Esko Seppänen (born 1946), Finnish MEP

6th Term of the Parliament 2004-2009:

  • Aligned with the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left and Member of the Group's Bureau

  • Member of the Committee on Budgets (COBU) and Coordinator for the Group

  • Member of the Temporary Committee on the Financial Framework

  • Substitute Member of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) and Coordinator of the group

  • Substitute Member of the Committee on Budgetary Control

  • Vice-Chairman of the Parliamentary Cooperation Committee, delegation to Russia

  • Substitute Member of the Parliamentary Cooperation Committee, delegation to Central Asian countries

Esko Seppänen has a Masters Degree from the Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration. Before he embarked on his political career, he worked for the Finnish Broadcasting Company as a journalist specialised in economic affairs. In 1987, he was elected to the Finnish Parliament, and during his time as an MP he was Chairman of the Environment Committee and also served as a Parliamentary Trustee in the Bank of Finland. In Finland's European elections of autumn 1996, he was an alternative for those who voted "no" to membership in the referendum. Currently his political interests focus on the relationship between the "federalisation" and "militarisation" process of the European Union and the nation states.

ESKO SEPPÄNEN:

In general terms, I see the EU as a manifestation of global capitalism implemented into a European framework. Neo-liberal capitalism has no social dimension whatsoever, and is the creation of faceless market forces. Moreover, the capitalist market-force mechanism reinforces this "anti-social" logic by converging towards highest profits and lowest taxes. Eurocracy, the bureaucratic power-centre formed by EU civil servants, further reinforces this socially devoid neo-liberalism by monitoring and preventing national states from setting any obstacles to the freedom of capital movements.

My main arguments against the European federalist formation of capitalist structure are connected to two interrelated issues: economic and military integration. Economic and Monetary Union, as defined by the convergence criteria in the Maastricht Treaty and the Growth and Stability Treaty, does not enable an equal allocation of welfare among different Member States.

We are currently witnessing the gradual strengthening of the EU security and defence policy. Military integration will definitely lead to a military union, which will, in practice, be NATO. From the Finnish perspective, NATO membership would have both negative social and negative political consequences. Economically, NATO membership would mean increasing military spending to the detriment of social security spending.

The most important aspect for my work in the EP during this term will be setting up and participating in a European-wide discussion forum, which will gather people sharing the same vision of a non-federalist Europe with full employment. This will enable us to work together during the sixth term of the Parliament on the various referenda on the draft European Constitution in all Member States. We need to defend the only known form of democracy: national state democracy.