Xinhua, 25 November 2007

Prague. The Party of European Left (EL) opposed the extension of the missile defense and U.S. military bases in Europe, EL's newly elected chairman Lothar Bisky said at the close of the EL three-day congress in Prague on Saturday.
"Europe needs neither an anti-missile shield nor an armament agency. This would only provoke further armament. Europe needs culture of peace," said Bisky, viewed as a politician who unified two left-wing parties in Germany, with voter preferences of up to 30 percent in some of the East German regions.
His speech came as an reaction to Prague and Warsaw's ongoing negotiations with Washington about the possible building of a U.S. radar installation and a base with interceptor missiles on Czech and Polish soil, respectively.
The EL was established in Rome in 2004. It associated 29 European left-wing and communist parties from Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Luxembourg, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Switzerland and other countries, most of which stand to the left of social democrats on the political scene.
The Prague congress, with 470 participants, was the EL's first ever held in a Central or East European country, the Czech news agency CTK said.
Italian Graziella Mascia, newly elected EL deputy chairwoman, said that the EL minds "the arrogance with which the EU approached the results of the referenda (on the then draft European constitution) in France and the Netherlands."
The EL called on its members to gather signatures within a petition campaign in support of a referendum on the reform treaty.

(c) Copyright 2007 Xinhua News Agency