalisation in which the shaping of the process is

central.14 Globalisation as such is welcomed but the political scope of action has to be won back to give societal demands the necessary power of decision.

Under these circumstances, the discussion about the reform of the European Social Model cannot be led in an isolated and inward looking manner. The too often separated European and global reform debates need to be merged because they determine each other. An idea of ‘reform’ that is only focused on Europe is too short-sighted. Not only the described influence of the globalisation debate on the European discourse is true but also vice versa the fact that Europe is important for reforming globalisation. The European debate is relevant because the European Union, as the most successful supranational governance system, teaches important lessons at the global level and because the concept of ‘social sustainability’, which is the basis of the European Social Model, must also be introduced in the global circumstances if the negative consequences of globalisation are to be contained.

The conflict between the values of the European Social Model and the current character of economic globalisation as well as their reciprocal meaning have to be understood. If this is done it becomes clear that the reform of the European Social Model must also be a reform of globalisation and vice versa. A simple adaptation to the imperatives of current economic globalisation is bound to fail social objectives.

What are the consequences of this values incompatibility? The connection between the globali-

‘Globalisation can be a very good thing and it is crucial not to become hostile towards the idea in general but to deal with its shortcomings and develop political solutions where necessary’ sation debate and the reform of the European Social Model urges us to think about ‘social sustainability’ and a ‘social model’ in broader terms. It forces us to find ways to recreate the notion of social justice and the necessary political mechanics on a European and global scale. We have to start thinking seriously about how such ‘global social politics’ could look like in detail and how its implementation could work. We know that ‘global social politics’ would need both, the right policy mix and the necessary institutions on all political levels to implement these policies. Currently there is a lack of both ingredients. In the few cases where we have supranational political institutions – for instance on the European Union level – social politics are underdeveloped.

And in most cases – especially on the global level – even effective political institutions themselves are absent.

So, where does the debate currently stand in Europe?

Having just passed the 50th anniversary of the Rome Treaty, the European Union is looking for a renewed sense of purpose.

I think Peter Mandelson is right when he argues, that whilst Europe’s big achievement in its

162 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

first 50 years was the ordering of its internal affairs, the next decades will be much more determined by Europe’s role in the wider world15 – not least because internal affairs are more and more interdependent with the wider world. Against the background of the above argument, it becomes clear that Europe’s social ideals need to be a core element of the continent’s engagement in the wider world if the ESM is to be preserved and globalisation turned more socially sustainable.

Globalisation can be a very good thing and it is crucial not to become hostile towards the idea in general but to deal with its shortcomings and develop political solutions where necessary. The current globalisation deficiencies clearly necessitate a new politics of redistribution to contain the growing inequalities driving societies apart.

‘Economic theory does not say that everyone will win from globalisation, but only that the net gains will be positive, and that the winners can therefore compensate the losers and still come out ahead’.16 This means that globalisation will only really work for all, if mechanisms of redistribution are used to balance increasing inequalities.

The creation of new redistribu-

tive policies and mechanisms for the age of globalisation will be a major social democratic project for the years to come and a starting point to shape globalisation. What better time than the European year of equal opportunities to get this mission underway?

Footnotes 1

See Giddens, Anthony (2007): Europe in the Global Age, Polity, Cambridge, p. 6.

McGrew: Governing Globalization: Power Authority and Global Governance, Polity, Cambridge, p. 93.

10

2

Stiglitz, Joseph (2006): Making Globalisation Work: The next Steps to Global Justice, Penguin, London, p. 288.

Stern, Nicholas (2007): The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

11

3

See Andersen, Gøsta-Esping (1989): The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, Polity, Cambridge.

Stiglitz, Joseph (2006): Making Globalisation Work: The next Steps to Global Justice, Penguin, London.

12

4

See Eppler, Erhard (2005): Auslaufmodell Staat?, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt.

See Giddens, Anthony (2006): A Social Model for Europe?, in: Giddens, Anthony, Patrick Diamond and Roger Liddle (eds.): Global Europe, Social Europe, Polity, Cambridge, p. 15.

’Germany pushes G7 ministers to scutinise hedge funds’, Financial Times, 7th Feb 2007.

5

14

See Albers, Detlev, Stephen Haseler and Henning Meyer: Social Europe: An Introduction, in: Albers Detlev, Stephen Haseler and Henning Meyer (eds.): Social Europe: A Continent’s Answer to Market Fundamentalism, European Research Forum at London Metropolitan University, London, p. 4.

13

See for instance Mandelson, Peter (2007): The European Union in the Global Age, Policy Network, London.

15

See Mandelson, Peter (2007): The European Union in the Global Age, Policy Network, London.

16

6

Stiglitz, Joseph (2002): Globalization and its Discontents, Penguin, London, p. 9.

7

Held, David, Anthony McGrew (eds.): Introduction, in: Held David, Anthony McGrew: Governing Globalization: Power Authority and Global Governance, Polity, Cambridge, pp. 2-3.

8

Ibid, p. 7.

9

Steans, Jill (2002): Global Governance: A feminist perspective, in: Held David, Anthony

163 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

Stiglitz, Joseph (2006): ‘Making Globalisation Work’, The Guardian Comment is Free, 7th September, http://comment isfree.guardian.co.uk/joseph_ stiglitz/2006/09/stiglitz.html

A Russian Perspective On The European Social Model Marina Kargalova Head of the Centre for Social Studies at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences

T

HERE ARE CURRENTLY many debates about the models for the organisation and management of society in the context of globalisation.

The European Social Model (ESM) has become the object of renewed interest, careful analysis and sometimes criticism. Russia has played its part and the range of ideas and opinions expressed is vast and not necessarily coherent.

Some consider the European Social Model to be a positive example of modern social organisation, and its fundamental principles a qualitative basis for progress. Others completely deny the existence of a unified European Social Model, arguing that the various social systems – liberal in the United Kingdom, greater corporatist role of the state in Germany and France, social democrat in Scandinavia – are based on very different and independent models.

All these variants are, however, inserted into the framework of the European Social Model, since the fundamental principles are a matter of

‘The major question is whether the European Social Model can find solutions to the challenges of the 21st century, i.e. globalisation and the diversity of the member states’ 164 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

consensus and are included in various forms in national social models. These are social justice, social cohesion and solidarity, a competitive but socially regulated economy. The major question is whether the European Social Model can find solutions to the challenges of the 21st century, i.e. globalisation and the diversity of the member states.

Regrettably, it has to be recognised that at the present time, the grounds for speaking of a unified and clearly formulated conception of European social policy are insufficient. Moreover, social integration is lagging behind economic integration.

Since social policy was the basis for the European Social Model, there has always been strong reaction to changes to living and working conditions.

Today, however, in addition to the necessity of resolving traditional social problems, we observe completely new social concerns about social security, the environment and the negative consequences of globalisation.

Changes in the way social policy is carried out may also be observed. Its clear goal is now not only to support socially and economically underprivileged groups, but also give each member of society the opportunity for selffulfilment, and to contribute to the creation of wealth, which should be shared equitably.

The construction of a unified social space to the benefit of all within the EU is not yet complete, although some steps towards a citizens’ Europe have been made. Every large-scale measure

requires a social basis which underpins the organising forces. The current system of relations between the major social partners – the state, business and civil society – almost certainly needs improvement.

The fundamental principles of the European Social Model provide a framework for the organisational structure of society, where goals, rights and obligations of the various partners can be determined. Social partnership is now moving to a higher level of potential. There are many indicators that point to the emergence of a new model of social partnership, that is crossing state frontiers and started to take on an international dimension. Development is gradual, but it may be observed in the bringing together of dialogues between social, civil and political partners and is a clear signal of the deepening and widening of European integration.

