Europe is quite obviously more than the cheap slogan"Europe of capital" with which it is suggested that the"dog-eat-dog laws of capital" reign uncontrolled and have a de­regulating effect. Many traditional, socialist­oriented trade unionists use this caricature in order to preserve their comfortable position in a kind of"left-wing nationalism". Peculiar anti-European alliances of right-wing conservative parties and the left-conservative wings of certain parties and trade unions have arisen in a number of West European coun­tries. The most prominent examples include: the Danish EC defence line consisting of the right-wing conservative Progressive Party and the traditional, socialist People's Party; the well-known rejection coalition in the EC Parlia­ment consisting of British Conservatives and French Communists; and most recently the distinctive mixture of French rightists, Com­munists and the self-proclaimed left-wing of the Socialist Party. One could draw up a long list of similar anti-modem, anti-European con­stellations of traditional rightists and leftists. One point of special interest is to better understand the new fearfulness among many trade unions and trade unionists, par­ticularly in the more prosperous West Euro­pean countries. The fears that many trade union members have about losing the stan­dard of living achieved in the postwar era is combined with fears of foreigners and a fear of the future. This new fearfulness is wide-spread within the traditional work­force; apparently the thrust of modernization and internationalization in the 1980s has given rise to massive uncertainty. There is an existing tendency to cling tenaciously to the trusted national context. Although all empirical data contradicts this"skepticism based on ignorance" and shows that the prosperity in West European countries is due to the successful concept of European cooperation, the anti-European mood in many unions is being nourished and streng­thened by traditional leftists with their slo­gans about the"Europe of capital", the"Eu­rope of the big corporations", and the"Eu­rope of the bureaucrats". The ghetto of 4 conservatism stamped in a traditional left wing mold offers scarcely more than a back­ward-looking orientation. It has no future, un­less perhaps the one it shares with nationalist, right-wing conservatism in Europe:"Lack of direction transforms itself all too easily into fundamentalism", Social-Democratic theoreti­cian Peter Glotz wrote recently. The alternative to such a slide into the past consists in the continuation of the European modem age to which the trade union move­ment has made the decisive contribution; spe­cifically, the civilizing of capitalism through welfare-state democracy under the rule of law. Only in Western Europe(and not everywhere here to the same degree) have the successes of the political and trade union workers move­ment led to the consolidation of the rule of law and the welfare state and their anchoring in trade union and political structures. In order to further guarantee that this political culture of Western Europe, its society and welfare-state character acts as a foundation for a pan-European perspective, the trade unions must overcome the fears of their own making. But this will only happen if the unions remain conscious of the fact that the European workers movement has definitively influenced Western political culture during the last hun­dred years, even during many setbacks. "Tamed capitalism" is a result of the workers movement; it is the historic compromise be­tween capital and labour. The"softer" features of West European capitalism, its political civi­lizing through the establishment of civil rights for all and its economic. civilizing through wel­fare-state intervention in the market- all these developments should have taught the trade unions two things: First of all, that capitalism is capable of show­ing a high degree of political flexibility and social elasticity which can benefit the under­priveleged classes. Secondly, that the trade unions have re­peatedly proved their innovativeness by ad­justing their basic programme and their instru­ments for advancing their wages and working conditions to meet the demands of new cir­cumstances.