Germany: Right-wing extremism in North Rhine-Westphalia police force

Elisabeth Zimmermann

There have now been 53 confirmed cases of right-wing extremist activities in the police force of North Rhine-Westphalian, Germany’s most populous state. This was announced by the state interior ministry in Düsseldorf following enquiries by Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa).

Riot police in action (Image: Montecruz Foto/CC BY-SA 2.0)

A year ago, far-right chat groups and images found on the cell phones of police officers in Mülheim an der Ruhr/Essen had shocked the public.

In one video, which was then sent to colleagues, a police officer lays out the bullets of his service weapon into a swastika. Another shared snapshots via WhatsApp of Christmas decorations with SS runes and the inscription “Sieg Heil.” One patrol officer stood with his legs wide apart on the roofs of two service vehicles and gave the Hitler salute. Another video shows the same policeman and others singing the forbidden first verse of the Deutschlandlied during a trip in their police vehicle.

In the following months, the scandal about right-wing extremist police chat groups increasingly grew. For example, the forbidden Horst Wessel Lied, the battle song of Hitler’s SA and the later party anthem of the NSDAP (Nazi party), was found on seized data storage devices.

During the investigations, more and more suspicious cases were added. In early November 2020, 147 police officers and four employees of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (as the secret service is called) in North Rhine-Westphalia were under investigation. By the end of September this year, the number of suspicious cases reported had risen to 275.

Evaluation of extensive data seized during the search of the suspects revealed the most vile criminal images and films. On September 18, 2020, the World Socialist Web Site commented on this, saying, their content is “inadequately described as agitating against refugees, fascist filth, and the trivialisation of the Nazis.”

Images included refugees screaming in a gas chamber and a man on a bicycle pointing a gun at a black youth trying to escape from him.

Since then, the North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) state government, a coalition led by failed Christian Democratic Union (CDU) chancellor candidate Armin Laschet along with the Free Democratic Party (FDP), has sought to downplay the extent of the far-right networks. When asked by dpa, the state Interior Ministry, led by Herbert Reul (CDU), responded with the following assessment: “Suspicion of right-wing extremism had been confirmed in 53 of the investigated cases, which had already been conclusively investigated and punished. Suspicions had not been confirmed in 84 cases. These cases have also been conclusively investigated. In 138 cases, the investigation was still ongoing.”

The consequences for the police officers concerned are negligible. Six police trainees have been dismissed. Two dismissals and three warnings were issued in the course of labour law proceedings.

The decisions also show that the cases of right-wing extremism among police officers and in the state apparatus that have been discovered and potentially breach criminal law are being systematically downplayed and covered up. The police officers concerned generally got off scot-free under the criminal law because the judiciary classified the WhatsApp chats as “private communications.” Relevant criminal offences, such as the dissemination of illegal symbols (e.g., the swastika), thus did not apply, the dpa reports.

Last year, a female police officer from Mülheim/Essen had successfully sued against her suspension. In her case, the court had concluded that the Hitler video on her cell phone was a “parody.”

The cases of right-wing extremism that have come to light among the police in NRW, the extent of which is now being concealed, are just the tip of the iceberg. The same is true of many similar cases in Hesse, Berlin and other German states.

If particularly blatant cases come to light, there are brief hypocritical expressions of indignation on the part of the state. Then they are played down as individual cases and to get over them as quickly as possible. Nevertheless, new cases continue to come to light.

For example, almost at the same time that the results of the investigation into the right-wing extremist chat groups were announced by the NRW police, there was a raid in Aldenhoven, in the district of Düren. A huge cache of weapons, including firearms, explosives, hand grenades and mines, was discovered at the home of a 32-year-old man, who is said to be a senior officer and explosives expert in the Bundeswehr (Armed Forces).

The man had originally only been investigated for violating the Foreign Trade and Payments Act because he had shipped a package containing silencers. Now, the charge of violating the War Weapons Control Act has been added and he has been remanded in custody. So far, nothing is known about his political motivation. Since unknown chemicals were also discovered in the house, experts from the Federal Office for Radiation Protection were called in to assess the situation. Some of the explosives found were detonated on site.

At the beginning of October, it became known that right-wing extremist incidents were also said to have occurred in the Bundeswehr’s elite “Guard of the Federal Republic.” This battalion stands guard during state visits, among other things. At the centre, is a grouping within the 2nd Company that calls itself the “Wolf Pack.” It involves right-wing extremist incidents, repulsive initiation rituals, sexualized violence and assault.

Even before this, one soldier’s contact with the fascistic Identitarian movement had attracted attention. Also, a soldier in the battalion is said to have had himself photographed in the uniform of Hitler’s Wehrmacht (army). Both had been banned from performing their duties.

Before a more detailed investigation could even take place, federal Defence Commissioner Eva Högl (Social Democratic Party, SPD) said after a visit to the guard battalion that she had “a good impression” of the investigation. “So far, there is no confirmation of an entrenched far-right group within the Guard Battalion.”

This month, Mediendienst Integration published research on the topic of “right-wing extremists within the security agencies,” which showed that the number of investigations into suspected right-wing extremist cases inside the security agencies has increased sharply in recent years.

For example, since the beginning of 2017, there have been 319 investigations into suspected right-wing extremism in the authorities at state level (police, state criminal investigation offices, secret service). At the federal level (including the Federal Police, Federal Criminal Police Office, BKA and Customs), there were 58 cases of suspicion, and 1,064 at the Military Counter-intelligence Service (MAD). Investigations by MAD were mainly related to the Bundeswehr, where the number of suspected right-wing extremist cases increased by a third between 2018 and 2019.

