Editorial - The French and Dutch "NO" to the European constitution

Luta Social, No.4

Editorial from this month's edition of "Luta Social" (Social Struggle), the bulletin of the Anti-Authoritarian Class-Struggle Collective in Lisbon, portugal. The article deals with the European constitution.

Luta Social, No.4

Editorial

The French and Dutch "NO" to the European constitution serves to demonstrate that the document proposed for European approval only serves one side and that the European people would be the main ones to suffer by virtue of this text which is full of injustices.

With this document, Europe's workers and people, the principal targets of measures which are contrary to their rights and living conditions, would be reduced to the level of people of the Third World, with an increasingly sophisticated system of repression and with more and more authoritarian "security" measures. French, German and British workers and those of other European countries who had to conquer wage and social rights assuring them a decent standard of living, with a great deal of work and struggle over the last 60 years, would lose what they have won and be forced to return to pre-World War II levels.

The principal beneficiaries of this European pseudo-constitution, should it come into force, would be the holders of capital and employers, who would see increasing profits, greater (and more repressive) exploitation of the workforce, where the freedom to exploit a worker would continue to increase.

On the other hand, the cultural differences and the freedom between people that are part of humanity's heritage would be annulled and the people regimented as if it were only one country divided artificially and ruled at a distance from Brussels by the EU bureaucrats, helped more and more by repressive armies and police forces, capable of suppressing any attempt at progress with regard to freedom and social equality.

Aware of this, the Sócrates government has postponed a referendum until 2007, in a manoeuvre of great tactical opportunism, so that the Portuguese people cannot demonstrate their malcontent and vote "no", as the French and Dutch did, to a European "constitution" that is dead even before it has arrived and doesn't have to strength to stand on its own.

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Article from "Luta Social", No.4 Bulletin of the "Luta Social" Anti-Authoritarian Class-Struggle Collective, Lisbon

The PDF file of the Bulletin can be downloded from Anarkismo.net at: http://www.anarkismo.net/newswire.php?story_id=785