Europe and The Single Market
How many sermons lately have been delivered on Europe, the Internal Market after 1992? Where are the Bishops that are discussing the Europe of tomorrow? Just what are the Churches doing to look at the consequences of the biggest change in Europe since the Second World War?
Unfortunately, not a lot!
Why has Europe been left off the Christian agenda?
Christianity is, after all, a political religion — Europe is the biggest single political decision to be taken. Its aftermath spreads further than simple economic growth — or simply the borders of those countries directly involved. Europe also, is the continent where Christianity took hold and grew. Historically, the biggest unifying factor in Europe has been Christianity, through the Catholic church. For most of their histories, Europe and Christianity have been interlinked — but in one of the most important chapters, they have been completely divorced.
So much is involved in Europe. To simply ignore it is both against the teachings of Jesus, who asked us to be involved in the issues of the Day, and destructive — without the input of the chuches, the Christian point of view will not be taken into account. Europe may well have been discussed from many perspectives — how, though, should we look at Europe following Christ’s principles?
Firstly we need to know what exactly is involved in Europe. The basic aim of the dissolution of trade barriers is to “make markets work” — a phrase beloved by our own dear Prime Minister. A barrier to Trade may take many forms — a tariff on each imported good, a restriction on the number of goods it is possible to import (quotas), physical barriers — safety standards, electricity voltage, weights and measures etc., are just a few examples. What the Internal Market is hoping to produce is a harmonization of the physical barriers (eg Alan Sugar can produce his one EC computer instead of twelve different ones) and bring an end to all artificial (or protectionist) barriers (eg a tariff rate equal to zero for all EC produced goods). Knowing the basic outline of Europe — even in the perversely simplified version above, will allow us to look at the effects the “New Era” will bring.
Making markets work in the United Kindom has not exactly been the most favourable economic policy to be employed — there is no reason to believe that the effect on Europe will be any different. From our experience, making markets work has been achieved by taking from the poorest sections of society, to allow the markets to work. This is not just the case in our own country — we can look at the US where the Reagan administration was even more effective at squeezing the poor than has been achieved by Mrs Thatcher (so far in any case). As Christians, we ought to be following policies that are helpful to the weakest in our society — not to ones that are designed to marginalise them further.
As well as social inequality, there will be grave regional inequalities. There are two main reaons for this — economic and geographic. Economic theory suggests that the countries with the biggest advantage in terms of capital and technology gain most from a free market. Those countries with the technology and the capital are the central countries; England (or at least the South-East with the completion of the Channel tunnel), France, Germany, Denmark and the Benelux countries. Spain, Portugal, Eire, Southern Italy and Greece are still basically agricultural societies and will be unable to gain as much from technical advances as the other countries. Hence these countries will continue to fall further and further behind relaitve to the central countries.
Geographically, the same countries also lose out. The open market will mean that firms will have to reduce all costs to a minimum, and this includes transportation costs. Most firms will, therefore, move to the central countries because they will be able to supply all the countries with their goods at the lowest possible cost, moving away from the peripheral countries, losing their already scarce industrial base.
Another loser in the drive to cut costs will be the environment. To minimise costs and maximise environmental protection is a contradiction in terms — firms need to exploit nature in order to make their profits. By damaging God’s world are we not damaging both God and ourselves? By increasing the competition in Europe there will have to be a greater amount of exploitation to decrease costs in order to compete with all the other countries in Europe.
But what is Europe? Europe to me is a continent of over 30 nations, not a mere selection of Western nations, at the last count totalling 12. With a unifying Europe, we should be encouraging friendship and development together — the further Europe moves down the path of integration, the more difficult it will become for new nations to join a united Europe from Iceland to Russia. At best, we shall witness a Europe of Non EC vs. EC countries, at worse — full blooded retaliation of nations against the EC. Again our God of Love means that we should never leave people “outside” any system — there needs always to be a welcome for all people — not just a privilged few.
Why must we retain our arguments to Europe? The implications of the policy will be felt all over the World. Probably the biggest threat is one of a “Fortress Europe”. For the non-economists, this is where all the EC countries will put a tax on all goods that are made in non-EC countries. This is particularly unfair to the less developed countries. The banks that they owe money to (in many cases European banks) insist on increasing exports from that country, in order to gain the foreign currency with which to pay back the loans. If these markets are closed to the countries, how are they supposed to pay back the loans?
This also damages Europe in the end, because these countries are sometimes major sources of income for European firms. With no money to pay for goods the European firms will fail and Europe will have caused it’s own destruction, bringing many others down with it in the process. The Lome IV agreement signed last year to try and improve the situation for African, Carribean and Pacific nations is only a tiny drop in a substantial ocean of anti-development policies.
It is clear therefore, the position that churches must take — it is up to the churches who follow a God of love to show that love has no room in the harsh realities of business and the market, and that the policies are doomed to failure because of the inherent selfish nature of materialistic Europe. Of course there is much euphoria about Europe, but from officials and those with specific interests in making Europe a success — without Europe it will not be for these privilged few to become more powerful.
The churches are probably not speaking out because they cannot speak in favour, with such terrible consequences; but is too afraid of the business and capitalist classes to speak scathingly of Europe. The church being ruled by privilged men in Rome was bad enough — being ruled from the even more exploitative men in Brussels is unbearable.