The report by Mediendienst Integration cites numerous racist and right-wing extremist incidents in the security agencies between 2017 and October 2021. Again and again, it involves right-wing extremist chat groups in the police. Apart from the cases in NRW, similar groups came to light in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Hesse and Berlin and almost all other federal states. Racist incidents are also mentioned again and again.

Links between police officers and the Reichsbürger (groups that reject the legitimacy of the post-war German state), Q-Anon types, the Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) and other right-wing extremist and fascist parties, right-wing extremist and right-wing terrorist networks in the Bundeswehr, connections to the neo-fascist Nordkreuz group as well as to the “Hannibal Network” and the “Uniter” association of ex-military and police are cited. Some of these groups are preparing for a so-called “Day X,” maintain “enemy lists” and have organized stocks of body bags for their political opponents.

Mediendienst Integration writes, “one reads little in the official situation reports about some networks reported in media.”

The compilation of known right-wing extremist and right-wing terrorist incidents related to the security agencies alone shows that these are not isolated cases. The right-wing extremist groups within the NRW police are part of a far-right extremist network that extends across all the security agencies and is promoted and covered up by the intelligence services.

These right-wing extremist structures are being used to prepare the state to suppress the growing resistance of the working class against mass layoffs, social cuts, herd immunity policies and militarism.

NATO Secretary Stoltenberg calls for stepped-up targeting of China

Alex Lantier

Speaking yesterday to the Financial Times of London, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg demanded that the military alliance intensify its threats against China. His remarks highlighted both the extremely aggressive policy pursued by the NATO alliance and explosive divisions emerging among the NATO imperialist powers.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg addresses the Annual Session of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly at a hotel in Lisbon, Monday, Oct. 11, 2021. (AP Photo/Armando Franca)

Stoltenberg spoke as tensions mount between Washington and the European Union (EU), especially France, after the sudden signing of the Australia-UK-US (AUKUS) alliance against China. The alliance, which Washington negotiated for months without notifying the EU powers, led Australia to repudiate a €56 billion submarine contract with France. Paris briefly withdrew its ambassador to the United States in protest, and top French officials, echoed by several EU foreign ministers, criticized AUKUS.

Stoltenberg was returning from a meeting with Biden in Washington, where he also spoke at Georgetown University, provocatively demanding that NATO “step up and do more” to allow countries on Russia’s borders to join the NATO alliance. His Financial Times interview was a barely disguised message from the White House calling for the EU powers to fall in line with the mounting US war drive targeting China.

NATO, Stoltenberg insisted, should target not only Russia but China as well. He criticized “this whole idea of in a way distinguishing so much between China, Russia, either Asia-Pacific or Europe,” adding, “it’s one big security environment, and we have to address it all together. … It’s about strengthening our alliance to face any potential threat.”

He denounced China, claiming it was a major security threat in Europe. “China is coming closer to us, for instance, in Africa. We see them in the Arctic. We see them in cyber space. We see China investing heavily in critical infrastructure in our countries. Of course, the fact that they have more and more longer-range weapons that can reach all NATO allied countries. … They are building many, many silos for long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles.”

He announced that at next year’s NATO summit in Madrid, NATO would directly target China and discuss China potentially overtaking the United States as the world’s largest economy. “I expect that when we meet in Madrid the rise of China, the impact of China and the shifting the balance of power has on NATO will be thoroughly addressed in the new strategic concept, among other topics. China is not mentioned in one single word in NATO’s current strategic concept,” he complained.

Turning to the EU, Stoltenberg insisted that as they spend billions more on their armed forces, EU powers should avoid any competition with NATO. “NATO and the EU are working together, and we should not create any kind of contradiction,” he said.

Asked about plans for an independent EU army championed by Berlin and Paris since the election of Donald Trump in 2016, Stoltenberg described them as potential threats to NATO security: “There are different interpretations of what [a European army] means. … If this means more European soldiers, battleships, drones, fighter jets, then it’s something we strongly welcome and urge. If it means new structures competing for the same capabilities, then it will undermine our security. But I have been assured that is not the plan. So, we don’t need new structures.”

He also dismissed concerns in Paris over AUKUS. “I understand that France is disappointed. … But at the same time, this is an agreement which is not directed against Europe or NATO.”

Stoltenberg’s brief for military confrontation with China is a pack of lies and cynical evasions. First, the threat of war, including nuclear war, comes above all from NATO, not China or Russia. Since the Soviet bureaucracy dissolved the Soviet Union in 1991, NATO has constantly expanded its reach, waging bloody wars in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, and beyond that cost millions of lives and left these countries shattered. NATO deploys troops on Russia’s and China’s borders—in the Baltics, Ukraine and Afghanistan—not the other way around.

China’s vast growth over this period, based on providing cheap labor to transnational corporations from imperialist countries, exposes by contrast the stagnation and corruption of imperialism. This has emerged in a devastating fashion by the COVID-19 pandemic. NATO powers reacted with bank bailouts of trillions of dollars to the super-rich but called for “living with the virus,” leading to mass infections and nearly 2 million deaths from COVID-19. China, which sought to eliminate the COVID-19 virus, suffered far less economic dislocation and kept deaths below 5,000.

