With the "golden rule" that engraved in stone the criteria of the Stability and Growth Pact, which provides for automatic penalties and obligations for states to negotiate austerity plans with the EU, they persist in political choices that kill growth, put people in misery and dismay. This treaty is the assured disembarkation of the "Troika," the plundering of the public services and the destructions of social rights in all EU countries.

With the transfer of the national parliaments’ budgetary powers to the commission, they call the sovereignty of the people into question, without any public debate and consultation of European citizens. This is an unprecedented attack on basic political rights of the European peoples, a regime change towards the dictatorship of the markets.

To have a clear vision of the Europe they prepare, one has only to turn our attention to Greece, which Angela Merkel wants officially to be brought under the control of the commission, or to France, where Nicolas Sarkozy has just announced a third austerity plan increasing indirect taxes and breaking collective agreements on working time to fund new gifts to the employers.

In the end, the destruction of the European Union is underway. The EU cannot be built against the peoples and in a climate of permanent suspicion between member states. European institutions will never have the legitimacy they claim by taking authoritarian and harmful decisions to people. The idea of ​​a union will never be preserved if a state may request the guardianship of another. There will be no union in division and competition between peoples.

The Party of the European Left rejects this international agreement and will campaign in all EU countries against its ratification.

Party of European Left

Brussels, 30 January 2012

The Party of European left fully supports the general strike, that had not taken place since at least 20 years, and which is sending a clear signal of rejection of austerity. With their claims, the Belgian employees also express other ways to end the crisis that European leaders would do well to consider, starting with the government Di Rupo.

The choices made now by the EU are at odds with popular aspirations, and serious political and economic mistakes, that leads to years of recession and crisis.

For the ELP, it is time to take the evil at its root, that implies democratically controlled banks, starting with the ECB, which must play its role as central bank and finance social development rather than speculation. And we must end the competition between workers and destruction of their rights in the name of competitiveness: only cooperation, increase of wages and social protection will allow an exit from the crisis

Party of the European Left

Brussels, 30 January 2011

Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel wish to go still further and harder in their policies of serving capital. As from the 1^st March they intend to impose a camouflaged change in the European Treaties in the form of an “international agreement for a strengthened economic union”. This new measure would set up an authoritarian centralisation of political choices at European level, placing national budgets under supervision, embodying a strengthened “golden rule” in all constitutions, by an automation of austerity plans and sanctions. This law could be adopted without any consultation with the peoples. This is a serious attack on popular sovereignty, rights of workers and public services. The “Merkozy” duo wants to force the EU and its member states to abandon for years to come, any social progress and will be depriving itself of tools that could enable it a lasting emergence from the crisis. The Party of European Left rejects this draft treaty and demands the holding of referendums or popular consultations in all the countries of the EU.

Through this anti-democratic and antisocial drift, they are encouraging selfishness’s and fears, thus preparing the field for the forces of the extreme right, demagogic, reactionaries, who endanger democracy and the working world. It is no co-incident that former bankers are being appointed to key positions in governments, that in Hungary, the very word “Republic” has disappeared from the official name of the country at the instigation of the populist Victor Orban and that there are signs of the increase of such forces in so many European countries.

The EL and its parties have been in all struggles and have clearly taken a stand against this Europe of austerity and markets dictatorship. We have supported and participated to the trade union struggles in all fields of activity, to general strikes, and the “indignants” movement, which has developed alternative social practices of mass participation, transparency and solidarity. We have called for the building of resistance fronts against austerity and made a strong contribution to the electoral sanctions against governments that have applied austerity policies. In some countries our forces are suffering from repression and “legal” attempts to dissolve them, based on the historically false amalgams of the anti-communist ideology.

Despite these obstacles, we have worked out concrete proposals to emerge from the crisis in a lasting manner and change the way of building Europe. They follow three main principles, shared well beyond the forces in the EL.

