Joint statement in face of the European Elections
Workers, self-employed,
craftsmen, small farmers, women, youth
We speak to you in face of the European elections in 2009. Workers and small farmers trade-unionists, militants of the peace movement, the women’s movement, the youth movement, for democratic rights, for popular liberties, international solidarity, militants of the movements against the treaties of the EU and NATO. We share the vision of a society without exploitation of man by man, without poverty, social injustice and imperialist wars. We join together in this campaign for a Europe of prosperity for the people, peace, of social and democratic rights, a Europe that has nothing to do with the EU of capital and war.
You know us, you can put your trust in us. We have met in common struggles: on strikes and on mobilisations against the Lisbon strategy, for jobs with rights, against the privatisation of public services, for public and free education and healthcare, against imperialist wars and the occupation of Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia. In the struggles for the defence of democratic freedoms and the rights of immigrants. We stood shoulder to shoulder with the demonstrations of the youth and students, the mobilisations of the farmers. We struggled for the victory of the NO in the referenda which took place in Ireland, Holland and France.
We told you the truth about the economic crisis. Its roots are found in the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the few through the blatant exploitation of the many who are condemned to poverty, uncertainty, insecurity. The real solution for the people is to be found in confronting its cause-the quest for profits, capitalism itself and not some form of its management. Don’t accept the bill for the crisis; you are not responsible for it. Fight for everything that belongs to you, the satisfaction of your contemporary needs with as your criterion social progress, and not a return to the past. Don’t wait solutions from the EU, it is part of the problem, it has solutions which serve only the oligarchy.
The EU is a choice of the capital. It promotes measures in favour of the monopolies, the concentration and centralization of capital. With the “Lisbon Treaty” its characteristics as an imperialist economic, political and military bloc have been strengthened against the interests of the workers and the peoples. Armaments, authoritarianism, state repression are being strengthened.
In the name of “modernisation”, of “competitiveness”, and “enterprise”, of “flexicurity” the attacks on working and trade union rights are intensifying. The right to strike is undermined, as well as other trade union freedoms. The working week is reduced as well as wages with the crisis as a pretext, in order to safeguard the profitability of capital. The prospect which is on the cards for workers is work without rights until death. A nightmarish landscape for labour rights is being fashioned, with the increase of working hours per day and the 65 hour week, along with underemployment, unemployment, insecurity. The blows against wages, pensions, with the increase of the age of retirement, the separation of labour-time into active and non-active, with price rises, the multiplication of labour accidents. With surrender of the education, health and social service systems to big capital. The dwindling of small and medium farmers, to the benefit of big farmers and monopolies. The increase of state repression, the rise of anticommunism, racism, xenophobia. The first victims of the intensification of exploitation, increased repression are the youth, women, and immigrant workers.
The European Union is a pillar of the new imperialist order, of capitalist globalisation. It supports the massacre of the Palestinians by Israel. It participates actively in aggressive plans against peoples, especially against the countries of the Mediterranean, of Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. It participates in the arms race, the establishment of the “anti-missile shield”, the return of the dogma of the first nuclear strike. It aligns with the USA and NATO. Militarism is integral to its structure.
These developments vindicate those forces which resisted the Maastricht treaty, and those of Amsterdam and Nice. Which said NO to the Schengen and Proum treaties. Yesterday we were not alone; today we are even more numerous. Three peoples have rejected the “European constitution”, the treaty of Lisbon, thousands of workers and youth struggle throughout the whole of Europe against the policies of the EU. Our parties have an important contribution to this struggle. We did not submit to the single thought. We contributed in keeping alive the hope and the perspective.
Today the results of the policies which the EU has promoted since its foundation are obvious. There are no pro-people solutions without the rejection of Maastricht and the “4 freedoms” which it establishes for capital (“the freedom of movement” of capital, commodities, services and labour power). The workers have acquired experience. At the Euro-elections do not trust the forces which carried out anti-people, conservative policies.
The rights of the workers have nothing in common with the completion of a unified internal market, the acceleration of the Lisbon strategy, the Bolkenstein directive, flexicurity, the CAP. Democratic and militant traditions, popular liberties are in complete contradiction with the strengthening of the Space of Freedom, Security, and Justice, the strengthening of repressive mechanism with the “terrorist threat” as a pretext; with Persecutions and imprisonments of communists and other militants, with the rehabilitation of Nazism-fascism and the unacceptable situation concerning non-citizens in Latvia, Estonia and Slovenia.
There is alternative for the peoples. Through the struggles of the peoples the prospect of another Europe is promoted, of prosperity for the people, social progress, of democratic rights, peace and socialism. The dead-ends, the contradictions that in the context of the crisis become more acute, the difficulties which the EU faces are elements that the peoples should take advantage of. It is to the benefit of the workers to strengthen the current of popular opposition to the anti-people and inhuman policies of the EU.
In this way the daily struggle will become more effective for the defence and extension of social and democratic rights. The possibility of a real alternative solution will come closer.
Struggle with us for:
- Decent permanent secure work with full rights. For real increases to wages and pensions.
- The peoples to become the masters of the sources of wealth and the strategic sectors of the economies of their countries.
- Free public healthcare, and social security systems. For the reduction of retirement age and real increases to pensions. For upgraded free unified public education for all.
- Full rights for immigrant workers. Support of small and medium farmers and food safety. For the real protection of the
- environment which is sacrificed for the profits of big capital.
- The right of every people to choose their own path of development. This right includes the right of disassociation from the multifaceted dependences from EU and NATO as well as the socialist option.
- Peace, the withdrawal of all US-NATO military bases and the dismantling of NATO. Against the “Partnership for Peace” and the Euro-army. No participation in imperialist wars and interventions.
- Solidarity with all the peoples who are struggling. For an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. For a just solution to the Cyprus problem. For the defence of Socialist Cuba, the abolition of the joint position of the EU towards it.
Weaken the forces which support and defend the EU- Empower yourselves.
NO to the EU of the monopolies and militarism.
For a Europe of prosperity for the people, of peace, social justice and democratic rights, of socialism.
The Parties
- Workers’ Party of Belgium,
- Communist Party of Britain,
- Communist Party of Bulgaria,
- Party of the Bulgarian Communists,
- Communist Party in Denmark,
- Communist Party of Estonia,
- Communist Party of Greece,
- Hungarian Communist Workers’ Party,
- Communist Party of Ireland,
- The Workers’ Party of Ireland,
- Socialist Party of Latvia,
- Socialist Party of Lithuania,
- Communist Party of Luxembourg,
- Communist Party of Malta,
- New Communist Party of the Netherlands,
- Communist Party of Poland,
- Portuguese Communist Party,
- Romanian Communist Party,
- Communist Party of Slovakia,
- Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain,
- Communist Party of Sweden.
e-mail:cpg@int.kke.gr