The emerging European Soviet: the European Union--adding new members and completing a Constitution--threatens the freedom of Europe and foreshadows similar processes under way with the FTAA.

Cities throughout Eastern Europe erupted in joyous celebrations on May 1, as eight former components of the Soviet bloc and two Mediterranean island nations were welcomed into the European Union. Beethoven's "Ode to Joy"--the EU's official anthem--resounded throughout Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta and Cyprus, accompanied by fireworks displays, speeches, parties and concerts. The additions bring the EU's membership to 25 nations and its population to 450 million.

Perhaps it is just a coincidence that the largest expansion to date of the European Union fell on May Day, the one holiday on the Communist calendar solely devoted to the celebration of the "inevitable" triumph of socialism over capitalism. Then again, perhaps it is not a coincidence at all. Certainly, many of those who thronged to city squares in the newcomer states of the old Soviet bloc must have reflected on the stark contrast between this festive May 1 celebration and previous ones under their old Soviet masters, typified by stolid-faced commissars, hours-long parades of Red Army armaments and troops, and endless seas of red flags festooned with hammers and sickles.

Commentators and EU political leaders declared that this historic accession of the eight former captive nations marked the final triumph of Western "democracy" and the free market economic model over Communist totalitarianism. But others perceive an entirely different dynamic at work in the European Union, leading to a completely opposite outcome. Communist countries celebrate May Day, according to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, "by mobilizing the working people in the struggle to build socialism and communism." The program of the European Union, whose institutions are thoroughly dominated by international collectivists--socialists, "former" Communists, extreme environmentalists, feminists--aims at the same objective: "to build socialism and communism," albeit with a kinder, gentler face than the older Soviet model.

Former Soviet dictator Mikhail Gorbachev, for instance, has described the EU as "the new European Soviet." Gorbachev made that observation during a March 2000 visit to London. Was the former General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union merely joking? Absolutely not, says Christopher Story, who publishes the London-based Soviet Analyst. The EU political, economic and social program is "purely a Communist program," Mr. Story told THE NEW AMERICAN in a January 2002 interview. Gorbachev was sending a message to his fellow one world socialists, said Story, and he was absolutely "correct in describing the EU as 'the new European Soviet.' One does not need an advanced degree in Leninist studies to see this."

Is Story engaging in hyperbole? Not in the least, as the evidence below will show.

The European Union's "New Collectivisms"

Vaclav Klaus, who does have the equivalent of an advanced degree in Leninist studies, is president of the infant Czech Republic. President Klaus has repeatedly blasted the EU process that threatens to mire the new member states in a collectivism as sinister as the one they thought they had escaped. "Instead of dismantling socialism," he said in a September 1, 2002 speech at Aix-en-Provence Summer University, "we have got ... more sophisticated, more hidden and more intensive methods of government intervention and regulation, the ever-increasing size and scope of the welfare state, multiculturalism and political correctness. This is not a great victory."

The former captive nations of Central Europe had hoped to see the end of socialism, Klaus said, but "the last decade did not bring us its end. It brought us victory of socialdemocratism, of various alternatives of third ways, of communitarism, of environmentalism, of political correctness, of humanrightism, of Europeanism, of corporativism, of NGOism. All of them can be described as new collectivisms."

"Ten years ago," said President Klaus, "the dominant slogan was: 'deregulate, liberalize, privatize.' Now the slogan is different: 'regulate, adjust to all kinds of standards..., listen to the partial interests of the NGO's and follow them, get rid of your sovereignty and put it into the hands of international institutions and organizations, etc."

"As I see it," the Czech president continued, "Europe is undergoing irrevocable changes while the uninvolved or uninterested majority of Europeans does not care or does not pay sufficient attention. Intergovernmental cooperation of independent countries aiming at removing barriers for the movement of people, goods, money and ideas has been--slowly but surely--convened into the formation of a supranational European state aiming at centralization of power in Brussels, at elimination of European nation states and at socializing Europe." Mr. Klaus concluded by noting that for his nation and the other relatively poor countries of the former Soviet empire, the EU "is a trap we do not know how to break or avoid."

The Eurosocialists are rushing now to finish a new EU Constitution to make sure that their trap is indeed unbreakable and unavoidable. The May 1 enlargement provided the ideal excuse for this new venture. The addition of 10 nations--with their 75 million citizens, serious economic challenges and, for eight of the ten, a recent history of Communist domination--would further complicate an already hopelessly complex and convoluted system of EU governance. This amorphous and ever-growing system is a hodgepodge of EU treaties, laws, regulations and court decisions--and a bewildering array of EU institutions. There are conflicts constantly between member states over representation in the various EU bodies, and even more frequent and more heated conflict between member states and the central EU institutions over jurisdiction. What better time than now to "streamline" the messy affair?

