The Party of the European Left (EL) participated this weekend in the training school of the Foundation for the Europe of the Citizens (FEC), which is the Foundation of United Left (Izquierda Unida) and member of the European network Transform!

The EL Vice-president, Maite Mola, spoke at the opening of this school, which has lasted for three days, and in the plenary dedicated to "the European context: strategies and challenges of the European left". Here Natassa Theodorakopoulou, member of the direction of Syriza and of the EL Executive Board, intervened among others, as well as Walter Baier, Coordinator of Transform!. The debate was moderated by Alberto Garzón, IU candidate to the Presidency of the Government in the forthcoming elections in Spain to be held the 20 December.

The training school was entitled "Building Alternatives" and it was Maite Mola the first one to answer this demand of proposals by saying that the task of the left is precisely to give alternatives and not only in the mid and long term, but also in the short term. She argued that it is necessary to be in the institutions and in the streets with everything moving in Europe, and that "we must do so with vocation of continuity, beyond the electoral calendars".Among this encouraging movements that is slackening Europe, she highlighted the strong mobilization carried out against the TTIP in Berlin last October 10, which brought together more than 250,000 people; the Euromarchas that arrived the last weekend in Brussels; and the three general strikes held during the last year in Belgium.

“And more things are going to move”, she added announcing the national march of the next 7-N in Madrid against the male-based violence; the meeting of the COP21 that will take place in Paris on November 28 and 29 because “if there is someone who considers the climate change important, this is the left”; and a conference on the debt that will be celebrated during the first trimester of 2016 “that will be comprehensive, with many social actors”.

She also recalled the relevant political changes achieved by the left in Europe this year, from the arrival to the government of the left in Greece, "which cannot be alone", to the left-wing Government that is brewing in Portugal "something that no one could have thought few months ago" and the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn in the English Labour Party, which she described as "very interesting", ironically referring to what could have meant something similar in the PSOE.

In the proactive part, she spoke about the rejection of the austerity from concrete proposals, emphasizing not only the defense but "the investment in public services, not to return to what we had before the cuts but to overcome those shortcomings". Maite Mola stressed the relevance of the public services and the consequent lack of their development as one of the main obstacles to women's access to employment: public services in the form of child-care facilities, quality services for the care of the elderly but also as important sources of work for women.  She added that "we need to promote the public investment for the creation of employment and change the role of the European Central Bank in order to develop these policies".

The EL Vice president also spoke of peace, "which is not just a strategic issue, but it has to be tactical and of first magnitude" and criticized that the EU maintains preferential agreements with countries such as Turkey, Morocco and Israel which hits human rights with absolute impunity.

 Re-founding Europe

When Natassa Theodorakopoulou,spoke of the European left proposals, she did so in order to argue the need to "re-found" the European Union and the contribution of the left in its reconstruction.

"From the left and from the social movements we know that we have to confront with this construction of Europe. We have to re-found Europe. We know which are the principles of reference: democracy, social justice, a feminist Europe open to the people of the world, a Europe of peace and respectful and protective of the environment".

The question, according to the Greek leader, remains how to do it and if we will be able to include the peoples of Europe in the process of reconstruction. She warned of the error that would be thinking in a process of alternatives from the parties and stressed that the people have to participate in deciding "what kind of architecture we want and what will be the role of each institution".

The left, added Theodorakopoulou, has to work both at the national level and at European level and criticizes the fact of focusing too much on national issues and not carry the European struggles within our countries to work in another construction of Europe.

She also spoke of the different starting points existing in the various parties about the reconstruction, on how to reach that destination and also if it is worth to fight for the European Union. In this opened debate she concluded by strongly urging progress in the unity of action "because if we fail to work in a unique and common plan, we will not obtain the positive outcomes necessary to have a force able to change the existing balance of power and impose the re-foundation".