The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.61/No.27           August 11, 1997 
 
 
EU Probes Expanding East And Cutting Farm Subsidies  

BY CARL-ERIK ISACCSSON
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - The European Commission, the executive body of the European Union (EU), adopted its "Agenda 2000" plan July 16. This plan includes the enlargement of the EU into Central and Eastern Europe, as well as cuts in agricultural subsidies to member countries. But implementation of the plan will be far from smooth. The commission recommended that the EU begin membership negotiations with five of the former Soviet-bloc countries: the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Hungary, Poland, and Estonia. Cyprus is also invited to the membership negotiations.

Five other applicants - Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, and Slovakia - were told they had to do more to prepare to join the EU. The Turkish government's application for EU membership was earlier dismissed by the commission, which cited economic and human rights grounds.

The decision to consider Cyprus was not well received in Ankara. Bulent Ecevit, Turkey's deputy prime minister, threatened to annex the northern third of Cyprus, which is occupied by Turkish forces, if the EU proceeds with plans to include the Greek-backed Cypriot government in the membership negotiations.

The various EU members backed different candidates for the EU expansion, based on their often competing interests. Swedish Foreign Minister Lena Hjelm Wallen, in an article published July 16 in the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter, stated, "Sweden will work with the aim that the three Baltic states [Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia] and Poland will become members in EU as soon as possible. We want to see these four countries together with all the other applicants in joint negotiations. The main road to security and cooperation in Europe as I see it is the European Union and its enlargement eastward." Wallen noted that at the recent EU summit in Amsterdam, "Sweden and Finland won support for the proposal that the EU should even be able to act in peacekeeping missions." Early EU membership for the Baltic states has also been pushed by Washington, Copenhagen, and Helsinki.

Bonn particularly supports Poland's entry into the EU. On July 14, German chancellor Helmut Kohl described relations with Poland as the best in the century. This first consultative conference between ministers of the German and Polish governments is projected to develop into an annual event.

It's not automatic that any of these candidates will actually be taken into EU membership. The commission stressed that the prospective members must carry out much deeper "restructuring" - such as speeding up privatization of state-owned industry -before they will be admitted to the European trade bloc. In addition, the EU governments failed to reach an agreement in Amsterdam over how to restructure the union when new members are admitted; all the differences were simply postponed.

European Commission president Jaques Santer called for cuts in farm subsidies, which now account for about half the EU's $100 billion annual budget, to be partly offset by direct income payments to farmers. He also proposed restricting the number of EU regions qualifying for industrial and development aid. These measures would free up funds for a "new Marshall Plan" to help the 10 eastern countries prepare for membership, Santer said. Under the Marshall Plan, Washington provided $13 billion in loans to restart industry in Europe after World War II. This scheme helped to codify U.S. hegemony in Western Europe and stave off further revolutionary struggles.

The Commission adopted a financial framework that projects carrying out the expansion with no increase in the overall funding from member states, but it counts on 2.5 percent annual growth in Gross Domestic Product in the years to come.

The proposed budget reforms got a favorable response in Stockholm and London. These governments are small net contributors to the budget, and capitalists farmers in Sweden and the United Kingdom do not get much of the subsidies. London negotiated rebates in its payments to the EU in the mid-1980s after Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher waged a battle within the EU. Stockholm, Helsinki, and Vienna also got rebates when they joined in the 1990s, which will expire in 1999. The German government, on the other hand, considers its net contribution too high after the enormous costs of German reunification. As negotiations on the EU expansion continue, the rebates will probably be a point of contention.

Bonn is the biggest net payer and wants its payments reduced, but opposes cutting the farm subsidizes to the capitalist farmers in Germany. At the same time, it worries that agricultural subsidies to eastern countries will become a further financial strain to the rulers in Germany.

In Latvia and Lithuania, 20 percent and 33 percent of the population respectively, are engaged in agriculture, while in Estonia the figure is 15 percent. According to the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter, that is a major reason why only Estonia is among the first to be negotiated into the EU.

Nevertheless, Bonn has taken a lead in pushing for the admission of Poland, which is a big agricultural producer. This has become politically important for the German government, especially with the expansion of NATO to include its eastern neighbor. The French Farm Ministry immediately rejected the proposed cuts in farm support as unacceptable. Protests by farmers over sinking incomes due to changes in EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) have been frequent in France and Greece over the last years. Rome and Madrid are also big net recipients of EU funds and oppose them being diverted east.

NATO expansion drive
The enlargement of the EU intersects with the expansion of NATO as a war drive by the imperialists in Europe and North America aimed at breaking the Russian workers state and opening the door to capitalist domination. Following the NATO summit in early July that decided to extend membership in the military alliance to Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, both U.S. president William Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright traveled to Europe to tout the scheme and also encourage EU membership for the Baltic states.

According to reports in the Swedish press, in St. Petersburg on July 13 Albright bluntly told her Russian hosts that the Baltic states have the right to join NATO. Interviewed on Russian TV she said, "We have all the time said that NATO is open to all European countries with a free market," when asked about the Baltic states, and added, "It is completely irrelevant where these countries are located on the map." She met the three Baltic foreign ministers in Vilnius, Lithuania, later that day and said that the Baltic states are "serious candidates" for future membership.

Russian president Boris Yeltsin, after a meeting with Finnish president Martti Ahtisaar in Moscow July 13, said, "NATO membership for the Baltic states would jeopardize Russian security. Moscow will strongly resist that these countries become NATO members."

Meanwhile, in mid-July Estonia hosted the biggest military exercise led by NATO in the Baltic countries so far. Some 2,600 soldiers from eight countries are participating in "Baltic Challenge 97." Most of them are from the United States but they also include Swedish forces. The war games on the sea, land, and air use the scenario of a big earthquake in which aid is facilitated by military personnel. The center of the exercise is in the former top- secret Soviet navy base in Paldiski. At the NATO meeting in Madrid, Estonian president Lennart Meri was asked why it was necessary to expand NATO. He replied, "It is said that communism is dead but no one has yet seen the corpse."

Carl-Erik Isacsson is a member of the metalworkers union in Sodertalje, Sweden.  
 
 
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