From the article of 'Petrel'
No.672 / April 5, 1998
Please
send us your opinion and the impression about this article without reservation.
Where does the European currency alliance face?
Contradiction in bourgeois integration.
The going sign to the currency integration in Europe is being given at the head conference held one month later. It is praised in the mass communication whether it is a predetermined route.
Might it be too easy really and can it progress without contradiction? They are problems.
The currency integration in Europe is establishment of a European central bank in one and the foundation of a common currency to another.
The former was founded in July this year and "Economic currency alliance" (EMU) will start next January. The note and the coin of euro are actually issued in January, 2002. The each country currency is scheduled to be collected and to disappear from circulation for half a year afterwards. Only a common currency named euro will circulate.
A central bank and the currency relate deeply to a both fundamental problem (the movement of national powers) for a bourgeois nation.
Can 11 countries really abandon own national powers -- the important part -- ? Can they transfer and consign to the organization that exceeds the nation?
If it is possible, in fact, 11 countries are not already original nations. They are transitional existence in a European nation.
The other side, if the nation refuses a part of essential transfer of own powers by some circumstances, The possibility that the European common currency approved once fails, too is kept secret.
Actually, a difficult problem exists here. The reason for the currency at the present age is to relate to national sovereignty very strongly.
Above all, the currency at the present age largely depends on finance and the confidence policy of the nation for the value unlike metallic money (it has existed value). The value of the currency of the nation that was able to expand deficit finance and borrow money will fall. On the other hand, the currency value of the nation of healthy finance will be maintained.
It is the same as the transfer of the finance of the nation and the powers of the confidence organization to transfer the sovereignty of the currency to a super-national organization. Strong pressure of excluding the nation of the deficit finance from this integration has already been put before currency integration.
It was Germany to have put this pressure. The currency integration actually hints to this the Europe integration by the mark it.
Finance and the confidence policy should be also strongly corresponding so that the currency integration may function smoothly. Finally, it is necessary to integrate them into one national organization as for the strict agreement of a lot of countries of it due to the difficulty. That is, it should advance even to political integration. Or, a currency and economic integration are not concluded without advancing.
The currency integration without political integration is a system which contains the own contradiction. A European central bank is sure to exist as an economic organization alone that does not relate to national powers pure.
Because the currency is extremely political existence under the currency control system (system to raise metallic money) at the present age, it is not sure to become other.
How can an individual policy of the nation like inflationism and the deflation policy, etc. and common currencies keep harmonizing? Only when the nation of 11 maintains a common policy standpoint, this contradiction will be eased. However, this contradiction is merely eased even in this case and it is not lost.
For instance, it is assumed that Britain encounters a serious recession compared with other nations and its government adopted inflationism. Other nations will oppose the policy because inflationism is not necessary for them and it destroys a common currency system. Britain will adopt inflationism (expanding currency policy, that is, the expansion policy of finance and confidence) in contradiction to the intention of other nations. As a result, Britain will occasionally renounce oneself because of a common currency system.
Can EU overcome such a difficulty by doing very? Does the system guarantee exist? We cannot judge it now.
Certainly, common repulsion and unity of Europe to dollar rule (that invented EU) will work as one power to maintain the currency alliance. However, it might be not absolute either.
Super-central bank and common currency without Super-national mechanism and powers is one selfcontradiction and difficulty, we only confirm this for the present.
It is called one "Experiment". That is, it is not considered the system finally fixed, objectively and subjectively.
Where it arrives has not been made clear yet. Anyway, the worker knows the limit of a bourgeois, national integration and understands that any expectation cannot be drawn to these kinds of things.
The integration of the truth which the worker knows is socialistic integration and the raising of all of nations' (bourgeois nation), that is, abolition of borders. Neither contradiction nor the collision at an economical opportunity and a political opportunity exist here, and they cannot be.