THE EU IS IN DESPERATE CRISIS with the established political order breaking apart in country after country, from Ireland and the UK to Austria, Greece and southern Europe as the world crisis of capitalism drives forward slumps, financial crashes, wars, revolutions and with them a mass migration of peoples.
n the UK the masses are being warned that if they have the audacity to vote to quit the EU then they will never experience another happy day! France is being revolutionised by an alleged ‘socialist’ government imposing anti-union laws to slash wages, extend working hours and make mass sackings easier for the bosses.
President Hollande is convinced that French capitalism can only be ‘saved’ by these measures to crush the organised workers. Currently, the strike actions have spread to all of France’s eight oil refineries, with already 20% of petrol stations out of supplies.
The ‘socialist’ government has vowed to smash down workers’ picket lines to prevent the country coming to a standstill. Meanwhile, the workers are supported by the majority of the middle class and by large masses of students and working class youth.
It is not that May and June 1968 are being revisited – the struggle is continuing from where the May and June events left off, with the working class posed with taking power and establishing a workers’ republic! The French socialist revolution is underway.
In Austria, where the right wing has been enraged by the refugee masses making their way to a better life, the pistol toting Freedom Party leader Norbert Hoffer has been seen off by the urban working class who saw to it that the Green candidate, Alexander Van der Bellen, has become president.
The ‘natural parliamentary rulers’ of Austria, the Social Democrats and the more right wing ‘Peoples Party’, have been seen off by the emerging class struggle. Workers and youth, who turned out to vote down the Freedom Party in nine out of ten Austrian cities, have no intention of allowing fascism to return to Austria.
In Greece, the Syriza ‘turncoat’ government has started to round up refugees in the north of the country, who are trying to cross into Macedonia, and put them into special reception camps from where they will be returned to Turkey!
The Syriza party traitors are also imposing more and more austerity measures onto the Greek workers. To meet EU ‘targets’ Athens has agreed to a contingency mechanism of additional austerity measures equal to some 2% of gross domestic product!
It has agreed new taxes on fuel, tobacco, alcohol, Internet, pay television, hotel stays, cars and changes in property tax, as well as a rise in the basic value-added tax rate, applied to most goods and services, to 24% from 23%. It also agreed to the establishment of a new privatization fund that would manage its assets to execute its investment policy and reduce its debt, as well as a fiscal brake mechanism that will automatically cut state spending if Greece misses its budget targets.
The EU bankers have put the Greek workers in chains so that they can continue looting the country! The response of the Greek workers has been to organise general strike after general strike. However, the austerity measures can only be defeated when the Greek working class builds a revolutionary leadership, a section of the International Committee of the Fourth International, to lead the struggle to take the power in Greece, and then to overthrow the EU alongside the masses of the European working class.
As the class struggle develops, the established parties of capitalist rule are crumbling all over the EU. In the UK, workers are being told that if they vote to quit the EU on June 23 they will face absolute ruin. This message is being delivered by the Bank of England, the Treasury, the Cameron wing of the Tory Party, the Labour Party and also the TUC – a grotesque Popular Front has been formed to try to save European capitalism.
However, this alliance is so discredited that it cannot assure victory for the UK ruling class. On June 23 millions of workers are determined to vote to leave the EU to smash the Cameron government and to go forward to a workers’ government and socialism. Then the UK workers will go forward, arm in arm with the European working class, to a Socialist United States of Europe.
Central to this strategy is the construction of sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International all over Europe to provide the revolutionary leadership for the working class to bring about a socialist Europe!
