The consequences of European de-sovereignisation
(https://www.thomasfazi.com/p/the-consequences-of-european-de-sovereignisation)
De-sovereignisation, spearheaded by the EU, is at the root of the dramatic rollback of democracy across Europe, and of the continent’s unprecedented subordination to American power
Mar 09, 2024
This is an edited version of a talk I recent gave at Strode College.
Over the course of the past decades, the process of European economic and monetary integration has significantly — almost entirely, I would say — hollowed out the national sovereignty of European countries. But does this mean in concrete terms? What have been the concrete effects of this loss of sovereignty, especially in light of recent events, first and foremost the still-ongoing war in Ukraine?
Before answering that question I’ll just go over the basics of the case for national sovereignty from my perspective, which is what you may call a left-sovereigntist perspective.
In very basic terms, you can’t have democracy (or popular sovereignty), in the true sense of the word, if you don’t have national sovereignty. And it’s easy to see why: if by democracy we mean the ability of citizens to have a say on the issues that really matter — on the political, social and economic organisation of society, on fundamental issues which affect the actual material living conditions of people and workers, rather than simply getting to tinker at the edges — then it goes without saying that the state within which the electoral-democratic process takes place needs to have a certain degree of economic (and especially monetary) sovereignty.
That is to say, it needs to have the basic tools that are necessary to actually steer the economy and therefore society in one direction or another, and those basic tools are the standard tools of economic policy: fiscal policy, tax policy, exchange rate policy, but most of all monetary policy (the issuance of the currency), which really undergirds all the other tools. These are the tools from which every aspect of the social and economic organisation of society depend from: they are the tools that allow a state to decide what kind of economic policies it wants to pursue, what kind of employment policies, industrial policies, investment policies, welfare policies, etc.
Now, it follows that only if a state is economically sovereign, only if it has these tools, can citizens, theoretically at least, choose between different models of society — by choosing one party’s platform over another, by choosing a platform that proposes more welfare over one that proposes less welfare, or one that proposes pro-labour policies over one that proposes pro-business policies, etc.
On the other hand, if a state is not economically sovereign, if it doesn’t have those basic economic policy tools — because, say, it has ceded them to institutions outside of the state (any reference to actually existing institutions is not coincidental) — then you can have the formally most democratic electoral system in the world, you can allow as many parties to participate in the elections, with the most radical programmes, but it will be completely useless: because whatever government gets into power will find itself lacking those basic tools needed to steer the economy and society in one direction or another; it will have little choice but to go along with the statu quo, with the policies that are decided by those institutions that actually do control those tools — in our case the supranational institutions of the EU, first and foremost the ECB. This is especially true, as it is for euro countries, if you’ve given the fundamental plank of economic policy: the power to issue your currency. As the late British economist Wynne Godley said, if you lose or give up the power to issue your own currency, you effectively acquire the status of a local authority or colony.
In this context, the act of voting becomes largely a charade, an empty ritual that has hardly any impact on the direction of policy — and that is of course the situation in which we find ourselves in in the eurozone. Now this should be a problem for any true small-d democrat, but it is (or should be) especially a problem for those of a left or socialist inclination — that is to say, for those that favour a high degree of public or collective control over the affairs of the market and the economy. If you’re radical laissez-faire free-marketeer who believes that governments should get involved in economic matters as little as possible and that markets should just be left to themselves because you believe they’re self-equilibrating, then you might not view this lack of economic sovereignty as a big problem, in fact you may actually see it as something positive. But if you’re a socialist, if you’re someone who believes in a certain degree of collective control over the economy, then economic sovereignty becomes a fundamental precondition for political action.
Now, it’s truly a shame that the European left has completely lost sight of this fundamental insight, embracing instead the anti-sovereign — and therefore intrinsically anti-socialist project — that is the European Union. But of course that also has to with the fact that the left has largely abandoned socialism in general, but that’s another story. What’s interesting is that there was a time, however, when the socialist and communist left in Europe used to get this.
Caveat:
Subiranotasun erabili gabe, saia gaitezen beti independentzia erabili. Bestela, Euskal Herrian bezala, subiranotasuna autonomismo ustel bilakatu ahalko dugu.
Beraz, erabil ditzakegu ondokoak: independentzia politikoa, independentzia ekonomikoa, independentzia monetarioa (moneta propioa erabiliz), eta abar…
Gehigarriak:
Europar Distopiaren aurrean, independentzia!
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