Joint Statement of Balkan Communist and Workers’ Parties

The meeting of Balkan Communist and Workers Parties was held in Thessaloniki on December 19th 2009 based on an initiative of KKE. 9 Communist and Workers’ Parties from 7 Balkan countries namely, Bulgaria, Greece, Croatia, FYROM, Romania, Serbia, and Turkey participated in the meeting.

The meeting contributed to the reinforcement of the efforts for the strengthening of the joint action and the relations among the Balkan Communist and Workers’ parties.

During the meeting the participants exchanged views on the situation created in the wider region, especially under the conditions of a global synchronized capitalist economic crisis.

They concluded that the real cause of the crisis is the sharpening of the main contradiction of capitalism that is the contradiction between the social character of production and the private appropriation of its results due to the fact that the means of production are under the capitalist ownership.

In addition, the parties discussed their experiences from the struggles against imperialism, for the defense of workers and people’s rights and gains, for the immigrants’ rights.

The participants concluded that over the 20 years after the victory of the counterrevolution many walls have been erected in front of the peoples. The only freedom that counterrevolution brought is that of the EU and NATO imperialists and all the capitalist organisations to attack against the workers’ and peoples’ interests from better positions, to wage unjust wars, slave trafficking, to dissolve states, to shield the repression forces, to destroy the environment.

The celebrations of the bourgeois and opportunist parties about the alleged “victory of democracy” in the former socialist countries are totally false and hypocritical.

International imperialism continues and intensifies its campaign in order to distort the big contribution of socialism. At the same time the governments and the bourgeois parties as a whole make persistent and coordinated efforts to present capitalism as an eternal system, as a system that ensures freedom and democracy and meets the people’s needs as well.

The EU is reinforcing its repressive machinery and creating new ones, instituting police and judicial collaboration, and stepping up anti-communism in order to strike the vanguard of the labour movement, communist parties and the progressive movements around them, to confront the protests generated by the joint policy of intensifying exploitation by cutting back working class rights and gains in its member states.

It was highlighted that the further expansion of the imperialist organisation of NATO to new countries in the Balkans and the former USSR, the emergence of new military bases and foreign military troops in the Balkan region, the establishment of protectorates with the active involvement of NATO and the EU, as well as the attempt of the imperialists (EU, US, NATO) to stir up existing or non-existing minority issues, constitute factors of destabilization in the Balkans, they entail dangers for the peace and pave the way for the further sharpening of the competition between the imperialist powers.

The representatives of the parties stressed the need for the decisive development of communist and workers’ movement in the region and the reinforcement of its coordination. The need to develop the class oriented forces within the labour movement in the region and a multifaceted anti-imperialist movement also constitutes an essential issue.

The participants will support the initiatives against nationalism, against the hatred and the division of the peoples, against the establishment of the new-protectorate states, against the capitalist exploitation and the submission of our countries to the imperialist organizations, the NATO and the EU. They will promote the struggle for the common class interests of the workers in Balkans, the disengagement from the imperialist organizations and their plans, the revitalization of the socialist and communist ideals in Balkans.

The deterioration of the workers’ life in Balkans, the strengthening of the imperialist organizations, the repression measures against communists and the anti-imperialist movement throughout Europe increase the need for the communist and workers’ parties to improve, organize more effectively and coordinate their action in the anti-imperialist, anti-NATO, mass labour movement.

During the meeting the participants expressed their will to strengthen and multiply the common initiatives, the coordination, the joint action and the anti-imperialist actions of the Communist Parties, that is:

• to develop and multiply the initiatives for solidarity with the workers’ and anti-imperialist struggles in the Balkan region
• to improve their action for the strengthening and the development of the peace anti-imperialist movement and the Balkan anti-NATO centre so as:
• to further strengthen the struggle against the imperialist military presence in Balkans, against the foreign military bases and troops, against the so-called Balkan Brigade and the participation of Balkan military forces in military missions of NATO and EU against other countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries in Persian Gulf.
• to bring back all the troops of each Balkan country being outside borders. not to comply with the obligations deriving from the participation in NATO and the EU and engaging our country directly or indirectly.
• to express our solidarity with the peoples of Cuba and strengthen our struggles for the release of the five Cuban patriots who are imprisoned in the USA.
• to struggle against the engagement of our countries in the new imperialist wars in Caucasus and the threats against the peoples of Iran, Syria and other peoples as well.

The Communist and Workers’ Parties reaffirmed their will to cooperate on bilateral and multilateral basis in order to achieve an efficient coordination and action regarding the above mentioned goals. They have also expressed their intention to work so that this coordination of parties takes on a more stable and permanent character.

Parties that Participated

Communist Party of Albania
Communist Party of Bulgaria
Party of Bulgarian Communists
New Communist Party Yugoslavia
Communist Party of Greece
Socialist Workers' Party of Croatia
Communist Party of Macedonia (FYROM)
Communist Party of Romania
Communist Party of Turkey
Party of Labour (EMEP) Turkey