For us, there will be no emergence from the crisis without:

• Rejection of austerity, and defence of social development and solidarity: job creation and the development of production tools that observe criteria of quality regarding social rights and the protection of the environment must be given priority. Wages, the level of social security and of social standards as a whole must converge in an upward direction. Sovereign debts must be radically restructured and measures of fiscal justice are imperative to ensure that the revenues and property of capital make a contribution to financing public services and projects of general interest.

• Subjecting finance to democratic control: the peoples must have power to audit sovereign debts and define which should be cancelled. The European Central Bank must lend to states at low rates to free public investments from the financial markets. The peoples must have control over credit and monetary creation, so there must be democratic control of the banks, a change in the mission of the European Central Bank and the creation of public banking centres.

• Saving and developing democracy in Europe: all decisions that commit the future of Europe may only be taken by popular intervention in all its forms, (voting right, public discussion, referenda, European citizen initiatives) and by the national and European Parliaments.

In 2012, new stages must be surmounted. We must open new perspectives to show that a refounded Europe on social, democratic and ecological basis is possible. In popular resistances, in left political organisations' and trade-unions proposals, in the reflexion of intellectuals, the foundations of an alternative policy are already being outlined. Convergences can be established on condition that initiatives are taken that enable them to become concrete. The time has come to join our forces to hit back.

• As from now, we are involved in a battle against the ratification of the “Merkozy” international agreement in every country and at European level. We are fighting for referenda or real popular consultations in our respective countries. We suggest the members of parliament of our parties to propose a joint resolution to reject this treaty which could be presented in all national and European Parliaments. We encourage MPs of our countries to multiply common proposals like the initiative filed by Die Linke in the Bundestag (Germany) and the Left Front in the National Assembly (France).

• We want to start an open dialogue with all political, social, trade union and democratic forces, intellectuals and activists of movement organisations; all those who are resisting austerity and are looking for other solutions to the crisis. When the European leaders try to adopt the “Merkozy agreement” we propose to organise an alternative social summit to emerge from the crisis on 30-31 March.

• We want to create the conditions for an eruption of the citizens into the European political choices — to give them back their political freedom and their sovereignty. We will continue to support and participate to the struggles.  As the EL decided at its last Congress, we will file a proposal for a European citizen initiative that will have the following wording: The objective of the initiative is “to fight austerity and the financial markets, to redirect money towards social progress to enable the citizens to make their proposals heard”. Its specific demand will be for “a European fund for social and ecological development and solidarity or a European Public Bank, exclusively aimed at facilitating public investments to encourage social and ecological development and the promotion of public services. The EL Presidency will meet the European forces who could jointly organise this initiative and will propose a list of first signatories who will submit the demand to the European Commission. The demand will be made public in March. The collection of signatures for a public initiative will be launched and will continue from May 2012 to May 2013.

More than ever before, “unity is strength” and the EL will face up to its responsibilities for seeing that the European Union will finally be that of its peoples, an actor for peace, democracy and social justice throughout the world.

Executive Board of the Party of the European Left

Berlin, 14 January 2012

After the welcome speech by the co-president of Die Linke Gesine Lötzsch and by the EL president Pierre Laurent, both affirmed the aggravation of the crisis and the beginning of a new era in which the European Left should present its alternative answers, via the initiative that will be undertaken the next months, following the decision of the 3^rd Congress in Paris, that will begin on May 2012.

The Party of the European Left defined its roadmap in relation with the international situation, and adopted motions on the situation in Syria, and the one year from the fall of Ben Ali in Tunisia.

With the reinforcement of Merkozy’s neoliberal policies, an important debate was made on the situation in Europe, with the adoption of a declaration to “face up the financial markets and emerge from the crisis, unite the Left, strengthen the struggles and recover power to the peoples” including the rejections of treaties, the “golden rule”, against the austerity and the dictatorship of the markets, and for the restoration of development, democracy and solidarity between peoples via the activation of a social and political dialogue. An alternative summit will be convened at the end of March, with the participation of political organisations, trade unions, networks and social movements in this direction.

