International

Prime Minister Mark Rutte said today on television that the only reason he was in favour of the European Union’s Association Agreement with Ukraine is trade. He’s not alone in this. The whole of Brussels is peppered with economic considerations. Short-term advantages are raked in with no thought for the longer term consequences, either within the EU or, most importantly, in the world as a whole. For the SP, international solidarity is the priority. We too want to see a healthy economy, but not at the cost of people in other countries. If the EU sees the rest of the world as merely an export market or as competition, we fear the worst. A human being is more than a consumer. Trade? Great, but only if it offers mutual advantage which benefits ordinary people in all of the countries involved. And in the case of the Association Agreement with Ukraine, that criterion is not met.

The European Union internal market contains at the moment 500 million people. That’s gigantic. For most firms it’s too big for them to be able to serve. Ask the average decision-maker at a small-to-medium-sized firm and you’ll be told that there a lot of companies who have consciously chosen only to operate within their own region or at best in a small area of the European market. By doing this you can remain flexible and quickly respond to changing needs.

Things are different for multinationals, which want an ever-increasing market which they can use to buy up other companies and in this way step by step become among the few which remain as world-players. It isn’t small firms which want the Association Agreement with Ukraine to go ahead, but these multinationals. You can still find a great many companies which will never be able to hold their own if the current trade restrictions with Ukraine are removed. They’re ripe fruit for the multinationals to pick. This treaty would rob Ukrainians of the possibility to modernise their own enterprises and to work on their own competitiveness. Instead, they would become prey for multinational corporations.