Because of the decisions of the European summit of the 9 ^th december 2011, because of the generalised austerity and the authoritarian supervision of member countries, the EU is entering a new stage of crisis. European peoples have already enough suffered from the crisis of financialised capitalism, and of  the dead end of the ultraliberal construction in which the treaties traps the EU. Through their unconditional support of the market and on the basis of an ultra-liberal consensus, the EU leaders and national governments continue imposing austerity to make the people pay for the crisis of the banking and financial system. By attacking social rights and public expenditure, by privatising and refusing to change the role of the European Central Bank they have created an explosion of mass unemployment and insecurity, especially among women and young people. All those neo-iberal measures where expressed in the Lisbon Treaty, agreed among the European liberals, conservatives and social-democrats. The burden of public debt is increasing and endangers the very existence of the euro zone and the EU. In Greece and in Italy, governments of “national union”, made up of right and social democrats forces, including in Greece’s case the extreme Right, have been set up without any ballot box consultation.

Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel wish to go still further and harder in their policies of serving capital. As from the 1 ^st March they intend to impose a camouflaged change in the European Treaties in the form of an “international agreement for a strengthened economic union”. This new measure would set up an authoritarian centralisation of political choices at European level, placing national budgets under supervision, embodying a strengthened “golden rule” in all constitutions, by an automation of austerity plans and sanctions. This law could be adopted without any consultation with the peoples. This is a serious attack on popular sovereignty, rights of workers and public services. The “Merkozy” duo wants to force the EU and its member states to abandon for years to come, any social progress and will be depriving itself of tools that could enable it a lasting emergence from the crisis. The Party of European Left rejects this draft treaty and demands the holding of referendums or popular consultations in all the countries of the EU.

Through this anti-democratic and antisocial drift, they are encouraging selfishness’s and fears, thus preparing the field for the forces of the extreme right, demagogic, reactionaries, who endanger democracy and the working world. It is no co-incident that former bankers are being appointed to key positions in governments, that in Hungary, the very word “Republic” has disappeared from the official name of the country at the instigation of the populist Victor Orban and that there are signs of the increase of such forces in so many European countries.

The EL and its parties have been in all struggles and have clearly taken a stand against this Europe of austerity and markets dictatorship. We have supported and participated to the trade union struggles in all fields of activity, to general strikes, and the “indignants” movement, which has developed alternative social practices of mass participation, transparency and solidarity. We have called for the building of resistance fronts against austerity and made a strong contribution to the electoral sanctions against governments that have applied austerity policies. In some countries our forces are suffering from repression and “legal” attempts to dissolve them, based on the historically false amalgams of the anti-communist ideology.

Despite these obstacles, we have worked out concrete proposals to emerge from the crisis in a lasting manner and change the way of building Europe. They follow three main principles, shared well beyond the forces in the EL.

For us, there will be no emergence from the crisis without:

• Rejection of austerity, and defence of social development and solidarity: job creation and the development of production tools that observe criteria of quality regarding social rights and the protection of the environment must be given priority. Wages, the level of social security and of social standards as a whole must converge in an upward direction. Sovereign debts must be radically restructured and measures of fiscal justice are imperative to ensure that the revenues and property of capital make a contribution to financing public services and projects of general interest.

• Subjecting finance to democratic control: the peoples must have power to audit sovereign debts and define which should be cancelled. The European Central Bank must lend to states at low rates to free public investments from the financial markets. The peoples must have control over credit and monetary creation, so there must be democratic control of the banks, a change in the mission of the European Central Bank and the creation of public banking centres.

• Saving and developing democracy in Europe: all decisions that commit the future of Europe may only be taken by popular intervention in all its forms, (voting right, public discussion, referenda, European citizen initiatives) and by the national and European Parliaments.

In 2012, new stages must be surmounted. We must open new perspectives to show that a refounded Europe on social, democratic and ecological basis is possible. In popular resistances, in left political organisations' and trade-unions proposals, in the reflexion of intellectuals, the foundations of an alternative policy are already being outlined. Convergences can be established on condition that initiatives are taken that enable them to become concrete. The time has come to join our forces to hit back.

• As from now, we are involved in a battle against the ratification of the “Merkozy” international agreement in every country and at European level. We are fighting for referenda or real popular consultations in our respective countries. We suggest the members of parliament of our parties to propose a joint resolution to reject this treaty which could be presented in all national and European Parliaments. We encourage MPs of our countries to multiply common proposals like the initiative filed by Die Linke in the Bundestag (Germany) and the Left Front in the National Assembly (France).

• We want to start an open dialogue with all political, social, trade union and democratic forces, intellectuals and activists of movement organisations; all those who are resisting austerity and are looking for other solutions to the crisis. When the European leaders try to adopt the “Merkozy agreement” we propose to organise an alternative social summit to emerge from the crisis on 30-31 March.

• We want to create the conditions for an eruption of the citizens into the European political choices — to give them back their political freedom and their sovereignty. We will continue to support and participate to the struggles.  As the EL decided at its last Congress, we will file a proposal for a European citizen initiative that will have the following wording: The objective of the initiative is “to fight austerity and the financial markets, to redirect money towards social progress to enable the citizens to make their proposals heard”. Its specific demand will be for “a European fund for social and ecological development and solidarity or a European Public Bank, exclusively aimed at facilitating public investments to encourage social and ecological development and the promotion of public services. The EL Presidency will meet the European forces who could jointly organise this initiative and will propose a list of first signatories who will submit the demand to the European Commission. The demand will be made public in March. The collection of signatures for a public initiative will be launched and will continue from May 2012 to May 2013.

More than ever before, “unity is strength” and the EL will face up to its responsibilities for seeing that the European Union will finally be that of its peoples, an actor for peace, democracy and social justice throughout the world.

Executive Board of the Party of the European Left

Berlin, 14 January 2012