The Party of the European Left expressed once again its solidarity to the struggle of Kurdish people for a peaceful and democratic solution, to members of Parliament of BDP that were invited to the meeting of the Executive Board. At the same time, the EL declares its concern in relation with the situation in Hungary, and reaffirmed its support to the democratic forces in their struggle to defend political and social rights.

The agenda of the EL was also established for the next semester with an important number of activities around the EL initiative, till the next Summer University that will take place in Volos on the 17-22 July.

On January 15^th the EL representatives and a lot of militants attended as every year together with over 50.000 people the commemoration of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht at the historical-cemetery in the district of Berlin-Friedrichsfelde.

Read the approved resolutions on the Executive Board meeting in Berlin:

• The anticommunist and antidemocratic offensive in Europe must be immediately stopped

• Do Turkish authorities seek a civil war with Kurdish people? (Pierre Laurent EL/PCF)

• We are against NATO and any other military intervention in Syria

• The struggle continues! Congratulation to the People of Tunisia on the first Anniversary of the fall of Ben Ali

• The EL supports democratic forces in Hungary

• Statement: To face up the financial markets and emerge from the crisis, unite the Left, strengthen the struggles and recover power to the peoples

The situation is, indeed, very worrying. The Hungarian government is pushing its authoritarian slide even so far as to remove the very word “Republic” from the official name of the country. Workers' rights are threatened; all is done to prevent trade unions' and left organisations' actions. The signature of the extreme-right “Jobbik” party is defacing the fundamental law of this country, restricting women’s rights to control their own bodies, discriminating against all forms of cohabitation that do not conform to the traditional standards of family life and opening the door to fresh waves of race discrimination.

Hungary now combines antidemocratic practices, ultraconservative policies and a disastrous economic and social situation. This is how Orban can say at the same time « EU get out! » and « We need money from the IMF ». The government could say anything about the greatness of Hungary in its speeches; its policies are still austerity plans and increases of taxes on low incomes. In fact, he applies the policies imposed by the « troika » everywhere in Europe. This is how populism is: dangerous for the peoples.

The Party of the European Left reaffirms its unshakable support for the Hungarian democratic forces in their struggle to defend political and social rights. It will continue to support the struggles in Hungary alongside the 2006 Workers’ Party of Hungary and with the Green Left.

All around Europe, together we defend democracy against all populists and extreme right attacks!

Together, we defend freedom and peoples' rights!

Together, we fight against austerity and markets dictatorship!

Party of European Left

Berlin, 14 January 2012

We are concerned that reactionary forces in Tunisia, Egypt and other Arab countries are trying to profit from the rebellions and that the rich and powerful countries are trying to hijack the Arab revolutions in order to further their own interests and to take control of the region. It is our task to prevent further military interventions in the region and to stop the European Union from trying to blackmail the Arab countries into economic and political relationships which will only increase poverty and reduce democratic freedom.

The so called Arab Spring has created a space for the Arab left and progressive forces to organize, to mobilize and to change the politics in their own countries as well as inspiring people all over the world. It therefore is a global struggle to defend this space and to denounce all attempts of repression and counterrevolution. The success of the Arab revolutionary process depends largely on the economic development, especially on stopping the growth of poverty. In this fight for economic and political justice the European Left and the revolutionary forces in the Arab countries are standing side by side.  The struggle continues!

Party of European Left

Berlin, 14 January 2012

The escalation of violence is creating the conditions of generalized civil war which will create a human catastrophe and could perhaps spread to neighboring countries.

The EL will enhance its efforts to help democratic, progressive and left social and political forces in Syria in order to reach just and peaceful results to the ongoing social and political conflict.

At the same time in every international arena (European Parliament, national Parliaments in the EU, social movements, etc) we will take a stand in order to prevent militaristic strategies that are being contemplated by imperialist forces.

Party of European Left

Berlin, 14 January 2012

This operation was particularly targeted against people who were refusing a military conflict and call for a peaceful solution.