Within the framework of co-operation and reciprocal measures between partners, the scope of their social responsibilities becomes manifest.

Moreover, they have to realise their responsibility for the destiny of the whole of society and not merely to protect the interests of the groups that they represent.

For the European Social Model to become reality, social and management structures must be improved.

This new type of management is based on dialogue and co-operation and not on hierarchy and pressure. This level of social dialogue presupposes tolerance between all participants in the process and good will to accept sensible compromises. Member states, political parties, trade unions and nongovernmental organisation all have an important contribution to make.

Through their collaboration based on the fundamental principles of the European Social Model, the idea of creating social security zones which may later be extended to the whole of the EU becomes realistic.

165 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

Using the possibilities afforded by IT and other new technologies is crucial in the construction of this equal social space, underpinned by a new type of social partnership, social solidarity and cohesion as proclaimed by the European Social Model. This model is not set in stone for all time, but the ideal to which Europe aspires, can be modified and enlarged in response to new challenges. It is no coincidence, however, that the model has aroused such great interest outside Europe, since it adheres to values of humanity and civilisation that are not ephemeral.

It is no coincidence either that the model is of great interest in Russia.

Our country chose to make far-reaching democratic reforms and not merely in the social domain, without achieving the expected results fully and immediately.

It would also be erroneous to argue that the European Social Model should simply be exported. Many of its tenets cannot be implemented in all circumstances. For instance, with regard to the state and its social roles, specific national characteristics and traditions play a decisive role. The latest social reforms in Europe were aimed at reducing state responsibility and eliciting other sources of finance for social services.

A crucial question for Russia is whether liberal social policies can be implemented. For several decades the Russian state had the monopoly of social policy – a situation accepted by the majority of the population.

Premature enthusiasm for liberalism and a misguided interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity have already caused difficulties and failures in social reforms. Regional imbalances and the weakening of centralised control have led to serious negative consequences in the application of nationwide social projects.

Today it may be said that Russia has adopted the following policy principles: a strong state, the implementation

The Social Democratic Party of Germany 1848–2005 Heinrich Potthoff and Susanne Miller‘s history of German social democracy offers the general public an academic account of the historical development of social democracy and the SPD‘s conception of itself. The revised 2002 edition of this standard work now finally appears in English translation and has an additional chapter covering developments from 2002 up until the federal elections of 2005.

The SPD is a party of long-standing tradition and has played a vital role in German history. Its influence has extended beyond the borders of Germany to Europe and the rest of the world.

Its authors »trace the evolution of the SPD with great critical acumen, providing an objective overview of the party‘s understanding of itself.« Hans Dietz speaking on ›Süddeutscher Rundfunk‹

Verlag J.H.W. Dietz Nachf. – Dreizehnmorgenweg 24 – 53175 Bonn – Germany Tel +49/(0)228/238083 – Fax +49/(0)228/234104 – E-Mail: info@dietz-verlag.de

of a modern social policy through legislation and available administrative resources; socially responsible business practices and a civil society that can not only participate in managing but is also able to control social partners.

As Director of the research centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences and parliamentary expert (to the douma), I can assure you that the problems of economic and social development receive constant attention in our country. The detailed analysis of the EU experience in this area, the examination of the real achievements of its economic and social development remain matters for reflection. The necessity of drawing up a clear strategy for a socially oriented market economy is very much on the agenda in Russia.

166 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

Heinrich Potthoff / Susanne Miller The Social Democratic Party of Germany 1848–2005 496 pages Euro 48,00 ISBN 978-3-8012-0365-8

www.dietz-verlag.de

The Social Market Model in a Globalised Economy

I

Peter Bofinger Professor of Economics at Würzburg University and member of the German government’s economic advisory council

N GERMANY THERE is widespread fear of globalisation. More and more people are afraid of losing their workplace and welfare and fear for the future of their children. So far, politics was unable to provide a clear answer for these deep-rooted and valid fears.

The most important political task is therefore to determine the role of the nation state in the 21st century. Above all in the economy, the future of the social market model under the conditions of globalisation must be examined.

What does ‘Social Market Economy’ mean?

In order to position the Social Market Economy, one has to consider all functions currently executed by this specific economic model. The Social Market Economy is at its core a competitive system. This does not necessarily mean that it is unsocial. The market moreover provides a cunning transformation of individual egoism to positive macroeconomic behaviour: ‘Our food supply is guaranteed not because of the goodwill of butchers, farmers and bakers but because they act in their own interests.’

In order to make sure that this is the way the economy functions, a workforce that is able to think long-term is needed. For example, a baker only produces good bread rolls if she/he cares for her/his reputation. Yet, many players, especially in the financial businesses, lack such long-term thinking.

This is one of the conceptual shortcomings of the market economy.

167 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

The Social Market Economy complements the ‘invisible hand’ of the market on three counts:

1. It creates a social balance between capable people, who achieve high incomes in the market process, and disadvantaged people, who are being left out. Therefore, public redistribution mechanisms, which allow for various transfers to disadvantaged people, can be found in most countries.

2. It also provides collective security systems for life risks. High individual risks, like loss of employment or severe diseases, can be significantly reduced by paying a monthly insurance premium.

3. And with an educational system, which is both free of charge and top quality, the Social Market Economy makes an important contribution to the sustainability of society too. The educational system combines the redistribution and insurance functions since the state assumes the risk for its citizens by paying the high educational costs in advance.

The Necessity of the Social Market Economy under the Conditions of Globalisation

How does globalisation affect a highly developed economy and what effects does it have for its central functions?

‘For some groups within countries globalisation can lead to a deterioration of their living standards. In Germany globalisation weighs heavily on people with low skills in particular’ • It can be argued that due to the global division of labour national economies can generally increase their welfare. Globalisation is no static zero-sum game but a dynamic process, which can produce profits for every participating state.

• Yet, for some groups within countries globalisation can lead to a deterioration of their living standards. In Germany globalisation weighs heavily on people with low skills in particular.

What does this mean for the redistribution function of a Social Market Economy? If we abandon this function or at least cut back on it, we would run the risk that an increasing number of people experience the in fact advantageous process of globalisation as a loss of wealth. This in turn would inevitably jeopardise the existing broad political consensus for open markets. According to the Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke: ‘The challenge for policymakers is to ensure that the benefits of global economic integration are sufficiently widely shared (….) so that a consensus for welfare-enhancing change can be obtained.’ Indeed.

It is therefore consistent that in fundamentally market-oriented countries, like in the US and the UK, there is a form of negative income tax, which guarantees that employees with a minimum income have enough money to survive on.

168 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

Since globalisation is accompanied by major uncertainties in the economic process, one has to deal carefully with the collective security systems, such as unemployment insurance for instance.

If the state reduces the insurance cover, risk on the individual level would increase. Personal responsibility of course sounds good; however, it is not necessarily better suited than insurance systems. No one for example would argue for abolishing vehicle insurance in order to encourage people to assume more personal responsibility for their driving. Less social security is especially problematic in times of rising risks. This is exactly the problem of many employees, which already after one year of unemployment are in danger of ending up at the lowest level of society. Personal responsibility therefore leads to an individually risk-averse behaviour. In Germany for instance, people have significant savings while only few invest in properties. The fact that fewer and fewer babies are born in Germany is also alarming.

