The struggle over EU enlargement: a historical materialist analysis of European integration

Abstract:

This article argues with the help of a neo-Gramscian perspective that neo-liberal restructuring is the social purpose underlying Austria's and Sweden's accession to the EU in 1995 as well as future enlargements towards Central and Eastern Europe. The way in which enlargement has come about has differed, however. On the one hand, class struggle occurred mainly at the Austrian and Swedish national level. While a historical bloc in favour of EU membership was established in Austria by internationally oriented capital and labour, Swedish transnational capital and labour only formed a strong pro-EU alliance, because transnational capital favoured the EU for its neo-liberal restructuring, while transnational labour hoped to regain control over capital at a higher level. On the other hand, neo-liberal restructuring in Central and Eastern Europe has to be secured externally via EU membership, based on an alliance between Central and Eastern European state élites and transnational capital, represented by the Commission and the European Round Table of Industrialists.