The German Presidency of the G8 has outlined a recipe to push forward the agenda of globalisation and the project of the strengthening the European Union.
These include a commitment to
• “reduce global imbalances", i.e. address the weakness of the Dollar and its destabilising effect for the world in coming years
• “measures aimed at improving systemic stability and transparency of financial markets"
• “freedom of investment in industrial and emerging countries. Addressing of global investment conditions"
• “protection of innovations against product and trademark piracy"
• “need for sustainable use of resources".
Of course this is combined with the usual talk of caring about Africa, the poor and the disadvantaged, ignoring the fact that it is the global capitalist system that creates this poverty in the first place.
More importantly the whole agenda is also heavily focussed on security – a euphemism for the quasi-colonial occupation of Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine or Kosovo and the assault on democratic liberties in the G8 countries themselves.
The German capitalist class is determined to push forward the Lisbon agenda which calls for neo liberal attacks across the continent. They also want to revive the EU’s constitutional process and make a major leap in the imperialist unification of Europe under German and French hegemony in order to challenge the US on a world level.
This really is the central strategic objective of German imperialism in the coming period
Building an EU superstate
The EU constitution was ratified by the German parliament, without any public debate, almost behind the backs of the population. The politicians – Christian and Social Democrats, Liberals – all fearing that it could be blocked by a “No” in a referendum, as actually happened in France and the Netherlands.
The German presidency is making a conscious effort to generate public support for the European Union – presenting the EU as a “safe haven", which will be competitive, secure and able to intervene in the whole world in a European, not in an American way.
There will be an informal EU-summit in Berlin on 24-25 March, celebrating 50 years of the Treaty of Rome, the foundation stone of the Community. A Charter of European Values will be publicly unveiled. To invoke the spirit of 1989 the German government is throwing a huge party around the Brandenburg Gate.
Imperialism and the class struggle
The reality of the “safety” the European haven affords refugees and asylum seekers can be seen daily: people from Africa and the Middle East being stopped, detained or even killed at the EU borders. Tens of thousands annually are being forcibly deported to face torture or starvation. The superiority of the “European way” may be lost on the inhabitants of Afghanistan, Lebanon and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Perhaps “European values” are represented by the wave of attacks on the working class and the poor, of privatisations and job cuts in Germany and the rest of Europe. They can be seen in the racist attacks on Islamists, and the relegation to second class EU citizenship for the people from the new accession states in Eastern Europe.
Soon the German government will push through its so-called “pension reform", raising the age of retirement to 67. In large companies like Airbus/EADS, German Telecom, Bayer/Schering, tens of thousands of jobs will be cut or outsourced. This has already lead to an increase of struggles to defend jobs, even though they have been partial and derailed by the trade union bureaucracy and the PDS-Left Party which has played no role in developing strategies to win or even to unite ongoing struggles.
Againt this background it is no surprise that the left wing of the German Labour movement, rank and file unionists and young anticapitalists are planning a series of actions to give the G8 a warm welcome in June.
A whole series of mobilisations are planned which will build up to against the G8 meeting in Heiligendamm. There are days of action on March 17-18 and massive counter-demonstration against the EU summit on 25 March. May Day too will act as a rallying point for the G8 events.
On Saturday 2 June a demonstration in Rostock is expected to attract anything from 100,000 to 150,000 people.This will open a week of meetings and actions. These will will include an Alternative Summit and, on Wednesday 6 June, a mass blockade of the summit. In addition there will be days of action against climate change, racism, war and occupation.
The protests will see the European “safe haven” in action. A tiny group of the world’s rulers will seek refuge – from their own people – behind 12,000 riot police and soldiers. There will be massive police surveillance of the demonstrators and violent repression if need be. In addition, the navy, the air force and the army will also be deployed. Already several bookshops, flats of activists, etc. have been searched for posters and leaflets calling for supposed illegal actions.
The section of the League for the Fifth international in Germany, Arbeitermacht, and Revolution, the socialist youth organsation, have called on all forces to support the demonstrations and actions against the G8 summit, to blockade it as effectively as possible. To achieve this we have helped to build anti-G8 alliances of an internationalist, anti-imperialist and class struggling character in Germany and Austria. We are doing this through contacts in the Anti-Imperialist Network of the European Social Forum.
We also call on all these activists to unite, to act together against the G8. However it must not just be a one-off. We need to lay the foundations for a European-wide and even broader, co-ordination to unite our struggles, against imperialist war, racism and capitalist exploitation. Unity in action against the G8 and what they represent can be a step forward in the fight for a new world party of socialist revolution – the Fifth International.