Europe’s Left with Practical Relevance

Peace, disarmament, social justice – the European Left Party takes on current political challenges

article by Uwe Sattler and that was published in Neues Deutschland

Against this backdrop, the EL’s “roadmap” ranges from rejecting a dictated peace for Ukraine, calling for political and diplomatic conflict resolution, and clearly opposing European rearmament and the stationing of U.S. nuclear weapons in EU countries, to protecting high-quality jobs, regulating financial markets, fair wages and pensions, and a genuine Green Deal.

“We are forming a strong, united front against the militarization of the EU and the sexist, racist, and neoliberal policies that continue to harm people across the continent,” said EL President Walter Baier to nd (Neues Deutschland).

Housing Campaign Gains Momentum

The Brussels meeting and the adopted document are clearly further steps in boosting the “practical political value” of the European Left Party and increasing its public visibility. One example is the EL’s housing campaign launched this year, which tackles one of Europe’s most urgent problems: the lack of affordable housing, especially in major cities.

The EL has proposed eight concrete measures – including legal rent caps, a ban on evictions, and the reclamation of vacant housing – and is promoting them with actions across EU member states. “The campaign is going really well,” says Baier, referencing completed and planned events in cities like Barcelona, Marseille, and Athens. What matters to the EL: “We have contact with social movements, the European Trade Union Confederation, and many of our local parties. We’ve managed to turn a demand from our EU election platform into a real campaign.”

Marika Tändler-Walenta, who attended the Brussels meeting on behalf of Germany’s Left Party, believes such efforts show the EL is on the right path: “Empowering member parties to grow, lead mass mobilizations, and develop concrete proposals for action on a societal scale was a key focus of the General Assembly.”

Helmut Scholz, EL co-founder and longtime MEP for Germany’s Left, also offered a positive assessment: “The General Assembly reaffirmed that the EL’s political effectiveness depends on the willingness and ability of its member parties to actively and openly engage with new

developments and focus political work accordingly. The EL is not an abstraction, but thrives on the implementation of shared priorities through local action. The housing campaign is a great example that the housing crisis and rent campaigns are not uniquely German problems but affect people’s daily lives all across Europe.”

Peace Remains a Central Issue

Given Russia’s ongoing aggression against Ukraine, peace remains a central issue for the EL. The EU’s approach of relying solely on a military victory for Ukraine has failed. From the start, the EL condemned Russia’s aggression as a clear breach of international law, as stated in the Brussels Declaration. At the same time, it criticized the EU’s “unrealistic strategy of trying to ‘ruin’ Russia militarily and economically,” referencing German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.

Instead, the EL calls for political initiatives to resolve the conflicts between Russia and Ukraine, and between Russia and NATO. For this reason, the EL urges its member parties, unionists, and peace movements to join the Dutch peace movement’s protests against the NATO summit in The Hague on June 21–22, and to demonstrate against the rearmament plans of the European Commission and EU Council.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, disagreements have arisen within the EL over NATO, rearmament, and military support for Ukraine. At the December 2022 party congress in Vienna, some Scandinavian left parties opposed a blanket condemnation of NATO or placing blame on the alliance for the 2022 aggression. The resulting compromise – condemning Russia’s war as a crime and calling for an immediate ceasefire – did not last.

This conflict contributed significantly to the formation, in spring 2024, of a new European leftist alliance: the “Alliance of the European Left for the People and the Planet” (ELA). Members include La France Insoumise, Portugal’s Bloco de Esquerda, Denmark’s Red-Green Alliance, Finland’s Left Alliance, Spain’s Podemos, and Poland’s Razem and Sweden’s Left Party – the latter two having not been members or observers of the EL.

Many of these parties have seats in the European Parliament and collaborate in the “The Left” confederal group, alongside EL parties and some communist parties not aligned with a European political party.

The ELA’s official founding congress is scheduled for June in Porto, Portugal. Its member parties have mainly criticized the EL’s limited political effectiveness and outdated internal procedures, such as the unanimity principle, which is seen as leading to the overrepresentation of smaller, mainly communist parties in decision-making bodies.

Organizational Reforms Underway

Despite these organizational and political challenges, the EL has continued to grow in recent weeks. “With the admission of new member parties like the Workers’ Party of Belgium (PTB-PVDA) and Greece’s New Left (Nea Aristera), the movement is becoming more unified,” EL leadership stated. “The European Left is gaining strength and momentum.”

For several months, the EL has been working on structural modernization. Some initial statutory changes have been approved by the General Assembly, and more are under review by the EL Statutes Commission, to be presented to member parties starting this fall.

The most visible sign of reform so far: “We have enabled the introduction of a dual leadership structure with our statutes amendment,” Baier reported. In the future, no single party faction is to dominate the EL leadership. Each party will be represented by only one person in the EL Secretariat, the party’s main decision-making body – a change from past practice.

However, the future of the consensus principle remains undecided. “Actually, everyone agrees that this principle is important to us,” Baier explained. “Because it also reflects the trust between members. Still, we will continue to consider whether qualified majorities might be used in some thematic areas.”

Read the original article in German here: Europäische Linkspartei – Europa-Linke mit Gebrauchswert | nd-aktuell.de