Workers must be warned: NATO’s warmongering threatens not only to trigger conflict with Russia and China, which are nuclear-armed powers, but conflicts between America and the European powers that twice in the 20th century erupted into world war. Indeed, Stoltenberg’s warnings to the EU are simply more polite versions of US threats against the EU over its military plans. In 2019, US officials sent a letter denouncing an EU army as a “dramatic step back” for NATO, threatening the EU with trade war tariffs if it did not abandon the project.

While Washington threatens China most aggressively, workers cannot support any of the rival imperialist factions in NATO. All these powers pursue their own profit and strategic interests via the same methods: war abroad and police-state rule at home to impose the policy of “living with the virus” and intensified exploitation of the working class. This emerges very clearly in remarks of European foreign policy strategists.

Before Stoltenberg spoke to the Financial Times, Thierry de Montbrial, the head of the French Institute for International Relations (IFRI) think-tank, spoke to French financial daily Les Echos on US-EU tensions over China. Montbrial said, “US foreign policy has entered a new phase at least since Obama, for objective reasons: they need to ‘pivot’ to Asia. Those who believed Joe Biden’s election would bring back the good old days were wrong. The White House is now a bit more polite, but just as brutal.”

He said this created a lasting divergence of interests between America and Europe. “We have no reason to leave the Atlantic alliance, but we have no interest in seeing it transformed into an anti-Chinese alliance. … French or European interests are far from identical with American interests,” he said, adding, “On China, it’s the same old story. The Germans have commercial interests there and do everything to protect them, like in Russia. No European country wants to be forced into a brutal confrontation with China. The issue is: How to deal with US pressure?”

He also dismissed comparisons between the Soviet military presence in Europe after World War II and a “new cold war” supposedly emerging between China and NATO. “The issues posed by China today are very different. Where is the Chinese threat in Europe today? Europeans have interests to defend. We must first identify them correctly. But we do not need a military alliance for that.”

What Montbrial proposes is not peace, however, but only the pursuit of rival imperialist interests. He demanded “economic reforms,” such as French President Emmanuel Macron’s cuts to pensions and unemployment insurance, to free up more money for the military. As France wages war in Mali with EU assistance and keeps troops across francophone Africa and the Baltic republics, Montbrial insisted, “[o]ur neighborhood to the south and east should be our main focus.”

Polish Constitutional Court ruling deepens EU crisis

Martin Nowak & Clara Weiss

On October 7, the Polish Constitutional Court ruled that the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has no right to make decisions about the Polish judiciary, effectively asserting Polish national law precedence over European law.

Demonstration for the European Union in Warsaw

The ruling, which was handed down by a vote of 10 to 2, has further exacerbated the political crisis in the European Union and also within Poland. Many observers interpret the ruling, which came at the request of the right-wing nationalist PiS [Law and Justice Party] government, as a step toward “Polexit,” even though the government itself denies seeking Poland’s exit from the EU. Since the ruling, there have been calls for the EU to cut its extensive subsidies to Poland.

The specific issue in the court case was whether provisions of the EU treaties that give the EU Commission a say in questions concerning the rule of law are compatible with the Polish constitution.

The EU has long criticized the PiS for systematically subordinating the Polish judiciary, and, in particular, the Constitutional Court, to its political interests, and for undermining the principle of the separation of powers since coming to power in 2015. The Constitutional Court is now almost completely dominated by PiS. Presiding Judge Julia Przyłębska is considered to be PiS-affiliated and a close confidant of PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński.

On March 2 of this year, the ECJ concluded that the PiS government’s controversial judicial reform could partially violate EU law. It found that EU law overrides individual provisions in national law and national constitutional law, and that it could therefore force Poland to repeal parts of the controversial judicial reform.

The PiS government objected to this. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki personally appealed to the Polish Constitutional Court to review the ECJ’s decision. The court has now ruled in his favour and openly questioned the authority of the ECJ.

Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro celebrated the ruling in blatantly nationalistic terms. He said it was a “very important decision” in a situation where Brussels and Berlin were “treating Poland like a quasi-colony.”

The Polish opposition, led by the liberal Civic Platform (Platforma Obywatelska, PO), which backs greater cooperation between Warsaw and the EU, and Berlin in particular, organized protests Sunday against the Constitutional Court’s ruling. Donald Tusk, the PO’s main leader, served five years as president of the European Council until 2019 and acquired a reputation for being close to German Chancellor Angela Merkel politically.

Tens of thousands took part in protests in the capital, Warsaw, according to media reports. Protests also took place in other cities. However, the overall number of participants fell well short of the mass protests against the abortion law last year.

The demonstrations were mainly supported by the middle-class layers that benefit economically from Poland’s EU integration and make up the PO’s social base. Former Solidarność leader Lech Wałęsa, who played a central role in the reintroduction of capitalism to Poland, supported the protests.

The Financial Times, the mouthpiece of British and European finance capital, was particularly strident in its opposition to the court decision. The newspaper called the ruling “a greater challenge to EU unity than Brexit.” It was “a direct attack on the EU’s legal order, the cement that holds the EU together,” the newspaper wrote. It went on to say it was “regrettable” that the EU had no mechanism to “exclude” members like Poland. The only way to respond, therefore, was to massively cut EU funds to Poland.

As the largest net recipient, Poland receives about 12 billion euros a year from the EU budget. The EU Commission is currently examining whether Poland’s 36 billion euros from the EU’s Coronavirus reconstruction fund can be cut. So far, it has been withholding these funds. Former Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski has publicly threatened that Poland would cancel an equally large portion of its EU contributions if this were to happen.

