Unemployment Reform and Immigrant Reform Protested in Seville

Seville- June 22, 2002

The European Union Summit held last week in the sweltering heat of Seville, the Andalusia capital in the south of Spain, marked the end of this country’s 6-month long presidency of the Union, for three days the 15 world leaders that convened here were met by large and boisterous crowds of anti-globalization protestors and Spanish-workers on strike in protest of recent unemployment-law reforms passed by Spanish President Jose Maria Aznar’s Popular Party the week before, but due to an overwhelming presence of national and local police converting Seville into the most heavily guarded city in all of Spain and the festively peaceful atmosphere of the demonstrators no major violence or destruction was incurred.

The major purpose of the EU Summit held by Aznar was to reach an agreement with the other fourteen state leaders on a unified strategy to combat clandestine immigration and to postpone European Union expansion negotiations with other countries such as Poland until the end of next year.

The Summit meeting ended with a vague consensus of how to handle illegal immigration, one of the most urgent and polemic issues facing the Union, the leaders agreed to begin actions of repatriating illegal immigrants without documentation, as well as combined efforts to work closely with the governments of countries where the majority of illegal immigrants originated and a consensus to begin joint police actions to tighten and seal off the EU borders. However limited these agreements are this was the only way that all of the European States would agree on an issue that has been left in debate for years.

The Summit also closed negotiations of European expansion until the close of the year, meaning that no new countries will likely join the European Union until 2003. The European leaders adopted a clause of “exceptional cases” for the duration of this time where decisions can only be made with regards to expansion solely with the unanimous consent of each state.

The first day of the Summit coincided with a national strike called by the Spanish labor unions and members of the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) in protest of President Aznar’s Popular Party passage of reforms on unemployment law last Monday in the Spanish congress. Rallies and protests were held nationally throughout all of Spain but were largest in Seville where thousands of Spanish workers were joined by masses of anti-globalization protestors here for the Summit. According to the labor unions, participation of the general strike surpassed 80 percent nationally with all but minimal urban and interurban transportation maintained as well as emergency services running at normal, the Spanish government announced significantly lower statistics. On the streets protestors were draped with flyers and banners vindicating Aznar’s government for its reforms.

The next day began a two-day counter-summit at the University of Seville held by the non profit organization El Foro Social de Sevilla where policies of the European Union where criticized and alternative solutions to them were discussed. Conferences and round-table discussions were held about the European Union’s actions in the third world, the European Union and the environment, the rise of the extreme right in the European Union and even a conference about the erosions of public liberties since Sep. 11.

Later in the afternoon the University of Seville students staged a march traversing about 20 different blocks and ending in a large celebration with live music and drinks. To even participate in the march one had to go through tight security checks surrendering bags to searches on demand by the national police. The march began about eight in the afternoon and before the students had organized over 100 police could be counted in riot gear. Once the activities had commenced the police surrounded the students shuffling coldly alongside, some with tear gas guns resting casually on their shoulders.
The police presence at the march did not prevent the Spanish students from holding an energetic protest chanting slogans like songs against global capitalism, the recent move towards the privatization of Spanish Universities and general vindications of many first-world leaders. As the students walked down the picturesque Mediterranean streets of Seville onlookers from cafes clapped along exuberantly or threw water bottles down from the windows to help quench the thirsty marchers. The fiesta after the march raged on in an urban park well into the morning hours.

The next day a conference about the rise of the extreme right featured Spanish academics and an undocumented man from Senegal working in France in a round-table style discussion. The recent elections in France that sent chills down the spine of the European left where the final elections posed prime minister Jacques Chirac against the ultra-right wing leader Jean-Marie Le Ben was used as a jump off point for discussion of general xenophobia that has led to the rise of such parties. Members of the UK based Anti-Nazi league spoke as well about the recent castigation of Asian and Mid-East immigrants in Britain and the UK.

The propositions of the European Union’s immigration policies were also heavily criticized by Carlos Haynes one of the roundtable moderators of another conference on immigration. “The word integration has disappeared,” he said.

The theme of immigration continued throughout the counter-Summit’s activities. A group of protestors locked themselves in the church of San Salvador mimicking the actions of some 400 immigrants that have remained locked inside on hunger strike in the University of Pablo de Olvidae since the 10 of this month in another part of the city. Police in riot gear surrounded the demonstrators locked in and the situation remained tense for several hours.

The police presence in Seville cannot be understated. Police checks entering the city extended for at least a mile and on virtually every block of the city vans filled with heavily armed national police. The scorching heat and general emptiness of the streets when demonstrations were not in effect gave walking through the streets of Seville an atmosphere of suspended political tension.

The final day of demonstrations was Saturday and was capped off by an enormous demonstration with more then 250,000 participants estimated by Foro Social de Sevilla, the government estimate was 20,000 and the local police 50,000. Demonstrators marched along the Guadalquivir, which cuts the ancient Moorish city in two, holding signs and banners reading “No one is illegal” and chanting against the presence of the European Union ministers and their capitalistic agendas.

Unlike other anti-globalization protests where at times there has been sparse groups committing anarchistic violence against banks, fast-food restaurants and other symbols of global capitalism this one was rather peaceful and serious confrontations with police was avoided. Indeed, on the front page of most national Spanish newspapers the next day Spain’s defeat against South Korea in the World Cup quarterfinals took precedence over the Summit.