How could the head of the Turkish government pretend to be fighting against terrorism when he is increasing tensions and violence in its own country?

Search of premises have been carried out at the town hall of Diyarbakir and at Leila Zana's home. This brutal, humiliating and repression at such dimension, make us wonder if Turkey wants to create a civil war? This question is on the table.

BDP's members of parliament, the democratic party of the Kurdish people, within the national assembly, are persistently pointing to this dangerous escalation.

Will the EU continue, once again, to stay in a guilty accomplice silence faced with such an unbearable violence and with its obstinate rejection of freedom and peace, respect of rights of a people?

Pierre Laurent, President of the Party of European Left

Berlin, 14 January 2012

A single center of anticommunist and anti-democratic struggle in fact intended to be the so-called “Platform of European Memory and Conscience”, signed in Prague on the occasion of the summit of Prime Ministers of the Visegrád Group (Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia) on 14 October 2011. The main idea of this process is to substantiate equal responsibility of the Soviet rule and the Nazi regime for the crimes of the 20th century.

Through the “condemnation of communism” in Eastern Europe, a number of ruling regimes are attempting to whitewash the criminal regimes, which collaborated with Hitler and were convicted by the Nuremberg tribunal, and at the same time to ban the European communist and leftist parties.

Thus, a special group has already been created in the Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic, which is preparing the grounds for a possible ban of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia.

In Hungary, in autumn 2011, the leader of the parliamentary group of the ruling Fidesz party stated his intention to change the Hungarian Criminal Code, under which all the deeds by Hungarian functionaries during János Kádár’s rule are expected to be regarded as crimes against humanity, as representatives of “the past socialist occupation”.

In Estonia, the President annually grants the official Estonian awards to Waffen SS veterans, and the Ministry of Defence budget provides funds to support the Nazi veterans. To legalize their position, the Estonian Ministry of Defence is preparing to submit in spring 2012 a bill to the Parliament, under which the Estonian veterans who fought in Hitler’s army to be granted the status of “fighters for Estonia’s freedom”.

In Latvia, more than 14 percent of the population still remain “non-nationals”, are not recognized by the Latvian authorities as a minority, being therefore limited in their basic civil rights as the right to elect and to be elected.

Lithuania has not yet joined the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages, so that national minorities have been experiencing significant setback in pursuing their rights in recent years. A bill designed to give the status of “participant in the resistance movement to Soviet occupation” to both the “fighters against the first occupation in 1940-1941” and “those who fought against the 1944-1990 occupation regime” has been recently submitted to the Lithuanian Seimas. There is still ongoing trial against the head of the Socialist People’s Front of Lithuania A.Paleckis, who dared to deny the Soviet occupation and said in a radio interview that on 13^th of January 1991 in Vilnius it was “brother-on-brother killing”.

The Romanian President takes the liberty to make public statements justifying and glorifying the deeds of war criminal and Hitler’s ally General Ion Antonescu.

In Moldova, the memorials in honor of the fallen in World War II are renamed into the memorials to victims of Stalinist repressions, while the representatives of the ruling coalition say from the parliamentary rostrum about the need to “wipe out” all the Soviet monuments remaining in Moldova. A number of representatives of the Moldovan authorities demand and continue to insist on the prohibition of the biggest Moldovan political party, the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova, communist symbols, as well as to ban the expression and dissemination in the media of the “false values ​​of the Soviet period”.

EL urges European Council, European Commission, European Parliament, Council of Europe Committee of Ministers and Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly to consider the rollback of democratic values ​​and principles in the above countries, as well as to take immediate appropriate measures to eliminate and further prevent such antidemocratic practices in the Council of Europe and the European Union member states.

We reiterate our repeated call for all democratically-minded people – to be active and not to allow Europe devolving into the revival of the “brown plague”.

