Editorial from Kommunistisk Politik, No. 25, December 21, 2002
Danish government policy is not decided in Denmark, but in the US and the EU.
If Washington wants a part of Greenland for its "missile defence shield",
the Fogh Rasmussen government accepts, calling it a "project of peace".
If the Pentagon wants Danish soldiers and F-16 planes for the war in Afghanistan,
Fogh Rasmussen and Co. say "we will be there in a minute - it is a project
of peace", just like Nyrup Rasmussen (the former Social Democratic Prime
Minister, translator's note) did. The Fogh Rasmussen government has just
prolonged Denmark's war participation for US interests in Afghanistan with six
months. If Washington and the Pentagon want Danish blood for a new oil war on
Iraq, Fogh Rasmussen and Co. are ready, saying "it is a project of peace"
and echoing US propaganda claiming that "Saddam is worse than Hitler".
The Danish EU Presidency is coming to an end. The Copenhagen Summit is over,
and Fogh Rasmussen has received the expected praise for "a good presidency".
Of course, it has been "a great success". The summit in Copenhagen
was "historic" because it formalized the enlargement of the EU with
ten new member countries. In reality, this was not anything else than what had
been negotiated beforehand. On this issue, Fogh Rasmussen was negotiating as
an agent of the European Great Powers and the US at one and the same time.
The period of the Danish EU Presidency meant another step in the construction
of the reactionary EU superstate and the imperialist EU superpower. Acting as
an US agent, Fogh Rasmussen also took part in hindering the EU to dissociate
itself from the US war adventure against Iraq. He helped to strengthen the US
military dominance in Europe by whole-heartedly supporting the enlargement of
NATO with seven Eastern European countries and by his secrete work for Danish
and EU support to the "missile defence shield". He even worked for
the support of Greenland although Greenland is neither Danish, nor a member
of the EU!
During the Danish EU Presidency, the neoliberal "reforms" of the EU
have further proceeded with attacks on public pensions, on unemployment arrangements
and social security, and with anti-social privatisation policy. The bourgeois
propaganda is calling this a success whereas normal people would call the ability
of governing from worse to worst failure. Fogh Rasmussen's presidency has been
a failure in terms of peace, democracy and social progress.
Now Fogh Rasmussen, through his prostituted journalists, has announced that
he will concentrate on Danish affairs. This does not mean that he is going to
implement a policy benefiting the great majority. This means that this double
agent of the US and the EU will increase his efforts for binding Denmark to
their policies, whether it is war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the coming EU constitution
or the implementation of new attacks on the working class and its hard-won rights.
While it was Nyrup Rasmussen who liquidated the "Danish welfare model",
it is Fogh Rasmussen who will eliminate the very last remnants of it.
Greece will take over the EU Presidency from Denmark, but this
will not have any importance at all. The project entitled "The United States
of Europe" will continue running on rails, and according to President of
the European Convention Giscard d'Estaing a draft EU constitution will be ready
before the summer vacations.
But the opposition that was expressed in the streets during the summit will
continue, too. It will increase because the social antagonisms will increase
as a result from the EU benefiting only the millionaires and from the economic
crisis which these millionaires and their political agents agree to place on
the backs of the workers and the broad masses. Also the opposition will increase
as a result from the war policy and the new attacks on democratic rights.
The most positive thing about the protests against the EU Summit in Copenhagen
was that they showed a growing conscience about how things are connected: It
is both US imperialism and the EU, which have to be fought. It is both the US
"War on Terror" and the war on Iraq with European participation, which
have to be opposed, as well as the neoliberal offensive and imperialist globalisation
being driven forward by the multinationals on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
For the Danish protest movement, there are also lessons to draw: The struggle
against the EU must be combined with the struggle against imperialist globalisation
and imperialist wars. It cannot develop from a narrow "national egoistic"
point of view. It cannot advance in that way, and Denmark cannot get out of
the EU and NATO if it clings to the reformist "welfare model" of the
last century or to Kjaersgaard's (Pia Kjaersgaard, national leader of the far
right-wing Danish People's Party, translator's note) model of the nineteenth
century.
December 17, 2002