Europe witnessed over one million refugees fleeing in to its borders in 2015, 90 percent of whom were from Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan. It is the largest movement of displaced people since the Second World War resulting in seven European Union (EU) states imposing border controls, Hungary building a wall on its southern border, Denmark seizing the assets of migrants on arrival, Sweden planning to deport 80,000 asylum seekers and UK Prime Minister (PM) Cameron, under pressure from his own xenophobic right, has built fortress Britannia.
All this points to one thing and that is the contradiction between capitalism’s need for wider markets and the existence of the nation state. The process of globalisation is unravelling and European integration, once considered by many as irreversible, appears now in retreat. The Schengen area, consisting of 22 EU countries, encompassing a population of more than 400 million and with more than 1.25 billion journeys annually across its internal borders, is rapidly unravelling. Schengen rules allow member-states to “exceptionally” reinstate controls on their borders “if there is a serious threat to public policy or internal security”, but typically for no more than 30 days. But Article 26 of the Schengen code gives the European Commission (EC) the option to recommend sweeping border controls for as long as two years.
Germany introduced controls on its border with Austria last September. Following the Paris attacks in November, France imposed a state of emergency and border controls. On January 20, Macedonia, outside of the EU and Schengen, closed its border with Greece. Almost all countries along the so-called western Balkan route — Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Austria and Slovenia — have activated provisions that allow them to temporarily re-impose border checks, making Schengen’s suspension a de facto reality.
Merkel is travelling to Turkey again in an attempt to revive negotiations aimed at convincing Erdogan to stop refugees crossing into Europe. How dramatic the situation is can be seen by the tens of thousands of more Syrian refugees massing on the Turkish border in the last few days. In November, the EU came up with a three billion euros incentive for Ankara, as well as the promise of political concessions such as a visa-free travel agreement. But Turkey, which has spent eight billion dollars on housing, education and healthcare, will require additional motivation.
In Europe, capitalism formed and then outgrew the nation-state. It then went on to colonise the world in the quest for cheap raw materials and new markets. In spite of that, the world market was incapable of absorbing the combined productive capacity of the major powers. The result was two world wars fought to decide who would dominate in Europe and globally, and saw the European powers unseated from their dominant global positions.
It was out of the ashes of the Second World War that the European Economic Community (EEC) and later the EU came about. It was born out of the need for the European bourgeoisie to overcome the fetters of the nation state and its limited national market. Today, the crisis of capitalism can be seen clearly in the fact that the process of integration is going into reverse on a global scale. In the first half of 2015, world trade suffered its sharpest fall since the collapse following the financial crisis of 2008. Imports and exports declined month-on-month in China in 2015. In December, the US imposed a 256 percent tariff on Chinese steel imports. Overproduction plagues Europe, as the $ 1.1 trillion cash piles at non-financial European companies testify. From a capitalist point of view, why invest in more production when you cannot sell the goods already produced?
Introducing internal borders on the 1.7 million European workers who use Schengen everyday would cost three billion euros a year in lost business, according to Jean-Claude Juncker. German business leaders have warned that re-introducing borders will cost the country’s economy up to 10 billion euros a year. The French government’s economic planning agency, France Stratégie, estimated in a recent report that it would cost the EU € 110 billion, and make its economy 0.8 percent smaller within a decade. It also said that France would suffer losses between one billion and two billion euros annually in the short term if Europe returns to controlled borders. Tourism would shrink by between € 500 million and one billion euros a year, while the negative impact on trade would amount to between € 60 million and € 120 million annually. Such a development would exacerbate the downward trajectory of the world economy.
The EU is a combination of ex-colonial powers that suffer from an unappeased yearning to return to their youth. Having lost their empires, they also declined as industrial nations relative to rising powers such as the US and Japan, and in order to survive in the world market they were forced to huddle together. And within this process, although at the height of the post-war boom, all member-states benefited to one degree or another from the Union, a differentiation took place with Germany in particular rising to the disadvantage of the others, increasing the internal contradictions rather than reducing them.
The working class’s natural aspiration to move freely, seemingly championed by Schengen, is now colliding with the inherent contradictions of capitalism, which can no longer allow freely moving labour power. As the EU goes further into decline, the internal social situation is worsening with growing levels of unemployment, especially high among the youth. In these conditions pressures have built up within many of the EU countries to curb the influx of workers from other countries, whipped by reactionary right-wing parties. The anti-refugee stance of European national governments is part of the racist propaganda designed to pit worker against worker. They can get away with it for a period and among certain layers because labour movement leaders do not pose an alternative.
The answer to cheap labour is not to fight poor immigrants but to organise them, bring them into the trade unions and unite workers across national, ethnic, colour and religious divides in a struggle against capitalists of all nations. That was one of the tasks the First International dealt with effectively. It is what is required today.
Abolishing Schengen and raising borders is simply part of the overall process of each national capitalist class trying to hide behind its own national borders. It is a step down the road of the historical decline of the EU. With growing social and economic problems comes class struggle and we will see this develop on an all-European level in the coming period. One European country after another will enter the arena of mass struggles, protests, strikes and general strikes, together with the polarisation of society to the left and the right as classes look for a way out. We will see left governments coming to power followed by periods of reaction and new waves of struggle. In this process, over the coming period, the working people of Europe will begin to draw very radical conclusions.
The writer is the editor of Asian Marxist Review and international secretary of Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign. He can be reached at [email protected]