(All meetings commence at 7.30 pm unless otherwise stated)
During the week there will also be street and work place leafleting, a letter going from Wales TASC to every Labour Councillor in Wales, letter writting ...etc.
Wales TASC is part of the Britain wide Trade Unions against the Single Currency campaigning organisation.
Chair: Jacqui Johnson, NATFHE president, Secretary: Doug Nicholls, General Secretary CYWU
The Convenor for Wales TASC is Dominic MacAskill. Dominic is the secretary of Cymru Wales Unison's Campaign and Policy Development Committee and is the secretary of a large local government UNISON branch.
1. To campaign within the trade union movement against the European Economic and Monetary Union.
2. To disseminnate information about the single currency within the trade union movement.
3. To assist trade unions in holding informed debate about the single currency.
4. To seek trade union affiliations and funding to support the activities of Wales TASC.
5. To seek an exchange of information with trade unionist throughout Europe opposed to the Economic and Monetary Union.
6. To win all trade unions to apolicy recognition that the European single currency if adopted in Wales would be a disaster for jobs, public services, manufacturing, political democracy, ethical foreign policies and individual rights.
Join the campaign by contacting Wales TASC at:
Wales TASC, c/o CCTUS, 131 Crwys Road, Cathays, Cardiff, CF24 4NH. Tel/Fax: 029 20390273 Mobile 07779140118
Union Regions: minimum £50
Local Branches: minimum £25
Trades Union Councils: minimum £25
Individual members: £5
All affiliates will receive a regular newsletter with up to date information on the Euro
Please make cheques payable to Wales TASC
The overwhelming majority of trade union members know that the single currency would be a disaster for jobs, manufacturing and public services.
Wales TASC has been formed to represent this majority voice in Wales.
Trade union history is bound up with the development of democracy here in Wales and in Britain as a whole.
A single currency would fundamentally remove the powers of the Welsh Assembly, the British Parliament and our trade unions. Welsh levels of unemployment (currently around 6 per cent) would be in danger of increasing to the 10 per cent level of Euroland.
Substantial powers over the Welsh economy, such as the setting of interest rates and the control of money supply, would pass to the unaccountable and unelected European Central Bank.
The Welsh economy accounts for little more than half a per cent of total GDP in the EU. Locked into the Euro, the needs of Wales will not feature prominently in the decisions of these unelected bankers.
Wales has recently gained new autonomy, from Westminster, in some areas of policy through the establishment of the National Assembly. If we pass the levers of economic power from democratically elected governments to bankers in Frankfurt and bureaucrats is Brussels, elections will become increasingly meaningless and irrelevant.
Investment in public services would be place at risk if we signed up as public expenditure levels would be tightly controlled.
Countries suffering from economic shock and recession would not be able to use interest rates, currency depreciation or substantial increases in public expenditure to counter such shocks; while the central budget of the European Union is too small to provide alternative resources.
John Major and the leaders of the other Common Market countries signed the Maastricht Treaty in the early 1990s.
The Treaty:
Do you want Britain to be a part of this European monatorist experiment?
Instead of transferring power from the British Parliament to Brussels and the Euro-Bank, we should be bringing it closer to the peoples of Scotland, Wales and England. Instead of public spending cuts on a European scale, we need more spending to rebuild Britain's industrial base and social services.
We must stop the Maastricht madness. When there is a referendum in Britain we should join Denmark in voting no to EEMU.
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Moves toward a European super-state represent a threat to jobs, living standards and democratic rights.
This is the reality of a 'United Europe' It is obvious to most people in Britain the real unemployment figure is around 2million, the NHS continues to be underfunded and threatened with privatisation and Britain's education system is in massive crisis.
None of these problems are inevitable or unavoidable. They are the result of disastrous economic policies carried out by British governments, both Tory and right-wing Labour, they are also the orthodox economic polices of the European Union and its Maastricht Treaty.
These policies include tight control of monetary policy, otherwise known as Thatcherism. Such deflationary policies have decimated British manufacturing industries. In fact, manufacturing output is now below the output during the three- day week under Heath in 1973.
It will also led to further recession, low output and low demand. Whichever way you look at it, Euro-capitalism has failed dismally to provide for the people of Wales, Britain or Europe.
