The Executive Board of the Party of the European Left (ELP) has launched this morning, in Rome, a campaign on the right to free and safe abortion which will start on 8th of March in Berlin and will finish on 10th of May in Madrid in an electoral campaign act. The ELP, which has already been supporting the fight of Spanish woman against the reactionary proposal of law of right wing party of Spain limiting abortion right, decided to go further with a European Campaign for a Free and Safe abortion in Europe.
The ELP refuses the Spanish Project law “because it´s against women fundamental rights and asks its urgent withdrawal”. At the same time ELP supports the Estrela Report, presented by the European Parliament and that has been refused last January.
The Spanish MP Asunción de las Heras, along the responsible for Women in Izquierda Unida, Amaia Martínez, were invited yesterday by the ELP Ex Board to explain the situation of abortion, and initiatives to try to stop the law before it arrives to the Parliament where party in power enjoys absolute majority. Both of them, along the responsible for women of the Communist Party of Spain, Cristina Simó, explained the restrictions of the project of this law which it´s against several international laws and explained their remands. They also underlined that is not only a question of gender but a class question, deepening on the inequality as only women with economical resources would be able to go abroad for a safe and expensive abortion, meanwhile woman who have not that money will undergo dangerous abortion punished by law.
The president of the Party of European Left, Pierre Laurent, along as its Vice-president Maite Mola, have been assertive when expressing that” it is not just a Spanish problem but an European” one and they showed concerned that it will affect other countries as well”, talking about the difficulties that women are suffering in other European countries like Switzerland, Belgium, or limiting laws in countries like Poland or Malta.
Pierre Laurent said that it´s an “offensive against woman and against the equality”. Maite Mola pointed to that is the extreme right wing and the capitalism which are behind these policies.
Delegation to visit Ukraine
Other subjects approved by the ELP Executive Board has been to send a delegation to Ukraine and the full support and solidarity to the fighting cleaning women of the Greek Ministry of Finance who are going to be fired, as part of the policy of privatization of public services. Most of those women are over 50´s and probably will have no change to get another job, so that they will not get pension nor any right of healthcare. Since 18th of September cleaning women have been protesting daily outside the Ministry of Finance.
Program for the elections
The ELP is also advancing on its Programmatic Platform for the European elections which will be build up upon the 6 axes approved in the IV Congress of ELP, last December in Madrid. The program will be finished by 1st March and ELP will present it in a public act.
Regarding with the agenda for this year, the Summer University of ELP will be held in Berlin from 23 to 27 July, and a working group starts its preparation. A part of Conference about the Debt which will be held in Brussels on 10th April, ELP will prepare a seminar about fascism and Nazism nowadays. One of the countries where extreme right are getting stronger is Estonia. The leader of the Communist Party of the Republic of Moldova, announced at the end of the meeting that in Estonia an well not known left wing activist, running a cultural centre, has been sent to prison for 6 months, with no real bases, as an example –he said- of what could happen with people who oppose actively to the government