EU Commission President and former German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen said she was “deeply concerned” by the Polish Constitutional Court’s ruling. “EU law takes precedence over national law, including constitutional provisions,” she declared. “We will use all the powers we have under the treaties to ensure this.”

Nevertheless, many media outlets and members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have criticized von der Leyen, who was elected Commission president thanks to the votes of Poland and Hungary, saying she remains largely passive. Some MEPs have even launched a failure to act case against the Commission to force faster action against Poland.

The conflict between the EU and Poland must be understood against the backdrop of the deep crisis of European capitalism, growing tensions with the United States and preparations for war against Russia and China.

Berlin has so far kept a relatively low profile not only because the PiS supported von der Leyen’s election, but also because German companies are among the main beneficiaries of massive EU subsidies to Poland. According to a report in business weekly WirtschaftsWoche, more and more German companies are closing their sites in Germany and relocating production to Poland, where they benefit both from EU subsidies and the extremely low wages of well-trained Polish workers.

Among the 5,800 companies with subsidiaries in Poland are Lufthansa and Siemens. Economic ties between Poland and Germany have been growing steadily for years. Germany is by far the most important export and import trading partner for Poland, accounting for around 28 percent in each direction. Since 1990, German capital has invested around 40 billion euros in the neighbouring country.

The chairman of the Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations, Oliver Hermes, has warned against restricting EU payments to Poland or even Hungary. He wrote that “Delays in the allocation of EU funds also affect German companies in Poland and Hungary, because EU co-financed investments have been a key growth driver since 2004.”

Poland is also of crucial geopolitical importance. It plays a key role in the expansion of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T), as all direct land links to the three Baltic EU states, Ukraine and Russia run through Poland.

The Polish government, which emerged from the restoration of capitalism, plays a key role in NATO’s war preparations against Russia. Most recently it has been at the centre of NATO manoeuvrers such as “Defender-Europe 20.”

Since 1989, the Polish bourgeoisie has been oriented primarily toward a military alliance with the United States. In contrast to the previous PO administration, the PiS government has refrained from closer military cooperation with Germany. Instead, it is seeking to build an alliance of Eastern European states along the lines of the “Intermarium,” directed against both Russia and Germany.

Under Donald Trump, Washington openly supported this policy. The Biden administration’s growing focus on war preparations against China and its efforts to somewhat dampen the conflict with Russia, at least temporarily, may now undermine Warsaw’s adoption of this orientation.

At the same time, there are discussions in Germany about whether the “Intermarium” strategy could be used in its own interests. A strategy paper by the pro-government Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (Science and Politics Foundation) argued that Berlin should “pursue a policy of interested and benevolent involvement” despite Polish resistance to admitting Germany in order to “position itself in the region as a geo-economic actor alongside the United States as well as China and Russia.”

The conflicts within the Polish bourgeoisie, the dispute between the EU and Poland, and the growing threat of war are ultimately the result of the intensification of international conflicts and class tensions caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

As in other Eastern European countries, the pandemic has claimed a particularly large number of lives in Poland, mainly as a result of the disastrous consequences of capitalist restoration 30 years ago, and it has exacerbated the political crisis of the PiS government, which is now rejected by more than two-thirds of the population. With its aggressive nationalist course, the PiS is trying, not least, to distract attention from the growing protests and strikes at home.

Deadly fire in Taiwan leaves nearly 50 people dead

Ben McGrath

A fire broke out in a working-class apartment building in the southern Taiwan port city of Kaohsiung early Thursday morning, killing at least 46 people and leaving another 41 injured. The exact cause of the fire, which resulted in the second-highest death toll of any building fire in Taiwanese history, is still under investigation, but the disaster highlights the difficult and dangerous conditions faced by workers and the poor in Taiwan.

A charred building sits empty after a major fire in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, Friday, Oct. 15, 2021 [Credit: AP Photo/Huizhong Wu]

The 13-storey dilapidated building was a 40-year-old mixed-use building, common throughout Asia. Once a department store, the converted structure known as the Cheng Chung Cheng building contained 120 units and was home to many of the poorest in the city, including disabled and elderly residents. The building, located in the city’s Yancheng district, had been partly abandoned.

Witnesses reported hearing an explosion, with people in the building screaming ‘fire’ around 3 a.m. on Thursday. The fire was not put out until about 7 a.m. Many of those who died on the upper floors were killed by smoke inhalation. Three people who died were from the Chinese mainland.

Local residents described the structure as a “ghost building,” according to the New York Times. Abandoned sections were used by gangs, reportedly engaging in criminal activity, while stairwells and hallways were piled high with garbage and had exposed wiring.

One survivor, 58-year-old Huang Chin-chih, who was not home at the time of the fire, told the media: “I was afraid of this ghost building, but I had no choice but to live here. I’m just feeling lucky I was not there that night.” Huang paid a third of her monthly salary, approximately $US100, for a one-room apartment in the building.

The fire reportedly started on the first floor. At present, a resident and his girlfriend are under investigation and were questioned by prosecutors on Friday. The couple had supposedly fought the previous day. No details have been announced, but authorities are suggesting that arson could be a cause of the deadly blaze. Kaohsiung police chief Huang Ming-chao said burned incense was discovered where the fire supposedly began, though it is unclear how this might have contributed to the disaster.

What is known, however, is the building did not meet fire safety standards. The bottom six floors had originally been used for commercial purposes, but had become derelict. These floors were filled with flammable materials that greatly exacerbated the intensity of the flames, according to Kaohsiung mayor Chen Chi-mai. Kaohsiung fire chief Lee Ching-hsiu also reported that the construction materials were not up to fire safety standards and contributed to the spread of the blaze.

