SOAS Research Online

Abstract

During the eurozone crisis much of the Left argued in favor of remaining in the European Monetary Union (EMU) and the European Union, often in the name of internationalism, while developing a broad alliance against austerity and neoliberalism. However, the EMU has functioned in practice as a mechanism of ascendancy for German manufacturing capital, based on suppressing German workers. As the eurozone crisis is pacified, an entrenched division in Europe has emerged between an unstable core dominated by Germany, a Southern periphery withno growth prospects, and a Central European periphery dependent on German industry. Faced with this harsh reality, a class-based strategy for the Left must include rejecting the EMU, clashing with the EU, and demanding popular sovereignty. That would provide a true basis for internationalism in Europe.