A few weeks ago, the President of the European Union, Ursula von der Leyen, reported on the need for military spending of eight hundred billion euros. This expenditure is said to be in response to a military threat to which Europe is exposed, and it has been confirmed that there is a need for a united response to this threat. According to them, this threat is Russia. Reality tells us something else. The trend towards the militarisation of Europe is the direct consequence of the bourgeoisie’s inability to sustain its profits and its loss of competitiveness in the capitalist market. In fact, capitalism has been left without a path or an opportunity for capital accumulation, which has increased the threat of the capitalist crisis that was anticipated. In this sense, there are no signs that indicate the immediacy of the aforementioned crisis: the fall of the real wage, the closure of several companies, the decline of the welfare state...

Contrary to what they want to imagine, war is not a situation that arises suddenly or by chance. War is a systematic structural violence that has allowed the capitalist order and the accumulation of capital. Thus, capital has waged a war of annihilation against all non-capitalist forms, with the aim of spreading the capitalist mode of production worldwide. The bourgeoisie has also used “peace” as a justification for declaring the absence of war or for waging war. For the bourgeois, however, “peace” does not mean the absence of conflict, but the imposition of violence and the intermediate hegemony of arms. In other words, “peace” in capitalism means the continuation of the intermediate war of other instruments and presupposes the maintenance of the order of capitalist society.

Therefore, as at different times in history, the bourgeoisie wants to use armaments and, as a result, war to confront the capitalist crisis that is accelerating. If this were not enough, the bourgeoisie, in order to maintain its profits as it does on a daily basis, will shed the blood of the workers and send them to war.

On this occasion, they want to take us to war under the name of the defence of the European Union. This process has been called, in principle, a “rearmament plan” without any shame. They have tried to make us believe that it is necessary to have “security” or to perform a “deterrent function”, with the aim of devouring the existence of a cultural threat and defending the necessity of war.

Within the framework of this strategy, both the Spanish and French states that keep the Basque Country nationally and socially oppressed and the Basque bourgeoisie have not been left behind. In the case of the Spanish state, which seems to be the most progressive government of all time, without a vote in Congress, it has announced that it will allocate 10.471 million euros more to the defense, the latter to reach the 2% of GDP expenditure demanded by the EU and NATO. It should be noted that, despite the raising of opposing voices, all the political parties that have allowed the formation of this government have political responsibility for this decision.

In addition to this, the French state has the objective of increasing its nuclear program and expanding it to the European level, while at the same time making the militarization in society look good and working on theoretical material for survival.

On the other hand, the Basque bourgeoisie is climbing the armory train, and eleven companies have begun to study or directly produce routes to immerse themselves in this market. In addition to these, there are eleven other companies that work in the arms industry in advance. And as if all this were not enough, through the Basque bourgeoisie and its lobbies, the production of weapons (war) is being presented as an opportunity to compete in the market, normalizing the situation.

This is where the workers of the Basque Country find themselves. Despite the rejection of NATO by the Basque Country 39 years ago, we are still suffering the consequences of its political decisions. Faced with this situation, we must be clear that this war in no way represents the interests of the workers of the Basque Country. In any case, it will be us who put bodies in the trenches and fill the war grounds with blood, while those who oppress us on a daily basis continue to fill their pockets.

It is therefore incumbent upon us to launch the struggle against the arms industry for an imperialist war from the Basque Country and also to denounce the fact that this war responds to imperialist interests. In addition, we must take advantage of the contradictions and uneasiness generated by this situation to strengthen the political project for national and social liberation in the Basque Country. Because only the workers of the Basque Country have to fight for liberation that is done for ourselves and that is in our own interests. A struggle that will put an end to the imperialist war. A struggle that will face those who oppress the Basque Country nationally and socially. The struggle for the independent and socialist Basque state of the future, which must allow us to build a free Basque Country without future oppression.

Kai Karasatorre Martínez, spokesperson for the LIBRE organization