Alex Callinicos European integration has been part of the global process of inter-imperialist competition both that between the two superpower blocs and that between the major European states, notably France, Germany and Britain. EMU arose from these conflicts and wilt help to sustain them. The Europe of EMU wilt therefore not be either the recovered social-democratic paradise anticipated by some of its supporters, or the continent of prosperous Americanised consumers predicted by others. It is likely to be polarised between the kind of collective action and organisation evoked by the French mass strikes and regressive ultra-nationalist Utopias evoked by the fascists.