In anticipation of the arrival of the new members, the EU 15 established a "European Convention" in early 2002 to establish a formal EU constitution. The convention, composed of 105 delegates, included members of national parliaments, members of the European Parliament, European commissioners and representatives of national governments. All of this was only for show, of course, to give the impression of democratic give-and-take so necessary for achieving an authentic "consensus." The real action of the convention was carried out in secret by a 13-member Presidium, headed by former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing, a longtime internationalist and habitue of meetings where the one-world elite (Bilderbergers, Trilateral Commission, World Economic Forum, Aspen Institute, Club of Rome, etc.) craft plans for "world order."

The title of Presidium was apropos for the executive coterie chaired by Giscard d'Estaing; it functioned very much like the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the secret cabal that presided over the totalitarian Soviet empire. Like the Soviet Presidium, even some of these supposed Insiders were merely show pieces for an even more secret cabal that ran the show from the shadows. That's what Presidium member Gisela Stuart, a Member of Parliament from Great Britain, found out through personal experience. Stuart, a member of the Labor Party and an enthusiastic Europhile, is more than a little put off by the secrecy and conspiratorial nature of the convention process, no doubt partly because she was left on the outside of this process, when she expected to be on the inside.

"When I was appointed by the House of Commons as one of its two representatives at the European convention charged with drawing up the new European constitution, I was enthusiastic," Stuart wrote in an op-ed for the Sunday Times of London for December 7, 2003. "But I confess," she continued, "after 16 months at the heart of the process--I was on the 13-strong presidium committee which drew up the draft document--I am concerned."

"The most frequent justifications for a written constitution were to make the treaties more understandable to European voters and to streamline decision-making after enlargement," said Stuart, a goal that she openly endorses. "From my experience inside the convention," however, "it is clear that the real reason for the constitution is the political deepening of the union." For those unfamiliar with Euro-speak, "deepening" is code for the piecemeal process that has been extending central EU power and jurisdiction over more and more national affairs of its member states, while "widening" refers to the constant expansion of membership. Emulating the EU architects, the U.S. advocates of Western Hemispheric regionalism have adopted the same terminology, referring to the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) as widening and deepening NAFTA.

While the convention and Presidium members were kept busy with superfluous debates, speeches and innumerable text revision proposals, a secret group behind the scenes prepared the actual draft text. "Thousands of amendments flooded in, and commentators often remarked how difficult it was to see from the outside how decisions were reached on what was kept in and what discarded," says Stuart. "All I can say is that it was equally difficult from the inside."

It was at a dinner gathering at Belgium's Val Duchess Palace the weekend before the public presentation, says Stuart, when "the skeleton of the draft constitution was given to presidium members in sealed brown envelopes."

Stuart, the convention "insider," explains what happened next:

   We were not allowed to
   take the documents away.
   Precisely who drafted the
   skeleton, and when, is
   still unclear to me, but I
   gather much of the work
   was done by Giscard and
   Kerr over the summer.
   There was little time for
   informed discussion, and
   even less scope for
   changes. Large parts of
   the text passed through without detailed
   discussions.

The "Kerr" Stuart refers to is Sir John Kerr, a veteran one-worlder and former head of the British Diplomatic Service, who served as head of the convention's Secretariat. The subterfuge she describes is precisely the kind of duplicity and deception that has been standard operating procedure from the beginning of the Common Market to the present-day EU. And the same subversive process has been adopted by U.S. Insiders in crafting and presenting their free trade agreements (FTAs) to the U.S. Congress and the American people.

Following the release of the constitution draft text, the "consensus" deception was taken to a new level: the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC), composed of representatives of all the EU governments. In the interests of maintaining the fictional consensus, the IGC delegations were pressured by the EU Lobby not to attempt anything more than minor tinkering around the edges of the new sacred text. Admittedly, the process became deadlocked last December when Spain and Poland insisted that the constitution must be changed to give their countries more voting representation in the EU institutions. However, the March 11 terrorist bombings in Madrid dramatically changed things. In elections held just days after the attacks, Spanish voters sacked Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar. He was replaced by Socialist Party candidate Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who immediately withdrew Spain's troops from the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq and jump-started the EU Constitution process.