We have to ask, 'What is it all for?' The simple answer is to 'remain in Europe' at whatever cost.
So, when we are told we cannot afford to be outside 'Europe' we must look at the cost of remaining within the EU. These costs are the £30 billion paid by the British people to Brussels since 1973 and the cost of the Common Agricultural Policy, to which each family in Britain contributes an estimated £1,200 per year to pay for heavily subsidised food mountains. We can see that the cost is definitely not a price worth paying. The peoples of Europe are beginning to take matters into their own hands and fight back. The recent huge demonstrations and strikes in France and Italy were against the austerity measures that all EU countries entering the single currency have imposed to reach the harsh convergence criteria.
Look at unemployment, a recurring and lasting feature of Euro-capitalism. Over 20 million people are unemployed across the EU, around 13% of the work-force. This figure is certain to rise in Euroland.
Such alarming rates of unemployment are ignored by both the Labour leadership and the Tories. Yet unemployment is not a natural occurrence but is exacerbated as a direct result of the economic policies of the EU. We have to ask ourselves, why is unemployment soaring within Euroland? And why has the so-called recession lasted so long?
We must continue to keep Britain out of European Monetary Union. Under the terms of Maastricht, member states are forced to cut budget deficits and make 'price stability' and low inflation the only economic priority and give up their economic control to the European Central Bank run by the Bundesbank.
This was examplified by the European Central Bank instructing Ireland to cut its pubblic spending this year; and means all countries in Euroland have to cut public expenditure, dissolving the welfare state and only allowing the 'market' and 'free competition' to run the economy (as laid down in the Treaty of Rome 1957).
As we in Britain already know, such Thatcherite voodoo economics means closures, redundancies and even more unemployment. Under the Maastricht Treaty, the public sector borrowing limit must be under 3% of each nation's Gross Domestic Product.
The Labour government should have nothing to do with such failed policies and all socialists and Labour supporters should campaign against them.
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Europe's relationship with the developing world has never been equitable. It has been a history of cruel exploitation and colonialism which has only sought to extract raw materials and profit from poorer nations at the least possible cost.
This exploitation did not cease when European troops left Africa and Asia. Transnational corporations (eg Shell Oil in Nigeria) and bankers based in Europe have imposed themselves on poor nations, forcing them to open their economies to imperialist exploitation and as an extended market for unwanted goods.
The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has produced heavily subsidised surplus food in the form of food mountains. When these are dumped on the third world they depress world food prices. This has catastrophic effects for local farmers in poverty-stricken Africa who cannot compete. Already saddled with huge debts, these economies are pushed into further crises.
The EU puts heavy tariffs and taxes on agricultural goods produced outside the EU. That means that trade is restricted, leaving farmers outside the EU no access to European markets. This is one of the reasons BSE spread in Britain - it was cheaper for fodder manufacturers to feed their cattle on sheep brains rather than cheap, imported soya after imposing penal taxes.
The Common Fisheries Policy makes EU nations' fishing grounds 'common' to all EU fleets, leading to overfishing this, in turn, has led to Spanish and Portuguese trawlers plundering African nations' waters such as Senegal and Mozambique.
Western European wealth has always depended on massive exploitation of the developing world. The relationship between developed European nations and the developing world was studied by Lenin who noted: "From the standpoint of the economic conditions of imperialism - ie, the export of capital and the division of the world by the 'advanced' and 'civilised' colonial powers - a United States of Europe, under capitalism, is either impossible or reactionary" That is to say the capitalists of Europe will come together only to increase exploitation and profits.
Although he did note another reason: "A United States of Europe is possible as an agreement between the European capitalists . . . but to what end? Only for the purpose of suppressing socialism in Europe' and 'to jointly protect colonial booty against Japan and America". LCW Vol 21 There is no doubt that the EU wants to protect its interests against other imperialist blocs. It is also clear that the 'internationalism' of the EU stops at its own borders.
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There are just under 400 million people living in the EU, yet only 50 people take all the decisions: 15 heads of State plus 15 ministers in Councils of Ministers plus 20 European Commissioners.
Neither the European Parliament nor national parliaments can overturn decisions made by this tiny clique.