Taiwan’s United Daily News reported that fire extinguishers were installed only last month, but there were just three per floor, as the residents could not afford to pay for more. This highlights the subordination of public safety to profit. The basic right to protection from disasters like fire is made available only to those who can afford it.

Mayor Chen offered crocodile tears at a news conference. “For the families and Yancheng, I feel incomparable pain and I blame myself deeply,” he stated. “Here I want to express my deepest sorrow to all the wounded and those who died, as well as their families and all the residents.”

Politicians from both the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), including President Tsai Ing-wen and the opposition Kuomintang, offered similar empty words. However, nothing will change after the deadly blaze.

“The problem is not just the fire, but the many structural issues that lie behind the fire,” Chen Liang-Chun, an adjunct professor of urban planning at National Taiwan University, told the New York Times. “In Taiwan, it is always like this. Natural hazards happen all the time, but man-made factors are what turn those hazards into disasters.”

In fact, on Friday, Kaohsiung officials already reported that there were at least 34 “high risk” older buildings in the city, indicating that the problem is widespread. Undoubtedly, there are many more similar buildings throughout the island that also pose significant safety risks. City officials said they would investigate these buildings for fire code violations.

None of this means any real changes will be coming for those living in the most vulnerable conditions. City officials claimed that they had investigated the Cheng Chung Cheng building four times since 2019, though no major steps to improve safety were taken.

“This building was a tumor of Kaohsiung,” said Hong Xian-kai, who ran an antique shop on the destroyed building’s ground floor, near where the fire reportedly started. “No one managed it, and no one cared about it.”

Regardless of how the fire began, the living conditions the residents faced were created by capitalism, which is defended by both the local and central governments. The couple allegedly involved, or anyone else who can be used as a scapegoat, will be demonized in the press in order to divert attention from the social conditions and avoid making any changes that would undercut the drive for profits.

Many workers and poor are unable to find or afford safe places to live as housing prices rapidly grow. A poll conducted at the end of September by the minor opposition New Power Party (NPP) found that 82.6 percent of people believed housing prices were unreasonably high. The NPP postures as a non-aligned “third” party in Taiwan, but is in fact a supporter of the ruling DPP.

While housing in Kaohsiung remains difficult for workers to find, the city is welcoming the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturer, with open arms. TSMC is expected to expand into Kaohsiung, setting up new plants beginning in 2023. The resulting speculation has further driven up housing prices in the area.

As has happened globally, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a sharp rise of social inequality in Taiwan, even according to recent official data released by the island’s Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS).

In 2020, income inequality on the island was the highest in eight years, with the top 20 percent of households earning 6.13 times the bottom 20 percent, according to the DGBAS. The agency said disadvantaged employees had been hit harder by the economic fallout from the pandemic, with many of them asked to take unpaid leave, for example.

Accessing safe and affordable housing is a growing problem not only in Taiwan, but in many cities throughout China, including in Hong Kong. While governments and politicians seek to drive wedges between workers in Taiwan and the mainland, and whip up animosities to justify war plans, the working class faces similar conditions throughout the region and the world.

UK-European Union conflict over Northern Ireland Protocol amid spiraling national tensions

Thomas Scripps

Political hostilities have erupted once again between Britain and the European Union over the Northern Ireland Protocol.

Agreed as part of the Brexit deal done in early 2020, the protocol governs the passage of goods between the UK and EU economic areas, where a hard border, or extensive border infrastructure, between Northern Ireland and EU member state the Republic of Ireland would jeopardise the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which ended the decades-long armed conflict in the north.

Vehicles at the port of Larne, Northern Ireland, Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2021. (AP Photo/Peter Morrison)

Under the agreement, Northern Ireland remains within the EU’s single market for goods which the rest of the UK has withdrawn from. EU product inspections and customs checks on goods travelling from the UK are conducted at ports in Northern Ireland immediately after crossing the Irish Sea and can then move freely through the entire island of Ireland. This prompted opposition from large sections of the Conservative party and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in Northern Ireland, who complained that a border was effectively set up in the Irish Sea.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson endorsed the 2019 agreement in that year’s general election as a means of “getting Brexit done.” But antagonisms have rumbled on ever since, with the agreement threatened by both sides in the early part of this year and the EU briefly invoking Article 16, which allows one party to unilaterally suspend elements of the deal.

Talks to defuse the situation ever since have only highlighted the national tensions driving apart Britain and the EU, at a time of rising tensions within the European Union itself.

The UK Brexit Minister, Lord Frost, has called for the protocol to be scrapped and the elimination of all customs checks between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, allowing goods to circulate freely if they conform to either UK or EU regulations. He also wants the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to be removed from the arbitration of future disputes over the agreement, demanding “international arbitration instead of a system of EU law ultimately policed in the court of one of the parties, the European Court of Justice”.

On Wednesday, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Maroš Šefčovič offered a series of concessions to the UK’s position, including measures to reduce checks on British retail goods by 80 percent, halve customs paperwork, waive the requirement for medical manufacturers to move out of Northern Ireland into Britain, and streamline the certification process for road freight. He declared that the EU had “completely turned our rules upside down and inside out” to find agreement. He insisted, “It’s very clear that we cannot have access to the single market without the supervision of the ECJ.”

