Abstract
Analysing the post-World War foundations of the European Union and following in detail the history of this construction until today, Jean-Christophe Defraigne focuses, in two chapters, on class domination, the absence of the European working class, and the conflicts between the elite classes of different European nations as well as with the American bourgeoisie. The major advances of the institutionalization of the European Union and the Eurozone corresponding to the regression of worker movements, Defraigne argues that it has ended up favouring reactionary and extreme-rightist “solutions” to crisis scenarios, aligned with a rampant euro-scepticism symbolized by Brexit, that prevents the creation of a supra-national European State with the capacity of resolving at least some of its internal contradictions.
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Notes
- 1.
We will define it here as individuals who have to sell their labor or receive social assistance from the state in order to survive.
- 2.
As an example, we recall the words of SS-Obergruppenführer Heydrich, architect of the Final Solution, about the key role played by René Bousquet, General Secretary of the Vichy Police, in the round-up of Jews in Paris. After the war, René Bousquet went on to work for the Banque d’Indochine et de Suez, retaining his Legion of Honor. Similar cases of collaboration by senior civil servants exist in Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway and Italy.
- 3.
From which come BASF, Bayer, Hoecht and Agfa.
- 4.
We can quote the edifying style of the EU explanatory brochure written by academic Pascal Fontaine to understand EU policies available on the official EU publications website: “It was not until the reflections of the resistance movements against totalitarianism, during the Second World War, that a new hope emerged: to overcome national antagonisms, to create the conditions for lasting peace. A handful of courageous statesmen, such as Robert Schuman, Konrad Adenauer, Alcide De Gasperi and Winston Churchill, committed themselves between 1945 and 1950 to convincing their peoples to enter a new era: that of a structured organization of Western Europe based on common interests, guaranteed by treaties ensuring the equality of each state and respect for the law. Robert Schuman (French Foreign Minister) took up an idea of Jean Monnet’s and, on May 9, 1950, proposed the creation of a European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). Placing the coal and steel production of formerly enemy countries under a common authority, the High Authority, had great symbolic significance. The materials of war were transformed into instruments of reconciliation and peace.”
- 5.
The Nazi government pursued a policy of economic plundering in Eastern Europe, imposing substantial financial contributions from the occupied territories, reaching up to 10% of GDP in 1943 and 1944 (Defraigne 2004).
- 6.
In 1951, Churchill summed up the UK’s post-war diplomatic vision: “Our first object is the unity and consolidation of the British Commonwealth and what is left of the former British Empire. Our second, the ‘fraternal association’ of the English-speaking world; and the third, United Europe, to which we are separate, closely and specially related ally and friend” (quoted in May, 2013).
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Defraigne, JC. (2024). A Marxian Analysis of the European Construction I: Origins. In: de Nanteuil, M., Fjeld, A. (eds) Marx and Europe. Philosophy and Politics - Critical Explorations, vol 30. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-53736-3_3
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