Disturbed? You should be.
These steps are part of a process for the creation of a United States of Europe and must be opposed by all those interested in democracy.
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The term 'Fortress Europe' has been rightly used to describe the intrinsically racist nature of the EU.
The Schengen Agreements which are being implimented across the EU. The Schengen agreement is mistakenly seen by many as a mechanism which allows free movement of people. Schengen seeks to restrict and control the movement of people within the internal borders of the EU and close external borders tighter against refugees and people from the developing world.
Within the agreement, there are provisions for Pass Laws akin to those operated in Apartheid South Africa. Non-Europeans must declare their entry by law and if they wish to enter another EU state must declare their arrival within three days.
There will be a tightening up of travel papers, conditions of entry, work permits and freedom of movement for third world citizens. Every EU state already has large 'detention centres' such as those in Campfield in Britain to deal with these 'offenders' yet Schengen visas are not required for Americans, Canadians, Australians, Japanese etc.
Although Britain has not signed the Schengen agreement the Immigration and Asylum Bills conform to the essence of Schengen. The harmonisation of EU law within the member states is why we have also seen the introduction of reactionary and restrictive legislation such as the Criminal Justice Act, and anti-trade union laws.
There have also been, so far unsuccessful, attempts to introduce identity cards. Such repressive laws will be enforced by a European police force(Europol) which will be linked up to a computerised network known as Schengen Information System (SIS). This organisation will deal with crime prevention, terrorism and asylum seekers and immigration.
As a result of the democratic deficit that exists within EU structures such as force will be beyond any democratic control, effectively, a law unto themselves. The openly hostility towards people of the developing world represents the Europeanisation of institutionalised racism.
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The moves toward a single currency brings us closer to a single, centralised European superstate. This will lead to political administration and control.
Before the introduction of a single currency, massive austerity measures were introduced within EU member states in order to reach the convergence criteria. Within a single currency, no government is able to control interest or exchange rates. It is unable to protect industries from imports, or give subsidies to industries.
Many governments in Europe have faced electoral destruction as a direct result of adhering to such Thatcherite policies. The lack of any democratic process has meant that voices of dissent have been marginalised and ignored. The anger at attacks on the welfare state have led to massive general strikes which delayed government plans to butcher its own benefits system to meet the Maastricht criteria. The implementation of such measures was controlled by the then strongest currency in Europe, the Deutschmark. This has meant that German monopolies have gained effective control of the main economies of Europe. Anyone who questions the future of Britain and the European Union is often called a backward-looking "Little Englander" and an isolationist. Yet the history of the EU and developments within it, reveal a secretive autocracy.
Many will tell you that we cannot afford not to be in "Europe", yet as a result of being in the EU Britain developed mass unemployment, de-industrialisation, and a Common Agricultural Policy that costs every family in Britain around £25 per week to subsidise farmers not to grow crops or produce milk and to prop up prices, these are just a few of the costs that we, apparently, cannot do without.
To persuade the Labour and trades union movement to swallow the bitter pill of Maastricht, the Brussels bureaucrats offered the 'Social Chapter' as sugar-coating.
The Chapter guarantees little of any value and nothing at all in such fields as pay, trade-union recognition and the right to strike. It is full of high-sounding declarations and good intentions - with an 'escape' clause for each one!
It is vital that the labour movement spearheads a mass, popular campaign against the implementation of any further stages of the Maastricht Treaty.
This is nothing to do with narrow nationalism.
It is a fundamental question of democracy, and a question of jobs and the quality of life.
Many left and progressive forces in France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Denmark and elsewhere have campaigned, and continue to campaign, against the Maastricht Treaty because they too oppose the creation of a capitalist and centralised United States of Europe.
The immediate priority must be to resist Maastricht and EMU, and, in the promised referendum, to build for a massive No vote against a single currency and rule by a European Central Bank.
The Communist Party believes that Britain should ultimately withdraw from the European Union.
The key institutions of the EU cannot be democratised.
The alternative is to help break up the Eurocapitalist super-state in its infancy.
Britain could take the lead, inspiring the many people who believe that European co-operation should take place on a different basis - on the foundation of national self-government, democracy, economic progress and social justice.
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