From a business angle, it may make sense to transfer as many risks as possible to each employee so that companies do not bear the costs of the collective security systems. Yet, in the long run this is not necessarily beneficial for the overall economic dynamic. It is a mistake to believe that protection against daily risks would diminish private initiatives. As climbing to the top of a mountain can often only be achieved with stirrups and a rope, adequate social security systems provide every person with the possibility to take economic risks.

How does globalisation affect the role of the state as investor in education? It is well known that in Germany – compared to other OECD countries – too little is spent on primary and secondary schools. At the same time, the number of young people who are going to universities is alarmingly small. And it is beyond dispute that we will not win the future with our potatoes or

beautiful landscapes but only with intelligent people.

Hence, in this situation it would be fatal if the state withdraws from its role as investor in human capital. From an economic point of view, a state, which provides education measures for free, can by all means be regarded as ‘venture capital investor’ since it invests in young people in order to profit in future via high tax revenues from the economic success of such investments. Is this not a superior strategy compared to an approach, which introduces tuition fees but at the same time reduces taxes?

Social compensation, social security systems and public investment in human capital therefore become increasingly important under the conditions of intensifying globalisation.

This is the only way to avoid that the globalisation process forces politicians to pursue protectionism and unsettles people in such a way that they increasingly do not dare to make individual future investments.

What does a New Social Market Economy look like?

Is it still possible to finance its functions? Under the conditions of globalisation is a state still able to take care of its citizens to such an extent?

In Germany the idea that future challenges can only be met if the role of the state is pushed back has become widely accepted in the last years. As a consequence, in Germany the Staatsquote, i.e. the ratio of government spending to GDP, sank by 2 per cent from 1999 till now. Yet, with this decision Germany embarked on a special path. In the other countries of the European Monetary Union, government spending has remained nearly constant since 1999. From 2007 onwards, public spending in these countries will even be 2 ? per cent higher than in Germany. Since these countries are economically more successful than Germany, there is no proof 169 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

that the decision of the German government has paid off or was even inevitable.

The Scandinavian example shows that the model of a ‘strong state’ is sustainable. These countries offer their citizens great social protection, an excellent education system, and a superb infrastructure. This ‘5 star hotel’ model with all its inclusive services can however only be run if one demands high taxes for it. Contrary to the prevailing opinion in Germany, such high taxes can go along with a dynamic economy, low unemployment and solid public finances.

Hence, there is no inevitability that in the global economy only the model of a ‘lean state’ is sustainable. A defensive approach, like the one Germany has been following so far, rather holds the danger that we fall behind countries, in which the state proactively supports the future of its citizens.

A plea for the Social Market Economy should not be limited to arguing for the status quo. Social systems can only survive if they react early to changes in their settings.

Considering Germany’s pension system, it becomes apparent that Germany’s Social Market Economy is capable of adaptation. Demography is a big challenge for the pension system.

Simple economic logic says that a generation, which has fewer children than the generation of their parents, has to be content with a lower pension level.

Already the government under Chancellor Kohl recognised this and seriously cut benefits in the 1990s.

Further extensive cuts were made when the so-called Riester Rente was implemented in 2001 and later, in 2004, with the sustainable pension law.

Overall, the pensions have been secured, but at a clearly lower level.

What is significant is that these necessary reforms could be adopted by consensus including all political forces.

The development from an industry to a service and information society

poses a serious challenge to the Social Market Economy. It leads to a blurring of the classic dividing line between dependent employment and selfemployment. This is a problem for social security systems since they are restricted to dependent employees. If systems have also a redistributive function, one should not be surprised that many people declare themselves to be ‘self-employed’ in order to abstain from this form of solidarity. This, on the other hand, causes a dangerous erosion of the financial basis of the social security systems.

Accordingly, a New Social Market Economy must include forms of Bürgerversicherungen (citizens insurances), which guarantee insurance cover independent of employment status. ‘Citizen models’ within the social security systems however do not necessarily require the state to offer all benefits alone. This applies especially to health insurance. In Germany an expert advisory board developed a health insurance model called Bürgerpauschale, which combines a statutory health insurance system with a private health insurance organisation.

The Social Market Economy: A Success Model and not an Obsolescent Model

One does not have to be a prophet to predict that in economic terms even more difficult times lie ahead of us. If we want to keep heading towards open markets, it will be important to make sure that people do not feel ruthlessly

‘If we want to keep heading towards open markets, it will be important to make sure that people do not feel ruthlessly exposed to market forces’ 170 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

exposed to market forces. This requires a rather higher than lesser degree of social balancing (in particular in form of a negative income tax), a more active education policy and efficient social security systems. The Scandinavian countries show that it is possible to organise a strong state in a way that from the citizens’ as well as the companies’ point of view, the price/performance ratio works.

On the Marriage of Progress and Realism

I

Anatol Lieven Lieven is an award winning author and Senior Research Fellow with the New America Foundation in Washington DC (www.newamerica.net)

This article was first published in the Boston Review

T IS WIDELY and almost instinctively assumed that the progressive and realist approaches to foreign policy are by nature opposed. This assumption is both mistaken in itself and a terrible obstacle to the creation of a progressive strategy in opposition to the imperial dreams of the Bush administration and much of the US establishment. It has contributed greatly to the failure of the Democratic Party in the US to emerge as an effective force in this regard.

The record of the Clinton administration should be a lesson to Democrats of the need to incorporate a greater degree of realism into their foreign policy thinking, especially when it comes to developing a more critical approach to ostensibly ‘humanitarian’ interventions and to claims that strategies of US global dominance are legitimated by the US role in spreading ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’.

Tragically, the US war over Kosovo, and statements like that of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright about the US as the ‘indispensable nation’ helped to prepare the way for the extreme liberal imperialist agenda of the Bush administration. The US disaster in Somalia in 1993 for its part should have been a lesson that even the very purest of

171 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

intentions will not prevent disaster if they are not accompanied by knowledge and realism concerning both the actual forces at work in the countries concerned, and the innate nature of US military power (or indeed any outside military power) and its potentially disastrous effects on local populations.

Unfortunately, too many foreign policy intellectuals in the Democratic Party, and especially those grouped round the Progressive Policy Institute (the think tank of the Democratic Leadership Council) show little sign of having learnt these lessons, despite their disastrous role in supporting and helping to propagandize for the Iraq War. The need for realists to adopt elements of what has been considered progressive thinking is not quite so obvious, and is focused above all on two areas.

The first is the need to pay attention to the internal condition of states, rather than simply their relative power and their external behavior. This is something to which much of the realist tradition has traditionally been indifferent – and has been rightly criticized for this in recent years.

For it is not merely that 9/11 has demonstrated that the internal decay of even a very weak country can create appalling ter-

rorist problems for much more powerful states. Equally important is the fact that throughout much of modern history, from the French Revolution through the Russian Revolution to Nazism, radical internal developments have led in turn to catastrophic international wars. This is increasingly admitted even by ‘classical’ realists to have been a failure of their tradition.

The second area where realists need to learn from parts of the Left refers to the threat of global warming and what to do about it, since it is increasingly evident that the extent of this development – far more than terrorism – will present the greatest menace to modern civilization over the generations to come. Of course, for a realist focused exclusively on the wellbeing of himself, his family or his nation only in this generation, this need not matter very much.

But the great ancestor of modern Anglo-American realism, Edmund Burke, famously believed in society as a contract between the living, the dead, and those yet to be born – a statement close to the famous environmentalist maxim that ‘we have only borrowed the world from our grandchildren.’.

