2nd European Meeting on Education: Statement for the press issued by KKE

Brussels, Belgium 23 March 2007

Following an invitation by KKE and by the KKE Group in the European Parliament representatives from parties and movements from various European countries attended the 2nd European Meeting on Education on 23 March 2007 in Brussels.

The meeting focused on various aspects of the coordinated on European level attacks against the public education, on the growing anticommunism and on the experiences from the popular mobilizations in the last period.

In this respect very eloquent were the references made by the representative of the Portuguese Communist Party concerning the closing down of 1.000 schools and the protest actions developed by the party and youth organizations and movements, by the representative of the Communist Party of Britain who condemned the British government for promoting the total privatization of the remaining public sectors of education with the argument that “the state is not able to provide services in education”, by CP of Luxembourg fighting against the “decentralization” in education, by representatives from Belgium, France, Sweden and Finland regarding the social, ethnic and class obstacles as well theses from the Czech Republic, Croatia, Denmark and Romania on the very difficult situation for children and educators in the public primary schools.

Some participants analyzed aspects of the most recent decisions by the European Union implementing the Lisbon strategy and the decisions of Bologna and Bergen.

Participants from Italy, Russia, Turkey, Germany and others stressed the need for the communist parties and the progressive movements to develop alternatives responding to the technological and scientific potential of today as well as to the growing needs for high quality public education free of charge for all.

Many participants revealed the positive impact in their countries of the mobilizations in various fields of education and the echo of the campaign of signatures initiated by participating parties and movements. Hundreds of signatures coming from various European countries were over handed to the European Parliament.

The participants positively valuated the meeting and convened to continue the campaign of signatures, to set up a web page and of a review, to contribute to the creation of a network of progressive movements and personalities engaged in education as well as to start a campaign on the occasion of the EU meeting in London on May 18 2007 and of the opening of the new school year in autumn 2007.

Finally the meeting adopted solidarity statements with the student movement in Greece and with the strikers of Airbus Industries.

The 2^nd meeting was attended by representatives of:

• Workers' Party of Belgium
• Communist Party of Britain
• Socialist Workers' Party of Croatia
• AKEL-Cyprus
• Communist Party of Bohemia & Moravia
• Communist Party in Denmark
• Communist Party of Finland
• German Communist Party
• Communist Party of Greece
• Socialist Party of Latvia
• Communist Party of Luxembourg
• Portuguese Communist Party
• Socialist Alliance Party, Romania
• Communist Party of Russian Federation
• Communist Party of Slovakia
• Communist Party of Sweden
• Communist Party of Turkey
  
  
• Appeal for a Democratic School (APED), Belgium
• PRCF, Pôle de Renaissance Communiste en France
• URCF, Union des révolutionnaires - Communistes de France Andrea Catone, Director of the Center of studies on Socialist Transition, Naples, Italy