Thursday, January 12, 2023

30 years since the Maastricht Treaty: Statement by the European Communist Initiative

In a statement concerning the 30th anniversary of the Maastricht Treaty, also known as Treaty of the European Union, the Secretariat of the European Communist Initiative stresses out:

This December, 30 years have passed since the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty, which marked a closer transnational union at the economic, political, and military level of European capital with the transformation of the European Economic Community (EEC) into the European Union (EU). This meant a new, heavier yoke on the people by the monopolies.

Its aim was the reproduction and accumulation of capital with an ever-increasing intensification of exploitation, in order to respond more effectively to the needs of international capitalist competition with other imperialist centres for the division of markets and spheres of influence, including through the introduction of a single currency.

At the time of the ratification of the treaty, Eastern Europe was in the midst of the counterrevolutionary upheaval marking the overthrow of socialism and capitalist restoration.

The EU allowed a more organized and coherent capitalism to penetrate the formerly socialist states, creating an organization that could effectively secure the gains of the counterrevolution.

Thus, the EU, whose foundations were laid with the Maastricht Treaty, and with its subsequent amendments, remains a  transnational imperialist union of capital.

Simultaneously, the concentration of  monopoly capital from various countries does not ease the tensions between them, but rather, it creates new arenas for competition. This competition takes place daily inside the Eurozone and the EU, as imperialist alliances are temporary.

At the same time, the EU competes against other imperialist centres and blocs such as the USA, China or Russia.

The EU, like its predecessor the EEC, being a reactionary and imperialist bloc, has allways been promoting the strategy of capital at the expense of the people, which today intensifies the anti-popular policy with soaring prices, energy poverty, unemployment, and auctions due to the so-called “green and digital transition”.

Competition between the monopolies and the capitalist states representing their interests led to the imperialist war in Ukraine being waged between the EU-the USA-NATO and capitalist Russia. This war, which has been going on for 9 months, is spilling the blood of the Ukrainian and Russian people, with the risk of a generalization and even the use of nuclear weapons. The sanctions imposed by the EU on Russia burden the peoples.

The repeated corruption and bribery scandals centred on the European Parliament among MEPs and the various lobbies and NGOs of the capitalists standing over the graves of thousands of workers in the sweatshops of Qatar, prove that the EU is irreversibly a union of capital and cannot be pro-people. It was, is, and will be a union of monopolies. That is why it attacks socialism, promotes the anti-communist myths, and bears great responsibility for the bans on Communist Parties in its member states in Eastern Europe.

The European Communist Initiative exposes the true anti-popular character of the EU and struggles against the illusions about its role fostered by forces of international opportunism such as the so-called Party of the European Left.

As communists, we intensify our efforts to strengthen the people’s struggle and the demands of the working class and its allies for immediate relief from the anti-people’s maelstrom while promoting the only real way out, for another world, socialism. Three decades after the signing of the Maastricht Treaty, we continue the struggle against the EU and the capitalist system it serves, for a world worthy of the needs and interests of the peoples.

initiative-cwpe.org