Given the scientific evidence about the extent of the future threat of global warming to human civilization, a principled Burkean realist is therefore virtually compelled to action on behalf of our descendants. * The idea of a necessary intellectual and moral opposition between progressivism and realism as foreign policy philoso-

‘The second area where realists need to learn from parts of the Left refers to the threat of global warming and what to do about it’

phies is in fact to a great extent false; and this is demonstrated by the fact that Reinhold Niebuhr and E.H.Carr – arguably the two greatest realist thinkers in the American and British traditions respectively – both considered themselves to be progressives.

Carr was identified with sympathy for the Soviet Union.

Niebuhr was a strong opponent of Soviet communism, and a strong influence on Truman’s ‘containment’ doctrine. Yet for most of his career Niebuhr too considered himself a democratic socialist, and for both socialist and Christian reasons, maintained throughout his life a strongly critical attitude to Western democratic capitalist materialism and its belief that it had found a solution to all the problems of man.

Two other great American realists, Hans Morgenthau and George Kennan, though not in a broader sense progressives, came together with Niebuhr in opposition to the Vietnam War and to a US imperialism justified in the name of spreading ‘Democracy’ and ‘Freedom’.

Of course, real elements of tension between realist and progressive thought do exist, at the practical, intellectual and perhaps most of all emotional levels. The progressive tradition by its very nature believes in the

172 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

possibility of human progress and is committed to progress. It is also emotionally inclined to optimism concerning human nature. The realist tradition is naturally inclined to a pessimistic view of human nature, and often derives from originally religious beliefs concerning the fallen nature and innate sinfulness of mankind, and the impossibility of any perfect solution to mankind’s problems.

As George Kennan wrote (in response to a Quaker document attacking the strategy of ‘containing’ Soviet Communism), ‘It is idle to suppose that just because we human beings have our redeeming qualities and our moments of transcendent greatness, we are ‘nice people’. We are not. There are many times and situations when we require restraint…It would be a luxury, admittedly, to be able to dispense with violence. But this is a luxury which man, in his present state, cannot permit himself.

He is not that good. His responsibility is not that small.’1

Every form of realism does indeed involve an opposition to revolutionary change, an acceptance of certain national and international evils, and a deep skepticism about human and social perfectibility. This has set the realist tradition

against revolutionaries of both Left and Right – including the neo-conservatives.

The progressive tradition is even more multiform, but all its forms involve a greater or lesser degree of commitment to the reform of society and the improvement of the human condition. There can thus be no reconciliation between progressive thought and ‘classical’ realism in the form pursued by Metternich or Kissinger: a philosophy of pure realpolitik in defense of the status quo, with no commitment to or interest in the promotion of positive change even in the long term.

On the extreme Left, by contrast, utopian hopes for the future perfectibility of mankind have also been combined with a ferocious kind of ‘realism’ concerning human nature in the present, and the means necessary to control and shape it. This strange combination underlies in part the monstrous crimes of the French, Russian and Chinese revolutionaries. Extreme conservative realism believed that the sinfulness of human nature in general makes all true progress impossible. Communist realism believed that the sinfulness of human nature as manifested in particular classes and their deluded hangers-on meant that all true progress is only possible if those human elements are exterminated.

A moderate realism has nothing to do with either of those positions. It is certainly deeply hostile to a teleological vision of human progress leading to the achievement of a final, permanent and unchanging utopia, whether of Marx’s or Fukuyama’s imagining.

However, it also allows plenty

of room for the promotion of human progress, though not perfection. It is simply more realistic about the limits on that progress, and the effort and time that is often necessary in order to achieve it.

For in Niebuhr’s words, man is a lion – a ferocious and carnivorous animal – but he is also ‘a curious kind of lion who dreams of the day when the lion and the lamb will lie down together.’2 In other words, acknowledging reality does not mean approving that reality, or abandoning the duty to try to change that reality for the better.

As Carr wrote, ‘Any sound political thought must be based on elements of both utopia and reality. Where utopianism has become a hollow and intolerable sham, which serves merely as a guise for the interests of the privileged, the realist performs an indispensable service in unmasking it. But pure realism can offer nothing but a naked struggle for power which makes any kind of international society impossible.

Having demolished the current utopia with the weapons of realism, we still need to build a new utopia of our own, which will one day fall to the same weapons.’3

Carr’s and Niebuhr’s utopia was composed of two principal elements: a belief in the possibility of human progress, though never of human perfection; and a belief in the possibility of an international order which would increase the possibility of international co-operation and decrease that of war, though never banishing the possibility of conflict altogether: in

173 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

the phrase of Cardinal Richelieu, a ‘permanent conversation’ pointing towards the possibility of creating a ‘community of reason.’

Niebuhr, as a protestant theologian, necessarily took a pessimistic view of man as a fallen being, and passed this pessimism on to Carr. However, Niebuhr also wrote that, ‘It is possible for both individuals and groups [including nations] to relate concern for the other with interest and concern for the self. There are endless varieties of creativity in community; for neither the individual nor the community can realize itself except in relation to, and in encounter with, other individuals and groups…A valid moral outlook for both individuals and for groups, therefore, sets no limits to the creative possibility of concern for others, but makes no claims that such creativity ever annuls the power of self-concern or removes the peril of pretension if the force of residual egotism is not acknowledged.’4

Today, a creative combination of progressive and realist thought is both possible and necessary concerning a whole set of pressing issues. These include the environment; opposition to attempts at ‘unipolar’ world domination; respect for nonWestern states and the nationalisms that underpin them; an awareness of the extremely complex historic bases of democracy; and a concern for the domestic example of Western democracies as the foundation of spreading democracy in the world. *

‘The Left’s opposition to Western unipolarity stems in large part from a skepticism about the true worth of the existing Western democratic capitalist order’ To take the latter point first: Clearly, the internal nature, decay or development of states has a critical effect on their external behavior, and the extent of the threat that they pose to the outside world. And in the long run at least, the spread of stable, equitable and prosperous democracy would represent great progress for humanity, and for international peace. A question which must face both realists and the Left however is how far the West can successfully spread democracy to the rest of the world if its own model looks increasingly tarnished at home.

In other words, domestic reform and international progress have to go hand in hand. George Kennan published in 1984, ‘[A] plea to bear in mind that in the interactions of peoples, just as in the interactions of individuals, the power of example is far greater than the power of precept; and that the example offered to the world at this moment by the United States of America is far from being what it could be and ought to be.’

That is doubly true today, and can surely be agreed to by progressives. The link between foreign policy and equitable social and economic policies at home

is especially important because in much of the world, from Russia to Latin America, US power and influence have become disastrously associated with ruthless extreme free market economic policies derived from the ‘Washington Consensus’ – policies which often have a dreadful effect on the lives of ordinary people, and do much to stimulate antiAmerican populist nationalism.

Concerning the environment, commitment to take action against global warming does not form part of the older realist or the socialist traditions, for the obvious reason that it is a new phenomenon. As the danger becomes more and more evident in the years to come, however, this issue is bound to dominate more and more of the Left’s thinking. Indeed, ample evidence now exists that in future this issue will pose by far the greatest threat to modern civilization generated by the modern age; and this threat will obviously be to many things that realists hold dear: vital national interests, international peace and stability, and economic development.

Whatever its miserable environmental record in the past, the Left today is the natural home of serious environmental concern and action: because of its inherent opposition to a cap-

174 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

italist materialism which focuses entirely on the wellbeing of those alive (and well-off) today; because it is willing to contemplate radical changes to the present capitalist economic order, albeit ones different from those imagined by socialists in the past; and because it is willing to create strong state controls over the economy in the pursuit of long-term goals. As the report of the British Commission headed by Sir Nicholas Stern (former chief economist at the World Bank and hardly a natural leftist) has it, global warming ‘is the greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen.’