Talks on the EU’s proposals will take place for a maximum of three weeks. Commentators have raised the adoption of a Swiss style treaty as a possible final compromise. Disputes between Switzerland and the EU are dealt with by an independent arbitration panel, although it must take into account the ECJ’s view on matters of EU law. But comments suggest that Britain will demand “the moon”, in the words of one EU diplomat speaking to the Financial Times (FT).

On Wednesday, the day Šefčovič announced his proposals, Johnson’s former senior adviser and current political enemy Dominic Cummings tweeted that the government had signed the Brexit deal planning to “ditch bits we didn’t like after whacking [then Labour leader Jeremy] Corbyn [in the 2019 general election].” He continued, “Our priorities meant e.g getting Brexit done is 10000x more important than lawyers yapping re international law in negotiations with people who break [international] law all the time.”

Cummings’s account was then confirmed by leading DUP MP Ian Paisley. He told BBC Newsnight, “Boris Johnson did tell me personally that he would, after agreeing to the protocol, he would sign up to changing that protocol and indeed tearing it up, that this was just for the semantics”.

Frost has admitted, cryptically, that the UK only agreed to the ECJ’s oversight of the protocol “because of the very specific circumstances of that negotiation”.

Preparations are already being made in Europe for a trade war should Britain reject the EU’s proposals and trigger Article 16. According to the FT, representatives from France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain met with Šefčovič Monday to demand contingency plans including tariffs on British exports, restricting the UK’s access to Europe’s energy supplies and ending the trade agreement between the two parties.

An EU diplomat told the FT, “Frost knows he’s playing with fire. But when you play with fire, you get burnt. The EU has a broad palette of options for hitting back at the UK”.

Britain’s rationale for pushing a conflict with the EU is most openly expressed in the Daily Telegraph. Columnist Nick Timothy accuses the EU of “playing with fire on the Northern Ireland Protocol”. He writes, “The issue is… sovereignty. The Government cannot allow the continued jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice over the NI Protocol.”

The UK government feels “sovereignty” is a stick it can successfully beat the EU with, in light of the ruling last week by Poland’s Constitutional Court that parts of EU law are “incompatible” with the Polish constitution, overturning the fundamental primacy of EU law within the union. Poland has been backed by Hungary, which has also been engaged in a long-running legal dispute with the EU over legislation linking European subsidies to respect for the rule of law.

The Brexiteer press in the UK has also made much of recent statements by Michel Barnier, the EU’s former chief Brexit negotiator. Barnier is now running in the French Presidential race on a fiercely anti-migrant platform, calling for France to regain its “legal sovereignty” by casting off the threat of a “ruling or a condemnation at the level of the European Court of Justice or the European Convention on Human Rights”.

Johnson gloated at last week’s Tory Party conference, “That is what happens if you spend a year trying to argue with Lord Frost.”

These events are proof of the analysis made by the Socialist Equality Party of Brexit as “the most advanced expression of an escalating breakdown of the EU, under the pressure of mounting centrifugal forces that are intensifying conflicts not only with the US but between the European states.”

The Johnson government identifies itself with this development. It hopes to use Brexit to place itself in pole position among European nations pursuing increasingly independent policies, either within or having broken loose from a paralysed EU. Leading Tory Brexiteer Sir Ian Duncan Smith MP cited Lord Palmerston in the Telegraph Thursday: “We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow”.

Central to this policy is the UK’s pitch to the United States as its most slavishly dependable ally. But this course is fraught with uncertainty. The Brexit policy in the British ruling class was spurred by the presidency of Donald Trump, who made his hostility to the major European powers, Germany and France, plain. Under President Joe Biden, the US has adopted a subtler approach.

September’s AUKUS military alliance between the UK, US and Australia, involving the repudiation of a submarine deal between Canberra and Paris, boosted Johnson’s standing in Washington. But Biden has consistently stated that his administration would respond severely over any move the UK makes jeopardising the Good Friday Agreement. He is also more determined than Trump to win the support of Europe in the escalating conflict with China.

The outcome of the dispute over the Northern Ireland Protocol is therefore bound up with calculations made in the increasingly frenzied war drive in the Asia-Pacific. Combined, these geopolitical tensions threaten an explosion of trade and military conflicts.

Podemos acquiesces to Spanish police persecution of second lawmaker

Alejandro López

Spain’s High Court has convicted Alberto Rodríguez, Podemos lawmaker and former organization secretary of the party, on fraudulent charges of abuse of a police officer, sentenced him to a month and 15 days in jail and a €540 fine. The conviction also disqualifies him from public office, threatening him with the loss of his parliamentary seat. A decision must be made in the coming days by Spain’s Central Electoral Board.

Alberto Rodríguez [Wikimedia Commons]

Rodríguez was convicted without a single piece of evidence of kicking a police officer in a protest in La Laguna, the Canary Islands, in 2014. This comes after Madrid regional lawmaker for Podemos, Isabel Serra, was convicted of insulting a police officer and throwing objects at police and sentenced to 19 months in jail. Both convictions were based solely on police testimony and medical reports.

In Rodríguez’s case, the High Court judges state in their ruling that the officer “did not express any doubt” when identifying him, something they claimed was reinforced by the “absence of animosity” towards the lawmaker by the policeman and his persistence. The principal evidence is the medical report after the police officer went to the doctor to register his knee ailment as an attack.

In March, Serra’s appeal of her 19-month sentence was rejected. Like Rodríguez, she was convicted of throwing objects and insulting an officer. While it was not even proven that she was there, the judges ruled: “We have no doubt about the certainty of the recognition of the accused.” They also cited medical reports, claiming that “The reality of the injuries suffered and the damages caused” are proven.