Party of European Left

Berlin, 14 January 2012

The only certainty is that Italian people will suffer and the country will go to recession. Even the employers expect a decrease of 1,6 of the GDP, an explosion of the unemployment rate and the destruction of 800.000 jobs. Just before Christmas, this is a poisoned gift offered by the non-elected Mario Monti and bankers to Italian people. 

The Party of European Left condemns this new attack against people and reasserts that the only way to leave the current dead-end is a European roadmap allowing the public investment to be delivered from the markets caprices and focused on social development and ecological transition. It implies a democratic control of banks and the ECB. Elections must be organised in Italy, as soon as possible, to let the people decide its future.

Party of the European Left
19. December 2011

Resolution of the Council of chairpersons of the Party of the European Left (EL) on tackling the European Economic and Financial Crisis

The European summit of the 8-9 December 2011 marks a very dangerous turning point for the future of Europe. Entering into an agreement on the protection of the European Central Bank independence and the stability pact, imposing budgetary discipline to European countries by automatic penalties, inclusion of the “golden rule” in fundamental laws and creation of a “right of interference” for European institutions in national budgets, heads of states and European leaders are overturning peoples in a chaotic Europe.

The actual European architecture has led to a crisis, but tomorrow’s Europe will be more submitted to markets and will be more harmful for the peoples. They have signed austerity for life and deprived peoples of their budgetary sovereignty. Thus, they have signed the death-warrant of growth, social progress, democracy. It even threatens the existence of the Union. What will happen when powerfull countries will dictate to others the reforms they have to organise? We are going to an increase of intra-european tensions, with all nationalist and chauvinist reactions that they could create. European history has already proved that this situation can lead to crisis of civilization.

Gathered for an extraordinary meeting, the European Left member parties' chairpersons declare solemnly that an exit from the crisis is possible if a breaking-off is made with neoliberal policies – defended by right-wing forces and accepted by social-democrats -  and if people do not choose the populist xenophobic appeals.

Another voice exists, the voice of the EL, trade-unions, associations, social movements, of all forces trying to find solutions for an exit of the crisis which is not austerity, endless rescue and survival of banks, financial markets and big capital owners, but the defence of democracy, social rights, social and ecological development and the welfare state in Europe. Our anti-crisis formula is: less Merkozy doctrine, more social and democratic Europe!

It is urgent to open an alternative to overcome the crisis together. The proposals we want to debate are:

I.                    The detachment of public finance from the finance markets. We want the European Central Bank to be democratically controlled and to take an active role in fighting speculation with government bonds, the foundation of a European public fund or bank for social, ecological and solidarity development. A common resolution has already been discussed at the Assemblée nationale in France and at the Bundestag in Germany thanks to the Front de Gauche and Die Linke MPs.

II.                 Reorganization of the banking sector and decrease of the financial markets powers: We want the private banking sector to fall under public responsibility and control. Speculative financial transactions have to be contained by direct or indirect means. We want the creation of a publicly-owned pole of credit that is a key instrument to finance jobs, public services and an ecological transition.

III.               Solutions to public debts problems: Why should peoples pay for the banks and finance crisis? We want austerity policies to be stopped immediately. We stand for the adoption throughout Europe of national regulations which rule out both the curtailment of wages, pensions, and social welfare and replace those policies by mass tax increases for big capital owners and millionaires. Because all European countries are threatened, the EL proposes the organization of a European Conference on the Debt, that could discuss the direct redemption of debts by the ECB for threatened countries, the abolition of a large part of public debts related to the results of a public audits. We recommend special protective predictions for social security funds and the radical decrease of military expenditures which is also a precondition for peace and solidarity, the abolition of rating agencies and a big plan of public investments.

IV.              Making social Europe: We want Europe to become a protective for its people. For this, minimum standards that ensure a decent life have to be introduced for working hours, wages, pensions, social security, and income taxation.

V.                 Turning Europe into a union of balance: the central adjusting screw for this is the dismantling of economic imbalances reflected by gaps or surpluses in trade balances. A European coordination of economic, wage and finance policies aimed at eliminating unemployment and creating even trade balances in the medium term is necessary. It involves a development of industry in all countries. The European budget must be uppermost directed to cover such imbalances.  