The third area where realists and progressives share certain common attitudes, and can work together, is opposition to the idea of Western liberal capitalist unipolarity. This opposition, as expressed by all the leading ethical and progressive realists, applies both to overweening US imperial power itself and to the ideological positions which underpin it, summed up in repeated statements by both Bush and Blair that ‘freedom’ is understood the same way everywhere.

A progressive from a Marxian and anti-colonial tradition has no excuse for forgetting that, in Carr’s words, ‘Theories of social morality are always the product of a dominant group which identifies itself with the community as a whole, and which possesses facilities denied to subordinate groups or individual for imposing its views of life on the community. Theories of international morality are, for the same reasons and in virtue of the same

process, the product of dominant nations or groups of nations.’

The American ethical realists were clear-sighted in their recognition both of the moral emptiness and the political danger of this identification, and in their insistence on the need to respect the views and interests of other nations. As Hans Morgenthau wrote, ‘Political realism refuses to identify the moral aspirations of a particular nation with the moral laws that govern the universe…The light-hearted equation between a particular nationalism and the counsels of Providence is morally indefensible, for it is the very sin of pride against which the Greek tragedians and the Biblical prophets warned rulers and ruled. The equation is also politically pernicious, for it is liable to engender the distortion in judgment which, in the blindness of crusading frenzy, destroys nations and civilizations.’5

Niebuhr also wrote of the ‘biblical paradox’ that Christians have access to the truth, but also have to recognize that as mortal beings in a fallen world they can never possess it fully: ‘Our toleration of truths opposed to those which we confess is an expression of the spirit of forgiveness in the realm of culture.

Like all forgiveness, it is only possible if we are not too sure of our own virtue. Loyalty to the truth requires confidence in the possibility of its attainment; toleration of others requires broken confidence in the finality of our own truth.’6

The Left, with its long tradition of opposition to Western imperialism and neo-colonialism, should have an instinctive sympathy for such views. And clearly, respect for the opinions and the interests of other nations has to involve a readiness to respect their right to generate political, economic, cultural and moral orders different from those of the West, as long as these have not been proved beyond reasonable doubt to be disastrous to their own peoples or a real threat to international peace. The Left’s opposition to Western unipolarity stems in large part from a skepticism about the true worth of the existing Western democratic capitalist order, especially in the radical form adopted by the US and its more slavish imitators, and expressed in the Washington Consensus.

Resistance to US imperialism on the part of both realists and progressives can be related to a shared appreciation of the critical importance of states, and the nationalisms which underpin states, both for the international system and for internal development. The reasons for this shared appreciation are different, but they are capable of being brought together in a creative progressive synthesis.

For Realists, states are the essential element of the international system; doomed to constant competition, but also the only possible building blocs of any international order. For the Left, in the developing world many states are the product of struggle against previous Western imperialism, and are essential to defend peoples against a return of that imperialism. Progressives can, and cer-

175 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

tainly should therefore have some sympathy for the ambivalent attitude of many ordinary people in the non-Western world towards their own states: on the one hand, knowing and fearing them as oppressive, greedy and brutal, but seeing them nonetheless as an essential defense against the brutality and exploitation of some of the dominant capitalist powers.

Moreover, strong states are essential to smash the grip of predatory elites, ensure an adequate distribution of economic benefits and social goods to the mass of the population, and in future perhaps to limit consumption of fossil fuels. To do this, of course, states have to be sufficiently strong to defeat the elites. As the 19th-Century German-American thinker, Franz Lieber put it, reflecting Hegel, ‘a weak government is a negation of liberty’.

Today, the liberal imperialists and a large part of the progressive or pseudo-progressive camp share a common hostility to states across much of the world. The imperialists dislike specific states, like Iran, Syria, China and Russia, because they oppose their plans for American world domination. In a more general sense, it is in their interest to denigrate states because that means that the opinions of their governments need not be taken into account (even when they are shared by their populations), their interests can be disregarded, and in general, they can be portrayed as barbarian entities unworthy to be consulted by the civilized imperial power, and even as fit subjects for military intervention. As Martin Jacques has written concerning the work of one of the

arch liberal imperialists, Michael Ignatieff: ‘It has become fashionable to argue that sovereignty should no longer be regarded as sacred, that human rights, even democracy, could, under certain circumstances, justify its subordination and breach. For the majority of nation-states, selfrule and sovereignty are a historical novelty, a product of the last half-century or so. The United States now poses a serious threat to this sovereignty, in the form of shock and awe interventions, brief occupations and hasty exits. Ignatieff’s sweeping dismissal of the achievement of post-colonial states serves both to reinforce a Western hubris easily dismissive of other cultures, and to justify imperialist adventurism on a scale far wider even than that used to threaten the ‘axis of evil’.

The anti-imperialist tradition of the Left should bring an understanding of the critical role of nationalism not just in state-formation, but also for many forms of democratic mobilization. In the past, this was true in Europe from the French revolution on. It was self-evidently true of the colonial revolts against colonial rule. The idea that one can create democratic states in the teeth of local mass nationalism – which is the professed liberal imperialist program in Iran and much of the Muslim world – is a historical absurdity. This approach assumes a positively surreal form when it is argued that in Iran, for example, democratization can go hand in hand with submission to the will of the US in foreign policy

– when from their very origins in the 1890s, Iranian democratic politics have been associated with protest against Western domination.

Closely related to this skepticism concerning the rapid spread of Western-style democracy is – or certainly should be given the socialist tradition – an awareness of how in countries with ruthless, greedy elites and weak legal orders, the outward forms of democracy can become a mere façade for oligarchical rule, under which the mass of the population is ruthlessly oppressed and savagely exploited. Venezuela from the 1950s to the 1980s was one such ‘democracy’; the Philippines continues to be such; and Russia under Yeltsin was clearly heading in that direction.

Quite often, this oligarchy is also a comprador elite, whose rule also involves looting their own country for the benefit of international capitalism.

In the past, a recognition of how the gradual establishment of constitutional democracy was critically dependent on particular social, economic and cultural developments was integral to the liberal tradition, and to what was called the ‘Whig theory of history’. It is only in recent decades that there has appeared the strange revolutionary con-

ceit – in truth, much more Communist than liberal in spirit – that any country can suddenly, through ‘free ‘n’ fair elections’, leap from autocracy to genuine democracy with no regard to economic and social conditions. This is not a program for building democracy, in any true sense of that word. By analogy with Brezhnevite Soviet Communism, it might best be called ‘Democratism’.

The Left, with what ought to be its ingrained awareness of how ostensibly neutral state forces, like the judiciary and the police, are often in fact the tools of specific class interests, has no excuse for naivete about the real democratic credentials of such systems as the Philippines. What after all is the point of talking about ‘free and fair elections’ in the contemporary Pakistani countryside, where anyone who tries to create an agricultural trades union is subject to savage attack by the local landowning elites and their hirelings in the police? Creating democracy in these conditions can occur only as part of a wider, long-term socio-economic transformation – not through an elected parliament dominated by those same landowning families.

Examples like this should lead to an awareness of just what a long and complicated

‘The anti-imperialist tradition of the Left should bring an understanding of the critical role of nationalism not just in state-formation, but also for many forms of democratic mobilization’

176 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

business democratic state-building really is. Through a shared understanding of the need to help create the socio-economic bases of democracy over time, aided by Western development assistance that is generous, equitable, and strategically targeted, realists and the Left can come together in a coherent approach that I have called developmental realism; an approach with echoes in the Marshall Plan, and in the US promotion of radical land reform in East Asia in the early years of the Cold War. Developmental realism requires a certain metamorphosis of both realists and the Left.

