[D66] Daniel Cohn-Bendit’s imperialist “For Europe” manifesto

[Antid Oto]

Daniel Cohn-Bendit’s imperialist “For Europe” manifesto
By Peter Schwarz
12 October 2012

Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Guy Verhofstadt have written a joint manifesto 
titled “For Europe”, which argues for a strong European Union and a 
federal Europe with a powerful central government. The manifesto is to 
be distributed as a book in multiple languages.

Born in 1945, Cohn-Bendit is chairman of the Green Group in the European 
Parliament and was one of the most prominent figures in the student 
revolt in France in 1968. Verhofstadt, born in 1953, was Belgian prime 
minister from 1999 to 2008 and now heads the liberal group in the 
European Parliament, which includes the German free-market Free 
Democratic Party (FDP).

The most remarkable element of the manifesto is not its advocacy of a 
federal Europe with a strong executive—such notions have been 
commonplace within bourgeois circles since the birth of the EU project. 
What is striking is the manner in which Cohn-Bendit and Verhofstadt 
largely dispense with linking this demand to calls for peace and 
prosperity. Instead they argue bluntly for Europe as an imperialist 
superpower. In their opinion austerity and militarism are the necessary 
price to achieve this goal.

On the very first page, Cohn-Bendit and Verhofstadt justify their 
commitment to a strong European Union by declaring: “We must more 
emphatically defend our interests against economic and political great 
powers of the calibre of China, India, Brazil, Russia or the United States.”

This is the theme that reoccurs through the entire manifesto. Another 
passage reads: “In just 25 years no European country will be counted 
among the powers that determine world affairs.” A “strong and united 
Europe”, however, would now and tomorrow, be “the most powerful and 
wealthiest continent in the world, richer than America, more powerful 
than all of the new empires combined.”

The authors of the manifesto do not lose a word on the plight of 
millions of Greeks, Portuguese, Irish and Spaniards, whose livelihoods 
are currently being destroyed in the name of defending the euro and the 
EU. They consider EU austerity diktats as essential “to secure our place 
in the world—whatever it takes.”

“A currency cannot be maintained without solidarity and discipline”, 
they write, and call for dictatorial powers for the European Commission: 
“We need ... common institutions with the power to outline economic, 
budgetary and tax policy for the entire euro zone. Institutions with the 
tools to really enforce the implementation of the rules of the game, 
without member states impeding them.”

Cohn-Bendit and Verhofstadt also regard military interventions as 
essential to secure “our position in the world.” This is not only 
apparent from their demand for a joint European army, but also from 
their praise for the new UN doctrine, the “responsibility to protect.” 
This has “ushered in a new era, extending the sovereignty of 
international law and human rights far beyond nation-states,” they write.

The concept of the “responsibility to protect” serves as a justification 
for the US and its allies to militarily attack sovereign nations and 
force regime change in their own interests. The war against Libya was 
justified on such grounds, and the same concept is now being used to 
urge a direct intervention against Syria. Cohn-Bendit and Verhofstadt 
have supported both. They justify such imperialist violence with the 
need to spread “human rights, freedom and democracy”. Their language is 
strongly reminiscent of the “civilizing mission” of British imperialism, 
used to justify the brutal subjugation of India and Africa.

In order to lend some credibility to their plea for a more powerful 
European Union, Cohn-Bendit and Verhofstadt raise the spectre of 
nationalism. They evoke the two world wars, which brought “persecution, 
broken families, the extinction of minorities, countries in ruins and 
cities bombed to the ground” and warn: “Sooner or later nationalism 
always leads to the same tragedy.”

They deliberately ignore the fact that it is EU policy that has 
strengthened centrifugal tendencies in Europe. The destruction of 
millions of livelihoods by the social cuts ordered by Brussels—with the 
full support of the social democrats, Greens and trade unions—plays into 
the hands of right-wing, nationalist forces. Neo-fascist groups are also 
able to exploit the policy of European authorities intent on setting up 
new barriers against immigrants and intensifying the persecution of 
refugees.

The subjugation of Europe to the dictates of the most powerful financial 
and economic interests through a strengthening of the EU and the growth 
of nationalism are two sides of the same coin. Often, the proponents of 
both positions are to be found in the same political camp, as it is the 
case in Germany where the spectrum inside the ruling coalition extends 
from vehement nationalists to resolute supporters of the EU.

The real political dividing line in Europe is not between EU supporters 
and nationalists but along social divisions—between the ruling elite 
which is amassing huge fortunes and driving the continent into disaster 
and war, and the working class which is being subjected to unceasing 
attacks on its social and democratic rights.

A relapse into dictatorship and war in Europe can only be avoided by 
working people closing ranks across borders, expropriating the ruling 
elite and establishing Europe on a socialist basis. This requires an 
uncompromising struggle against the EU and its institutions.

Cohn-Bendit and Verhofstadt, both fierce anti-communists, combat such a 
perspective. Their manifesto aligns communism with fascism and Nazism 
and includes it among the “enemies of freedom.”

It is no surprise that a free-market liberal such as Verhofstadt defends 
such views. As for Cohn-Bendit, however, he still retains a whiff of the 
rebel “Danny the Red” from his student days. In fact, his commitment to 
imperialism is nothing new. In 1999, when his long-time friend and 
companion Joschka Fischer—at that time German foreign minister—agitated 
for the participation of the German army in the war against Yugoslavia 
Cohn-Bendit was his most energetic defender in overcoming pacifist 
opposition inside the Green Party.

Cohn-Bendit embodies those layers of the middle class whose principal 
aim in 1968 was to expand their own potential for individual advancement 
and who despised the working class. Under the influence of anti-Marxist 
theories they regarded the working class as a backward mass, in the 
thrall of consumerism. When—to their big surprise—French workers 
intervened in May and paralyzed the country with a general strike, 
occupying factories and bringing the government of General de Gaulle to 
the brink of collapse, they reacted with shock and turned rapidly to the 
right.

Passing through various anarchist, Maoist and pseudo-Marxist groups they 
commenced a “march through the institutions”, enabling them to make a 
career and obtain lucrative posts. Not a small number of such former 
anarchists, Maoists and other “leftists” now occupy leading positions in 
the boardrooms of the EU, European governments and the established 
parties—functioning as pillars of the ruling order. Cohn-Bendit is just 
one of them, although certainly one of the most repulsive.

http://wsws.org/articles/2012/oct2012/cohn-o12.shtml