VI.              No to EU authoritarianism - Real democracy in Europe: The EL continues its fight for the establishment and the protection of democracy, accountability, transparency and citizens participation. We are firmly opposed to any unilateral restriction of the powers of national parliaments attaining legitimacy through European agreements. We therefore advocate the strengthening of the powers of the European Parliament. Moreover, we demand any kind of fundamental change to the legal bases (treaties) of the European Union to be subject to legitimization by referendum everywhere where the laws allow it.

After the positive results of the Danish and the Spanish Left, it now time for the European Left forces to intensify their work in the movements of resistance. In this framework, the EL Council of Chairpersons proposes all EL member and observer parties to intensify their efforts for the strengthening of communication, common action and solidarity among leftists and among the working classes of our countries. The EL will take initiatives to establish dialogue between all political, trade unions and democratic forces in Europe which are looking for solution to exit the crisis. The demand for another Europe, social and democratic must become a common slogan chanted in all languages spoken in our continent.

Council of Chairpersons of the Party of the European Left

Brussels, 12 December 2011

The Party of the European Left (EL) supports workers in their legitimate struggle and shares their condemnation of Nicolas Sarkozy and François Fillon policy whose only goal is to steal workers, women, young people, pensioners, to take what belongs to people in order to deliver it on a plate to their « Fouquet's friends », to the bankers and stockholders. It is the workers that make the wealth of France and they must be heard!

At a time when heads of states and European leaders want to impose the « golden rule » in all countries, submit national budgets to their order, and continue attacks against workers, the Party of the European Left is fully committed to fight with them to promote real solutions to exit the crisis. It means: public control of banking and financial systems, a new role for the European Central Bank to serve the social, ecological and solidarity development, a fair tax system and an increase of social and wage standards in every European country.

The EL calls for the creation, everywhere in Europe, of resistance fronts against austerity and will take initiatives to establish dialogue between all political, trade unions and democratic forces in Europe which are looking for solution to exit –not to manage – the crisis. It's time for unity and alternatives to exit the dead-end.

Party of the European Left

28 November 2011

European Left welcomes that climate change negotiations were reestablished under the United Nations umbrella after Cancún negotiations, allowing that all the countries have the right of being heard. Nevertheless, we oppose all the ongoing attempts of the most rich countries in order to led and organize future international conferences on their one.

European Left asks for an agreement that can fulfill the needs of the peoples of the world and that can respond to the ecological and social crisis. Developing countries are the ones that contributed less, the ones that beneficed the less but the ones which are suffering the most with climate change. Climate justice is essential for recovering the aim convergence throughout the entire world. In that sense, guaranteeing food sovereignty must be a priority.

Carbon market and REDD+, which are presented as an effort to create a financial value for the carbon stored in forests, offering incentives for developing countries to reduce emissions from forested lands and invest in low-carbon paths to sustainable development, are not not only ineffective in reducing emissions, but also reinforce the unequal relations of power between the richest and the poorest countries. European Left underlines that the objective must be the reduction of carbon emissions, addressing mainly adaptation and also mitigation measures, and not the creation of new speculative markets.

The planet and the peoples of the world depend on a global solution to a global problem. We cannot continue ignoring the question or simply insist in a package of policies which have proved to be a failure. We also don't accept the narrative which underestimate climate change associated problems using the financial an economic crisis as an excuse to avoid intervention. Another world is possible and we must start constructing it yesterday.

Working Group on Environment of the European Left

For feminist movements worldwide the 25^th of November is a day of battle, accusation, reconnaissance and resistance against violence against women.

Violence against women has many faces and is widespread. It does not seem in the least to decrease: Every third woman in the world and every fourth woman in Europe is exposed to this kind of violence.

Violence against women reveals the patriachic oppression and existence of machist and mysogynist cultures in different societies and its persistance even in the heart of capitalistic modernity, where democracy and universal rights are formally accepted.