As noted, Realists have to be much more aware of the importance of the internal nature of states than has been true of most of them in the past (though by no means of Niebuhr, Carr and Kennan, let alone of Burke). They also need to abandon the shallow, fanatical and selfish nostrums of the Washington Consensus and return to the record of the Truman administration at its best when it comes to giving massive aid to poor countries, and also in opening American markets to their trade.

Progressives however have to understand that the willingness of their fellow-citizens to make major financial sacrifices for the sake of international causes will always be governed to a large extent by considerations of national interest, rather than of relative need; so aid for parts of the Muslim world, from whence stem serious threats to the US, will have to take precedence over help to Sub-Saharan Africa, even though the needs of that region are even greater. Aid

must also be conditioned on the possession by the recipient states of at least minimal capacity actually to use the aid concerned honestly and effectively.

South Korea was corrupt, but US development aid to that country was not simply poured down the drain, as was aid to Zaire. The same would be true today of the difference between Pakistan and Nigeria.

There is nothing immoral or treacherous about a progressive recognizing in this way that morality must be combined with realism. In Morgenthau’s words, ‘The equation of political moralizing with morality and of political realism with immorality is itself untenable. The choice is not between moral principles and the national interest, devoid of moral dignity, but between one set of principles divorced from political reality and another set of principles derived from political reality.’7

Far worse, and a far greater contemporary threat to progressives is when they consciously or unconsciously fall into the pattern described and denounced by both Carr and Niebuhr: of cloaking their particular national ambitions in the garb of universal morality, and serving their own personal careers by submitting ostentatiously to the prevailing ideological and nationalist hegemony.

Julien Benda called for Western intellectuals to liberate themselves from the service of their respective nationalisms.

Long before the emergence of Francis Fukuyama, the immensely powerful force of US nationalism, based on what has

177 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

been called the ‘American Creed’, identified America absolutely with the achievement of successful modernity, and even with the ‘end of history’ through the achievement of a perfect and permanent model for the world. This means that for American intellectuals to liberate themselves from the service of nationalism and imperialism, they also need to liberate themselves from their present slavery to Time.

Like enlightened conservatives, progressives need to develop an intellectual capacity to step outside the present age, and contemplate the broader sweeps of human history; to situate themselves somewhere between Conrad’s fictional British Captain Marlowe, remembering that the Thames, like the Congo, was once ‘one of the dark places of the earth’, and Macaulay’s imaginary future visitor from New Zealand to the archaeological ruins of London.8 This is of course a terribly difficult task. It is not however an inappropriate one for the intellectual elites of a country which has defined its own role in the sweep of human history as equivalent to that of Rome, the ‘Eternal City’.

The US and Western approach to democratization in other societies should therefore be governed by rigor of the intellect, and generosity of the spirit. Progressives need to learn rigor in studying the history, political culture, and social, economic and ethnic orders of other societies in order to determine what kind of political system they can in fact support at present and in the near-to-medium term. Both realists and progressives need to learn generosi-

FR O M EW N

Sidekick Bulldog to Lapdog: British Global Strategy from Churchill to Blair

Why did Britain go to war in Iraq?

Why did Tony Blair support President Bush at every turn? How has the bulldog become the lapdog? And will Britain, now we are in the postBlair era, remain forever just a part of the American empire – a sidekick?

In his new book Sidekick Professor Stephen Haseler answers these highly topical and urgent questions.

by Stephen Haseler

Sidekick is also a history of how a whole post-war British political generation has turned Britain into what amounts to a province of the American global system. He suggests that the ‘special relationship’, based on dependence, is not just undignified but also unhealthy – spawning an undercurrent of anti-Americanism.

And he argues that in the new political era we still have a choice – between, on the one hand, continuing with the ‘special relationship’ and on the other making a real contribution to the building of Europe and, through Europe, towards a healthy and balanced transatlantic relationship.

Special offer £10

RRP £14.99

Plus postage: £1 (UK), £1.50 (Europe), £2.00 (RoW) Sidekick ISBN 978-0-9554975-1-3 216 x 140mm Paperback

Order at www.global-policy.com

ty in sympathizing with the historical fates and contemporary sufferings of other countries, and giving real economic help to them – rather than preaching at them from the pedestal of our own assumed supreme national virtue and success, and expecting them to sacrifice their own interests and values at our feet.

Footnotes 1

George F. Kennan, reply to the Quaker document ‘Speak Truth to Power’, in the Progressive, October 1955.

2

Niebuhr, ‘Christianity and Communism: Social Justice’, Spectator, CLVII, November 6 1936. See also Kenneth W. Thompson, ‘Beyond National Interest: A Critical Evaluation of Reinhold Niebuhr’s Theory of International Politics’, The Review of Politics, XVII, April 1955. Mark L. Haas, ‘Reinhold Niebuhr’s ‘Christian Pragmatism’: A Principled Alternative to Consequentialism’, The Review of Politics, vol.61, no.4, Autumn 1999.

4

Niebuhr, The Structure of Nations and Empires: A Study of Recurring patterns and Problems of the Political Order in Relation to the Unique Problems of the Nuclear Age (Scribner, 1959), p.193.

5

Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations ((McGraw Hill 2005)), p.10.

6

Niebuhr, Human Destiny (New York, 1950), p.243.

7

Hans J. Morgenthau, In Defense of the National Interest (University Press of America, 1982), p.34.

8

3

E.H.Carr, The Twenty Years Crisis (1939).

178 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (Penguin, London 1995), p.18.

The Evolution of a European Citizenship: From a Europe of States to a Europe of Citizens

E

Jo Leinen German Member of the European Parliament (PES) and Chairman of the Constitutional Affairs Committee

Jan Kreutz Jo Leinen’s parliamentary assistant

UROPE IS THE first succesful example of supranational citizenship. Starting from the idea of a United States of Europe in the 1940s, to the careful steps of economic integration in the 1960s, from the empty chair and strongly inter-governmental developments in the 1960s until the Constitutional Convention and the introduction of participatory democracy in recent years, one question was driving the founding fathers ever since the start of the ‘European Dream’: is the European Union based on states or is it based on citizens? The typical diplomatic answer European decisionmakers have found is that both is true.

The proposed European Constitution’s first article states that the decision to build a European Union reflects ‘the will of citizens and States of Europe to build a common future’. Whereas intergovernmental cooperation is nothing new in the arena of international politics, the formation of a real supranational Union where decisions take into account the interests of individual citizens is a new challenge.

Looking back sixty years, Europe has succeeded in rebuilding itself, economically and politically. The relatively high living standards in the member states are due to the European integration project. And its success is largely due to the careful construction of a European democracy in the past fifty years, a process that will be ongoing for many more years and decades. Following the wish of the founding fathers of the European Union to build a Europe that

179 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

does not only serve the interests of the states, but also of its citizens, the introduction of European Citizenship played an important role in the European supranational democratisation project.

The Evolution of a European Citizenship

The first visionary advocates and the founding fathers of the European integration process strongly believed in a Europe of citizens. Altiero Spinelli in his Ventotene Manifesto and Jean Monnet wanted a Europe, where citizens can participate in fully democratic procedures and in which their nationality plays no role. Instead of an intergovernmental Europe, they promoted a federal structure, with a strong bicameral European Parliament and a true European government.

