The EU is naked: The progressive clothes of a capitalist project
The EU is naked: The progressive clothes of a capitalist project

Summary/Abstract: The purpose of this essay is to deconstruct, from an openly Marxist and politically engaged perspective, the false progressive image that many on the left ascribe to the European Union. I argue that the EU has been from the very beginning and continued to be a project of the capitalist elites in Western Europe, as reflected by its the entire institutional architecture. Moreover, contrary to a widely-held perception, the EU has not been acting as a bastion of the ‘European social model’ against the neoliberal counter-reform but has in fact led that counter-reform in Europe. Indeed, even the seemingly progressive aspects of the EU are mere concessions that either serve capitalist interests too or are simply ineffective. I conclude by showing why the EU cannot be realistically reformed and why the left needs to urgently oppose it in the current context of the crisis of capitalism and the growing popular disillusionment with this system – not despite the resurgence of the far right across the continent, but precisely because of it.

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