The European Left (EL) stands up – not only on this day – for an end to violence against women. In order to sensibilize the European public for this important and little discussed question, dozens of actions of the EL member and observers parties take place today.

Please find here a declaration of the feminist network of the EL as well as a poster.

The EL presidium hosted by the parliamentary group of SYRIZA, in the Hellenic Parliament, carried out a press conference (video 1, 2, 3) and adopted the declaration “People’s of Europe Unite!” (EN | FR | ES) as well as a statement on the current political situation in Moldova.

The bipartisan preachers of ultra-austerity and social destruction are terrified of being exposed to popular verdict. That's why they refuse to go to extra-ordinary elections, first in Greece and now in Italy and, instead, invent the tragically ironic task of “national salvation”. In the name of this task, they have now appointed the ex Vice-President of the ECB, Lucas Papademos, as the new Prime Minister of the country.

This illegitimate “salvation government” is asking for the maximum possible consensus, in order to fullfil its tasks: to impose new authoritarian and brutal austerity measures, reinforce social cuts and boost unemployment rates to unprecedented levels (18.4% in Greece, in October 2011).

This new governmental “party of the Memorandum” consists of PASOK (PES), New Democracy (EPP) and the extreme-right wing party of LAOS, and is also suppported by the Democratic Alliance (ALDE) and the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises (SEV). It is the first time after the fall of the military dictatorship in 1974, that four representatives of the populist right-wing, who have often openly expressed their reactionary, xenophobic and ultra-nationalist ideals, undertake ministerial and vice-ministerial positions, under the approval of a party calling itself a socialist one.

The formation of this “unholy alliance” in Greece is not an isolated incident. The European Left has  repeatedly warned that Greece has been the guinea-pig of the troika, the markets and their local collaborators, and this includes a continuous and dangerous experimentation on how to override democratic procedures, parliamentary and public control and the constitutional rule.

They are now getting ready to extend the experiment of a “national salvation” government to Italy, with Mario Monti, an ex Commisioner, getting ready to undertake the position of the Prime Minister and lead a government which will consist of technocrats and will be supported by both Berlusconi's party and the Democratic Party.

These developments are jeopardizing democracy and put Europe into a period of unprecedented authoritarianism, with social and political rights being constantly reduced and brutally violated.

At these crucial moments, the European Left is firmly standing on the side of the Greek and the Italian Left forces and social movements. We are calling upon all left, progressive and democratic forces in Europe, to escalate our common mobilizations and unitary initiatives, in order to defend democracy at all levels, against this new reactionary “International of Financial Authoritarianism”.  

Brussels, 13/11/2011

For a while the ELP has been concerned for the progress of antidemocratic tendencies and the growing neofascist danger in Hungary. Our representatives participated in a number of antifascist meetings in Hungary, and – with the assistance of our member party, the Workers’ Party of Hungary 2006 – organized a conference about the situation and problems of the roma population in April of this year.

We fully support the common fight of the Workers’ Party 2006 and Vilmos Hanti for legalization of the open use of the red star and against the false equalization of symbols of the Nazi regime and the worker movements. In the case of the honorary chairman of the party, János Fratanolo, the European Court of Human Rights (Strasbourg) judged on 3rd of November 2011 that the punishment of a Hungarian court for wearing a red star during a demonstration is a violation of human right to freedom of expression (Article 10). The judgement (that was already stated also in the case of Chairman Attila Vajnai in 2008)creates an obligation to change the relevant law in Hungary. However, it was rejected by Hungarian officials and, recently, the chairman of the National Assembly of the Hungarian Republic, László Kövér, called the members of the Chamber to be idiots. Together with our Hungarian partners we strongly protest against such an approach and we demand the application of the ECHR decision.

These recent events reinforce the need for joining antifascist forces on national and international level and democratic solidarity.

11/11/2011

The EL demands the immediate release of Paul Murphy and the activists of the freedom flotilla for Gaza