The International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) opposes the persecution of Rodríguez and Serra. It has unbridgeable political differences with Podemos, which is sitting in government in Spain, prioritizing profits over human lives amid the COVID-19 pandemic which has left over 100,000 dead in Spain. Podemos is also responsible for deepening social attacks on the working class, supporting imperialist wars and carrying out mass police repression.

However, the sentences against Serra and Rodríguez—six years and seven years, respectively after the alleged events took place—amount to an attempt by the Spanish bourgeoisie to install a police-state climate to intimidate any form of political opposition.

A dangerous precedent is being created, threatening to de facto eliminate the presumption of innocence. A police officer can accuse a lawmaker, striker or protester. Then, simply on the say-so of the officer and a medical report, the judge imposes a jail sentence and a fine.

Police agencies are not neutral arbiters, as routinely presented by the bourgeois media. As Frederick Engels wrote, they are the “special bodies of armed men” created to defend capitalist property, inequality and class rule. Many policemen and judges are unabashed supporters of the neo-fascist Vox party.

It is well known that local police, National Police and Civil Guard are among Vox’s main constituencies. The National Police’s main union, Justicia Salarial Policial (Jusapol) , was created in 2017 amid the hysterical state campaign against the Catalan independence referendum. Vox’s leadership regularly participates in Jusapol protests calling for higher wages for policemen.

As for the judiciary, it has repeatedly aligned itself with Vox and passed rulings to rehabilitate Francoism. In the past year alone, courts have issued a spate of reactionary rulings, such as siding with Vox’ appeal to stop any restrictions on the spread of COVID-19, absolving a fascist leader’s anti-Semitic statements and opposing the changing of street names honoring fascist military units and leaders.

The Supreme Court, the court that has sentenced Rodríguez to jail, endorsed Franco’s 1936 coup, while the Constitutional Court ruled that Franco did not commit crimes against humanity during the war or his 40-year dictatorship.

If these forces, which represent an insignificant section of the population, can determine national politics, its due to the role of Podemos. It is sitting in government supporting police state measures, while acquiescing to the persecution of its members and lawmakers.

When Isabel Serra was condemned by Madrid’s Higher Court last year, before her appeal was rejected earlier this year, the WSWS noted: “The party leadership has acquiesced to the verdict and done everything it can to signal that it will organise no opposition to the emerging police state in Spain—over which it rules, in fact, in coalition with the Spanish Socialist party (PSOE).” We quoted Podemos leader, Pablo Iglesias, who said: “Sentences must be accepted (and in this case appealed), but a huge sense of injustice invades me.”

A year later, Iglesias’ successor, Yolanda Díaz, who is also deputy prime minister of the Socialist Party (PSOE)-Podemos government, stated that Rodríguez had all her “solidarity,” adding: “In the first place, we respect all judicial rulings as always. I know that the lawmaker is going to file an appeal and, therefore, we are waiting for final resolution.”

Such statements further align Podemos with the police state. In reality, Podemos is under no obligation to accept a reactionary sentence. It could call on its 3 million voters and 18,000 members to mobilize against the reactionary ruling. Instead, it accepts a reactionary sentence without any significant opposition. Such a reaction only serves to embolden Vox and its allies in the army and security forces to escalate their attacks.

Podemos’ incapacity to oppose the persecution of its members flows directly from its class character. Speaking for layers of the upper middle class, it employs democratic phraseology to attract popular support and then channel it towards the Socialist Party (PSOE), the bourgeoisie’s main party of government since the fascist Francoite regime fell in 1978. The PSOE has a decades-long record as a party of imperialist war and European Union (EU) austerity.

Once in power, it plays the same role, claiming that any measure passed by the PSOE-Podemos government is radical and progressive. In fact, its agenda is socially reactionary. It claims to be pursuing a scientific policy on the COVID-19 pandemic, while allowing the virus to spread; endorses EU bailouts of the financial aristocracy as measures to improve workers’ lives; and claims that raising the retirement age will preserve the pension system.

In reality, mass anger is building against the PSOE-Podemos government and the disastrous impact of its policies on the working class. Over the past year, nurses, doctors, railway workers, educators, bus drivers, autoworkers, metalworkers, and many other sectors have been involved in strikes and protests. Virtually every layer of the working class is involved in a broader upsurge of the class struggle that is proceeding in Spain and internationally.

In the US, thousands of workers are on strike. These include Deere workers, auto workers, Kellogg’s cereal workers, nurses and health care workers, distillery workers, coal miners and carpenters. In South Africa, 155,000 metalworkers launched an indefinite strike last week.

Terrified that defending its lawmakers could encourage broader opposition, Podemos prefers giving a green light to its own persecution, aware that it relies on state security forces against the workers. In government, Podemos has already attacked steelworkers striking for better COVID-19 protection measures, sent the police to attack Airbus workers, deployed the army against fleeing refugees and migrants, and incarcerated Catalan nationalists over peaceful protests.

Spain’s PSOE-Podemos government approves anti-worker 2022 budget

Alice Summers

Spain’s coalition government of the social-democratic Socialist Party (PSOE) and “left populist” Podemos has approved the outlines of its 2022 budget. The draft received the green light from the Cabinet last Thursday, and is going to the Congress for further debate.

