Marxist critique of the EU

[Post-Something]

Hi, I'm wondering if somebody could point me to some good critiques of the EU from a Marxist point of view? Just watched a documentary about the history and breakup of Yugoslavia and would like to understand a bit more about why all these countries are trying to join the EU, as well as others and what that means for their economies.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

It' a capitalist organisation.

[Prinskaj]

Just watched a documentary about the history and breakup of Yugoslavia and would like to understand a bit more about why all these countries are trying to join the EU, as well as others and what that means for their economies. The reasons for countries joining the EU is simple.
1) They won't some of that sweet cash, from the EDF (European Development Fund) or other subsidies, such as those for agriculture. Which is allowing the newly integrated Slovakia to reach high GDP growth rates.
2) Capital is international, therefore the bourgeoisie wishes for a way to increase their dominance globally. This has been done though many institutions, such as the IMF, World Bank, WTO, NAFTA and other. The EU is just other one of these. The only difference is that the EU is not solely economical, but also has a powerful political influence.

[SEKT]

Additionaly to what Prinskaj pointed out, there is also relevant to say that the EU, besides giving cash from the EDF, has the counterpart of be an instrument for the german and french bourgeosie (mainly) that allows them to control the economic policies of the countries within the Union.

In the other hand, Germany is the country that has taken more advantage of the Union by expanding its economic and political control over other countries by means of political measures, as the ones from the Troika, and economic measures, by means of its corporations and banks. Even east europe countries that are not in the EU but in the "Eastern Partnership" (a second degree "union" for eastern countries) have fallen into the german control, which allows a centralized command for the german bourgeoisie in which the other countries bourgeoisie are happy to participate in exchange of resources.

[GerrardWinstanley]

Liberal sympathisers wit the European project point to the ability of a European superstate to shift the balance of power away from the United States, making us a rival superpower.

The problem with this -apart from the project for a European supranational authority being essentially American in origin- is that the European Union does not function as a superstate where its member states pursue shared interests. The European Union is composed of states with interests which are either competing or only complementary in the most unequal sense (ie the relationship of Germany to Greece). The capitalist monopolies France, Germany and the United Kingdom are, by their nature, national and independent of one another. It is the European Union which enables them to work together to limit the scope of democratic participation in lawmaking as far as possible while retaining the appearance of a liberal democracy. Together, they constitute not a counter-hegemon to the United States, but the agents of US hegemony in the region (as we saw in the in the slicing up of Yugoslavia and the forced imposition of the Washington Consensus on the former Eastern bloc). Even the European Constitution entrusts its defence duties to NATO.

A useful way of looking at it is imagining that the internal dynamics of the European system are more akin to the relationship between North America and Latin America than anything that could amount to a hegemonic bloc in the sense of NATO or the Soviet Union.

Look up Samir Amin's 'Implosion of the European System on Google for more on that. (sorry, I can't post links yet)
monthlyreview.org/2012/09/01/implosion-of-the-european-system