Morphing Suprastate

Even many of the most avid "Eurolandists" admit that the proposed EU Constitution is a monstrosity, in sheer size and in terms of its attempts at usurping national powers and employing confusing verbiage. Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia, notes: "Compared to many existing constitutions, e.g. the US constitution at about 4,600 words, it [the EU Constitution] is very long at 265 pages and over 60,000 words." But this, apparently is old information, because Presidium member Gisela Stuart says the document is actually 335 pages. Neither of which matters, ultimately, says Christopher Story, because the Eurocrats "change the texts at will, and are constantly revising things even after the supposedly official texts have been publicly released."

That is part of the grave danger of the EU process; it is constantly evolving and mutating, making it impossible to fashion any checks and balances that will protect the EU nations and peoples from the ravenous globalists in Brussels. What is already known to be in the constitution is bad enough; one indication is that it conforms, generally, with the demands outlined in a manifesto issued by the Spinelli Group, a hard-core Marxist coalition named for Italian Communist Party strategist and EU pioneer Altiero Spinelli.

The draft constitution is an all-out assault on national sovereignty, turning over foreign policy, defense powers and other sovereign powers of the nation states to the central EU government. It also formally in corporates the principles of the Communist Manifesto into the European legal code.

Article 11-17, entitled "Right to property" says:

   Everyone has the right to own, use
   dispose of and bequeath his or her
   lawfully acquired possessions. No
   one may be deprived of his or her
   possessions, except in the public interests
   and in the cases and under the
   conditions provided for by law....

The last clause noted above is almost verbatim from the old Soviet Constitution, which enumerated many "rights" which were subject to "certain restrictions as provided by law." Like the Soviet Constitution, this phraseology is replete throughout the new EU Constitution. Private property, which has already been under assault in the present EU system, would be a prime target under the new constitutional regime.

Also similar to the Soviet Constitution is the inclusion in the EU Constitution of a plethora of social "rights" to: free education, a job, job placement and training, health care, social security, ad nauseam. Spanish Foreign Minister Ana Palacio was not exaggerating when she told the Irish Times on June 14, 2003: "This is a legal revolution without precedent." Palacio, it should be noted, was saying this as a statement of approval, not criticism.

The Economist, a globalist, Fabian Socialist publication, had applauded the move for an EU Constitution, but once it was unveiled felt compelled to condemn it to the trash bin. The new document, the magazine stated, "weaves perpetual constitutional revolution more securely into the Union's legal fabric." The Economist continued:

   The most important task for any constitution
   is to assign powers while ensuring
   that the officers and institutions
   exercising those powers are held
   in check, accountable to citizens. This
   central preoccupation is plain in the
   constitution of the United States. Europe's
   constitutional convention has
   barely troubled itself with the question.
   The assignment of powers, or
   "competences" in Euro-speak, is so
   vague in this draft constitution that on
   issue after issue the conventioneers
   themselves cannot explain what their
   text means. At the same time the complementary
   principle of subsidiarity
   --the idea that political decisions
   should be taken, so far as possible, at
   levels of government that are close to
   the citizens--has been drained of
   any power it might have had.

The Economist's critique notes, "Article 9 includes a statement of the subsidiarity principle, but this is drafted in such a way as to make it subordinate to the Union's 'objectives.' Since the Union's objectives, according to this constitution, include various kinds of 'cohesion'..., the idea of subsidiarity has no purchase. Union-level policies will always be better at promoting cohesion than national policies. The point, you might say, is not that the constitution fails to address the balance between cohesion and subsidiarity. Implicitly, it does address it: cohesion is an explicit aim of the Union and subsidiarity is rendered null."

The constitution must now go through the ratification process, which at this point still varies from country to country. Opposition to the document is widespread, most especially in England. In April British Prime Minister Tony Blair made a stunning U-turn, stating that he would let "the people" decide the issue. Although he did not specifically say that Britain would hold a referendum, the press and the Conservative opposition put those words into it. However, as Christopher Story points out, even a solid "No" vote on a referendum would not finish the matter.

"As we have seen in the past, "he told THE NEW AMERICAN, "they will keep coming back, year after year with another attempt to subject us to Euro rule. And, as in the past, the Conservative Party leadership will soothe voters with false assurances that we can put sufficient protections, exemptions and understandings into it to protect our sovereignty. But that is the way to eventual sure defeat. People must realize that the only way to protect ourselves against this 'rolling collective' is to withdraw from it completely; halfway measures will, ultimately, lead to acceptance of, and absorption in, a socialist/communist EU."

The EU process provides Americans with all the evidence they need to reject the FTAA as the same kind of deadly trap.