However, the implementation of these ideas proved to be difficult. Nowhere in the world had the experiment of a supranational democracy been tried out.

The founding fathers could not base their plans on existing experiences.

Traditionally the concept of democracy was strongly linked to the concept of a nation state (or in ancient times to the concept of a city state). Despite good proposals for a federal Europe, such as laid down in the Ventotene Manifesto, the European states were hesitant to transfer powers to the European level.

The post-war Europe-euphoria gave way to concerns of citizens and governments that the integration process would be too quick and the interests of the citizens were to be lost on the way.

‘There is still a long way to go to achieve a citizens’ Europe. In many ways, the participation of citizens in EU decisions still has to be improved’ A federalist revolution based on the will of the citizens was utopia. Instead a slower but nonetheless successful recipe was applied, Monnet’s concept of gradual and functional integration.

Starting from the integration of certain economic sectors he rightly predicted that the integration process would step by step spill over to other fields of politics. With a rising number of decisions taken on the European level, the legitimacy of purely intergovernmental decisions, which were taken behind closed doors and were rather the result of horse-trading than of justified political deliberations, became more and more questioned. This led to a number of changes in the institutional set-up: In 1979 the direct elections to the European Parliament were introduced, the parliament became co-legislator in more and more fields of policy and a real dialogue with citizens was introduced. To strengthen the citizen’s Europe, these institutional reforms were complemented with the introduction of the concept of European Citizenship.

In the early 1970s, long before European citizenship was formally introduced into the treaties, some preparatory work was done: in 1976 a Council decision introduced direct universal suffrage for European elections, in 1981 the Council decided to introduce the European passport.

Furthermore the EU institutions introduced legislation to protect the rights of the Union citizens in the internal market, for example against discrimination.

In 1992, 35 years after the signing of the Rome Treaty, European citizenship 180 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

became formally introduced into the European treaties. The Maastricht Treaty states that ‘Every person holding the nationality of a Member State shall be a citizen of the Union. Citizenship of the Union shall complement and not replace national citizenship.’ This can be seen as a breakthrough for the European integration process, since it strengthened the political dimension of the European Community. European citizenship comprises the right to vote in local and European elections based on residence, not only on nationality.

Furthermore the Union citizens received the right to hand in petitions to the European Parliament and to the European Ombudsperson. Also the right to diplomatic protection of other EU states in third states, in case of absence of the own state, was introduced as an element of European citizenship.

Political Rights of the Union Citizens

There is still a long way to go to achieve a citizens’ Europe. In many ways, the participation of citizens in EU decisions still has to be improved.

Both levels of European democracy, representative democracy and direct democracy, have to be strengthened.

The European Parliament has become much stronger over recent years, but it is not yet a full legislator in all fields of European politics. Many decisions are still taken without using the co-decision procedure, meaning the EP is not on equal footings with the Council of Ministers. Other obstacles to European democracy are unanimity decisions and missing transparency in the Council of Ministers and the European Council. This has in the past often led to horse-trading, package deals and weak compromises. Also the accountability of the European Commission towards the European Parliament should be improved.

In order to arrive at a truly citizens’ Europe far reaching reforms are necessary. The parliament should co-decide in all legislation. Furthermore it is

advisable that one day the co-decision procedure is reformed. The European Parliament should have the right to initiate legislation without being obliged to wait for the Commission to do so.

Furthermore it should have the right to elect the Commission President and the other Commissioners. This way the citizens’ views, expressed in the European Parliament elections, will directly affect the choice of leadership for the EU. If transnational European lists are introduced and if the European political parties will manage to nominate top candidates for the elections, decision-making in the Union could be considerably democratised. European decisions would get a face, citizens could identify.

The European Constitution is an important step forward for the citizens’ Europe. It introduces the co-decision procedure as a rule for decision-making.

The Constitution also strengthens the role of the European Parliament in deciding on the European Commission President and makes the Commission more accountable to Parliament.

Furthermore the Charter of Fundamental Rights will become legally binding, guaranteeing all Union citizens numerous rights, which partly they do not enjoy in the member states yet.

A big step forward in the European Constitution is the introduction of participatory democracy. Considering the size of the European Union and the naturally limited number of members of the European Parliament, further links between the citizens’ interests and Union decisions have to be established.

This is respected in the Constitution, by involving civil society much better in policy making. It will be possible for NGOs and other organisations to address particular concerns such as climate protection and the protection of human rights directly to Parliament, Commission and Council. Furthermore social partners are strengthened and the social dialogue further developed, which will allow trade unions to be an even 181 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

stronger partner in our common struggle for a social, just and democratic Europe.

Last but not least the article on participatory democracy introduces the right for a ‘citizen’s initative’. If one million citizens sign a petition, the Commission is asked to put forward a legislative proposal or a respective decision. This will be an excellent opportunity for citizens to make their voices heard.

Neither on the national, nor on the European level, democracy is self-evident. It must constantly be fought for.

Whatever the future institutional structure of the Union might be, all actors in the EU must do everything possible to ensure that they work as close to the citizens as possible. This also concerns the language used. Documents should be formulated in a way that all Union citizens can understand them.

Furthermore politicians on European, national and regional level should make more efforts to approach citizens, inform them about Europe and discuss with them the Europe they want. This is the only way to arrive at a citizen’s friendly Union. To be informed about European politics should be a fundamental right which is guaranteed for all citizens within the concept of European citizenship. An important step forward will be the further development of an emerging European public sphere. This would be an important channel to mediate between public opinion and Union decision-making.

The Way Forward: More Democratic and Social Rights for a Stronger European Citizenship

Closing the gap between citizens and institutions and by doing so strengthening the European Union requires a strengthening of two aspects of European citizenship in particular: Union citizens need to be equipped with stronger democratic as well as social rights. Ratifying the European Constitution will be a breakthrough for increasing the political role of Europeans. Nevertheless further steps

will be necessary to build a truly European democracy.

Until today there is no European electoral law. The elections to the European Parliament are based on national legislation. They take place on different days and different rules are applied. This makes it difficult for voters to understand the decision in European elections. The European dimension of the EP elections is further weakened by national politicians abusing them as arena to carry out national political battles. Because of these structural problems and the missing European public sphere, we can rather speak of a combination of 27 national elections than of a panEuropean election. In order to increase participation in European elections and thus the democratic legitimacy of EU decisions, European parties should work out strong election manifestos and decide on one top candidate.

Furthermore new European media channels should be developed and national and local media should offer more European coverage. In this way, voters could better judge the strengths and weaknesses of the different parties and candidates in Europe and take a more informed decision.

However, European policy cannot be reduced to the day of elections.

Decisions on the direction of the Union and on policies concerning all citizens are taken every day in difficult negotiations between the different parties and

‘European policy cannot be reduced to the day of elections.

Decisions on the direction of the Union and on policies concerning all citizens are taken every day’ 182 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

the different institutions. Even today, fifty years after the beginning of the European integration process, too little is known about the way the European Union works and about the output, the concrete decisions taken. National politicians as well as representatives of civil society should make more efforts to communicate European policy. But also citizens should take matters in their own hands: the doors of European parliamentarians and the ombudsperson are wide open for them.

On the European level too, democracy lives from participation.

European citizenship as such should be developed further and interpreted more widely. The debates in France about the European Constitution and the public opposition against the Bolkestein Directive prove that it is especially the social dimension of the European Union that has to be strengthened. Social rights have to be at the core of the concept of European Citizenship. It must be the role of the European Union to protect its citizens from unfair competition of globalisation. To this end the policy agenda of the European Union must be further developed. At the upcoming Intergovernmental Conference this June, the member states’ governments should therefore decide to enrich the European Constitution with an additional protocol, strengthening ‘Social Europe’ and also focusing on other new challenges, such as climate protection.

