The Executive Board of the Party of European Left (EL), held in Rome, planned its work towards the European elections
The campaign for European elections, the Alexis Tsipras candidacy to the Presidency of the European Commission and the constitution of a list of the Italian left for the European Parliament, were the main topics of debate of the first part of the meeting of the Executive Board of the Party of the European Left (EL), this weekend in Rome, along an agreement to send a delegation to Ukraine. This is the first meeting of the new Executive Board elected after its IV. Congress last December in Madrid, and the last to be held before the beginning of the electoral campaign for the May elections.
In the upcoming time period until the elections, the Party of the European Left will have a major conference on the debt issue, which will be held on 10 April in Brussels and which, as explained by the President of the Party of the European Left, Pierre Laurent, "It will be an opportunity to present a strong speech and reinforce the credibility of our work, to explain how we can restructure and cancel part of the debt as well as how to build a solidarity-based response at European level." The leader of the EL added that it is necessary to “depart from a proposal of rupture” that allows a solidary exit out of the crisis not leaving any country in the gutter".
From her point of view, the vice-president of EL, Maite Mola, announced a campaign to the press that the Party of the European Left will approve this weekend in favour of the right to free and safe abortion throughout Europe, as support for the Spanish women in their fight against the restrictive abortion law proposed by the Spanish government of PP. Mola applauded all the expressions of support that are being made in Europe and warned of the danger that this restrictive practice will then extend to other European countries within the democratic regression that is taking place in all areas.
But, without a doubt, for the Italian media one of the main focuses of attention was Alexis Tsipras` presentation to the candidacy for the European Commission. This proposal met success in different countries and could lead to a list of the Italian alternative left to the European Parliament. At the press conference, the leader of the party hosting the meeting, Paulo Ferrero, General Secretary of the Communist Refoundation Party, greeted the Executive Board and expressed his confidence that the only candidacy that confronts the austerity policy will become "the third pole" of the forces which shape the European policy from the European institutions.
Regarding the successful act of presentation of the candidacy of Alexis Tsipras, held last night in the Italian capital, Ferrero explained that "yesterday, for the first time, with the presentation of Alexis as the candidate against the European policy of austerity, there was an important debate on European elections in this country, and added that the key is to focus the debate on the differences with the candidacy of the right and social democracy".
When Alexis Tsipras took the floor he clarified that he does not come to lead the Italian left but to help its unification. Alexis raised the candidacy of the left to the elections in a few very simple terms. The question, he said, is “What Europe to vote? That of the austerity or the Europe of the democracy and the social progress? The leader of Syriza, whom polls in his country give him 40%, stressed that the solution is growth, not austerity, and that the solution is not to have more loans and more debt, but just the opposite: less loans and having less debt. At this point he recalled that 98% of the appropriations received in his country have been destined to pay the interest on the debt and cover the holes in the banking sector. For all this, Tsipras entrusted to the Conference the EL will hold in April where it will respond to the need to achieve a solution, as it happened with the German debt after World War II.
Rome, 8th February 2014
