ABSTRACT

The European Union EU has had several aims during its establishment and development processes: expansion and functioning of capitalism in “peace” conditions without coercion; the desire of protecting itself against Eastern Bloc, correspondingly the need to integrate to the U.S. capital; later on, the need to survive in the interimperialist rivalry, correspondingly the integration steps such as Eurozone and Schengen system that would strengthen European capital and enlargement of these practices to the new regions of Europe. In order to legitimise this process of integration, various theories were developed or some existing integration theories were employed. From 1980s onwards, together with the acceleration of the EU integration, these theories as well have gained momentum, and they have created an ideological and cultural environment oriented at preventing the questioning of and critical approaches about the EU integration. However, these texts are far from explaining the realities of the periphery countries of the Eurozone. By examining the place of Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain in the world economy, capital movements to these countries and their capacity to create fixed capital formation, how these facts affect the labour costs in these countries, this paper reveals that mainstream approaches about the EU integration are fallacious. Especially after the establishment of the Eurozone, their competitive powers have deteriorated, wages have decreased, capital movements have failed to turn into fixed capital formation, and their manufacturing industries have been far from creating high technology and value-added. And the Eurozone crisis has reinforced these tendencies, not least the suppression of wages. The policies imposed on the periphery countries as a response to the crisis tend to reproduce the current contradictions