María Jesús Montero [Wikimedia Commons]

Described in the Spanish media as “the largest public spending effort in Spain’s history,” it proposes €40 billion of investment. Around €27 billion of the planned financing is expected to come from the European Union’s (EU) Next Generation EU and React-EU coronavirus bailouts.

Over 100,000 people have died of COVID-19 in Spain, hundreds of thousands have suffered long-lasting illness, and nearly 5 million have been infected—over 10 percent of the population. Millions of workers have had their livelihoods destroyed: 2020 saw record job losses and the largest fall in Spain’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) since the 1936-1939 Spanish Civil War.

Poverty has skyrocketed in Spain, severe material deprivation rates spiking from 4.7 percent in 2019 to 7 percent last year, according to a July National Statistics Institute (INE) survey. This means 3.3 million people face a severe lack of basic necessities like heating, nutritious food and a phone, INE reported.

“This budget was made so that the recovery will reach everyone and expand the middle class,” Finance Minister María Jesús Montero claimed after last Thursday’s Cabinet meeting. “We need to make progress and be in a better place than we were before,” she said. “Six out of every 10 euros of this budget are earmarked for social policies.”

Despite the rhetoric of the PSOE, Podemos and allied media, the budget will not resolve the rapidly worsening social crisis caused by the pandemic. The draft plan is a list of half-measures and empty promises, which will primarily benefit the financial aristocracy and affluent layers of the upper-middle class, while leaving millions of workers in a desperate situation.

Among the measures is a proposal to raise the salaries of civil servants by 2 percent. However, INE data show Spain’s 12-month inflation rate hitting a 13-year high of 4 percent, meaning the proposed “raise” is in fact a pay cut. Private-sector workers will not even get this.

The budget also includes an agreement for a minimum corporate tax rate of 15 percent. The tax change will affect around 1,070 businesses in Spain (less than 1 percent of the total). While in theory, Spain’s corporate tax rate is 25 percent, many companies pay far less thanks to tax deductions and exemptions. Speaking recently to the Financial Times, Finance Minister Montero admitted that many big businesses currently pay as little as 6 percent in tax, while many smaller companies pay 19 percent, adding, “you can’t have this regressive fiscal engineering.”

The budget’s tax proposal is not introducing anything new. In reality, it brings Spain in line with an agreement by the financial chiefs of the G20 countries in July to impose a global minimum corporate tax of 15 percent, so as to prevent multinational companies shifting profits to low-tax havens. Many companies will continue to pay far less than Spain’s nominal corporate tax rate.

The budget was held up by two weeks, allegedly due to disagreements between the PSOE and Podemos that were resolved after the coalition partners agreed to include the 15 percent tax floor, as well as a new housing law.

The budget’s flagship measure is a proposed housing bill, which has variously been touted as a “controversial” or even “radical” plan. This is a fraud. The new law—which would introduce minor rent controls and provide minimal investment in social housing, all while giving tax handouts to landlords—could do next to nothing to ensure access to good quality, affordable housing in Spain.

Landlords would face a cap on the amount they can increase rent each year, but only if they own more than 10 properties, leaving many tenants with no protection against rising rental costs. Property owners with nine or fewer rental homes would meanwhile be offered tax breaks of up to 90 percent if they voluntarily decided to lower rents.

Taxes would also be increased by an unspecified amount on vacant properties, and property developers obliged to set aside 30 percent of public housing stocks for rent, rather than making them available for purchase at a reduced cost. With an estimated 1.5 million affordable rental homes for low-income households needed in Spain, this is vastly insufficient to meet the country’s housing requirements.

A key measure in the housing bill is a proposal to give monthly grants of €250 to young people aged 18-34 who earn less than €23,725 per year, to help them move out of parental homes and cover rental costs. The monthly payment would be available for at most two years, with total financial aid limited to €6,000. There are almost 600,000 low-income tenants in that age bracket in Spain. Due to high costs of living and low wages, the average age at which Spanish people leave their family home is 30—nearly four years above the European average.

With the average pay for a young person in Spain just €970 a month, and monthly rental costs in major cities such as Barcelona averaging nearly €1,000, this meagre payment will still leave many young people unable to afford rent. Young people in Spain are one of the most precarious and exploited sections of the working class: the youth unemployment rate is around 33 percent, the highest in the euro zone. Meanwhile, half of employed Spanish youth are on temporary contracts; 26 percent have part-time contracts.

The main points of the draft housing legislation cannot legally be implemented by the national government, and would be implemented by regional authorities. The opposition People’s Party (PP) has already refused to apply the law, dismissing it as “suicidal interventionism.”

PP leader Pablo Casado said his party would challenge the legislation in the Constitutional Court, should it get parliamentary approval. The PP governs five of Spain’s 17 regions (Andalusia, Madrid region, Galicia, Castilla y León and Murcia), as well as four major cities (including Madrid), meaning the legislation, if passed, would be neutered at birth.

It is far from guaranteed that the budget will be approved. The government together only holds 155 seats in the 350-member parliament, 20 short of the required majority. It relies on the support of regional parties such as the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), with 13 seats, the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV—six seats), the Basque separatist EH-Bildu (five seats) and the pro-independence Catalan European Democratic Party (PDeCat—four seats).

While these parties helped the PSOE-Podemos government pass its 2021 budget last December, the largest, the ERC has indicated that it may not vote in favour of the budget this year. ERC spokesperson Marta Vilalta stated on Monday that the ERC is “very far” from being able to support the budget, adding: “Just because the ERC enabled the approval of the budget last year, does not mean that we will do so again this year.”