A proposal for a solution of the constitutional crises, including further ideas on such a protocol, can be found on www.joleinen.de.

Reference Jenson, Jane (2007): The European union’s citizenship Regime. Creating Norms and Building Practices, in: Comparative European Politics, 2007, 5, (53-69).

Britain and the Constitutional Treaty

A

Richard Corbett Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the British Labour Party

S DISCUSSIONS RECOMMENCE on what to do about the Constitutional Treaty, now ratified by two thirds of the member states of the European Union, the question arises as to what is the position of the UK. Anyone following such debates across Europe rapidly finds that the UK is lumped together with Poland and the Czech Republic as ‘the opponents’ of the draft Constitution, a position seized on with relish by some French politicians who are keen to point the finger at somebody else and make us forget that it was France that (not for the first time) has blocked reform of the European Union.

Naturally, eurosceptics in Britain like to portray the Constitutional Treaty as something that is not in Britain’s interests or has even been foisted on a reluctant Britain. This is in fact far from being the case. Britain was central to the negotiations that agreed the text, the government signed the treaty and, as Tony Blair said to the House of Commons in June 2004: ‘This constitu-

‘Eurosceptics in Britain like to portray the Constitutional Treaty as something that is not in Britain’s interests or has even been foisted on a reluctant Britain. This is in fact far from being the case’ 183 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

tional treaty represents a success for the new Europe that is taking shape, it is a success for Britain.’

Of course, the British government is realistic enough to know that the current text of the Constitutional Treaty is unlikely to be ratified as it stands by all member states without further ado.

France alone will see to that. The new French President Sarkozy has called instead for a ‘mini-treaty’. In such circumstances the British government is being realistic in holding fire and not holding a referendum on a text that may well be moribund, or at least subject to additions or modifications. If it were a matter for simple parliamentary ratification, the government could well consider adding Britain to the list of countries that have endorsed the Constitution as a political gesture.

However, the requirement for a referendum on the text as it stands – or, presumably, on anything approaching its scope and carrying the name ‘Constitution’ – precludes such an approach.

Needless to say, the results of the referenda in France and the Netherlands, notwithstanding the positive outcomes of referenda elsewhere, have almost certainly made it more difficult to win referendums in some of the other member states. Voting on a text that very few people will have read leaves the debate very vulnerable to superficial perceptions. One of the strongest perceptions that will linger in people’s minds is the rejection by people in France and the Netherlands – and

never mind that many of those voters were really expressing opposition to the government of the day rather than to the text itself.

Perceptions are political reality, and there is no way around the fact that securing a compromise around a text that will be acceptable to all 27 governments and capable of ratification will not be easy.

Among the options available, it is not yet clear what is likely to achieve consensus. These options include:

feasible as a timetable will depend on the degree of consensus that emerges at the European Council meeting in June.

Already, some British voices are attempting to identify what are the essential elements that should be salvaged from a British perspective. Lord Kerr, formerly Britain’s Ambassador to the EU and former Secretary General of the Convention, whose knowledge on these matters is vast, writing in the Financial Times at the end of February, identified seven vital elements:

• ‘Treaty-plus’ options: keeping the text intact but adding protocols to it or declarations interpreting it in order to respond to concerns that have been expressed.

• Replacing the six monthly rotating ‘Buggin’s turn’ Presidency of the European Council with a full-time fixed term President, chosen by the heads of government to chair their meetings.

• Re-negotiating the text: re-examining the content, the style and name of the Constitutional Treaty, if possible without re-opening some of the complex bargains which were struck.

• A ‘mini-treaty’: bringing in the emergency repairs needed to the institutional system to enable the Union to cater with an ever growing number of members.

Of course, a mix of additional protocols, some re-writing and some deletions is also conceivable – but the more complex the approach the longer it is likely to take. Nor should we forget that some 22 countries attended the ‘Friends of the Constitution’ meeting in Madrid in January and expressed their attachment to keeping the current text as intact as possible.

Whichever option is chosen, there will have to be an Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) to negotiate and endorse whatever the new package entails. Such an IGC could, in theory at least, be short and sweet, and be held over this summer and early autumn enabling a new text to emerge by the end of the year. Whether that is 184 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

• Empowering the EU’s High Representative for foreign policy with co-ordinating all external relations of the EU Commission and Council, on both of which he would sit.

• Introducing the reformed qualified majority voting system envisaged under the Constitutional Treaty which is more proportionate to the size of each country.

• Introducing the ‘subsidiarity mechanism’ for involving national parliaments in prior scrutiny of all EU legislative proposals.

• Subjecting the Commission President to election by the European Parliament.

• Making more visible the principle of conferral, whereby the EU may only act within the powers given to it by the member states.

• Introducing a secession clause, explicitly empowering member states to leave the European Union if they so wish.

‘It is high time that British politicians and others start thinking carefully about the details of this debate’ To the list I would, myself, add some others:

• Cutting the size of the Commission.

• Making all EU legislation subject to the double scrutiny of requiring approval by national ministers in the Council and elected MEPs in the European Parliament.

• Giving more prominence to the treaty article obliging the Union to respect the national identities of member states.

More tricky is what to do about Part II of the Constitutional Treaty – the charter of rights. Intended as a limitation on the powers of the Union, by obliging it to respect rights that, for the most part, member states themselves already have to respect, it has become embroiled in a debate about whether national courts would defer to the EU Court when deliberating on rights cases under national law. Perhaps the solution here would be to have a single article saying that the Union institutions are obliged to respect the charter on rights approved in 2000 in Nice, but that this would not apply to member states (except when they are applying European law).

Another complex matter is the ambition of the Constitutional Treaty to codify all previous treaties into a single document. This worthy idea led to a hasty re-casting of the original set of treaties which, whilst shorter, still represented a ‘constitutional’ text of inordinate length. Perhaps, here too, an 185 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

answer might be to have a single article empowering the European Council, by unanimity, to codify and reorganise the existing treaties and to delete redundant articles, provided that the Court of Justice certifies that, in so doing, they are not increasing the competencies or powers of the European Union.

Finally, there will no doubt be many suggestions for other additions to the treaty. Some of these should be looked upon favourably: articles on tackling climate change, respecting social security systems of member states and others may well make the text of the treaty more acceptable in some or all the member states. Negotiating these aspects may well be tricky but will inevitably be part of the final package.

All in all, it is high time that British politicians and others start thinking carefully about the details of this debate. Above all, they should not abandon this terrain to the tangential clichés that the eurosceptics are determined to push it down. Their unrealistic and sensationalist portrayal of the issues is already leading the debate in a direction that is totally divorced from what the Constitutional Treaty actually says and from the political reality of what is likely to be negotiated among the 27 member states.

This must be countered by a measured, factual and intelligent contribution to the debate by the true ‘eurorealists’ – those who know that Britain’s interests are best served if we and our neighbouring countries can agree on a settled, well functioning, democratically accountable European framework, better able to address those issues where a joint approach is mutually advantageous.

Social Europe the journal of the european left • Volume 2 • Issue 4 • Spring 2007

Endnotes

We would like to express our special gratitude to Chloé Aublin and Jeannette Ladzik who helped a great deal in the development of this issue.

All the views expressed in the articles of this issue are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of Social Europe Forum.

All rights reserved Social Europe Forum © 2007