TOGETHER WE SAY THAT ANOTHER EUROPE IS POSSIBLE
The EL Working Group Middle East, with leftist parties of the two sides of the Mediterranean, has begun to work on the Third Mediterranean Conference to be held in the Spanish city of Malaga in...
The EL Working Group Middle East, with leftist parties of the two sides of the Mediterranean, has begun to work on the Third Mediterranean Conference to be held in the Spanish city of Malaga in April 2017 as decided yesterday, on July the 19th in Rome. All has started with the success achieved in the previous conference held in 2015 in Istanbul, which ended with closer ties and collaboration between northern and southern Mediterranean parties, as highlighted by the coordinator of the EL working group, Inger V. Johansen. " Improving coordination, pooling resources and strategies to confront the neoliberal union governing Europe and the Northern Mediterranean ", will be seek, as discussed at the meeting. The meeting began with an analysis of the representative of the Turkish party ODP, a member of PIE. Osman Tayfun explained that coups are not the way to restore freedom and democracy to the country, the struggle for freedom must come from the people. And also he denounced the repression that is exerting strong Erdogan with mass and arbitrary detentions, its proposal to impose the death penalty and use the coup attempt to strengthen its authoritarian power in the country. It was on this line that the extended group of preparation of the Third Mediterranean Conference drafted a statement condemning the attempted coup and the repression of Turkey Erdogan. They called the European Union to pressure the Turkish government for it to respect human rights and freedoms and, among other things, to cease the siege and massacres in Kurdish cities in Turkey and return the immunity accorded to members of opposition party HDP. (More information on www.european-left.org) During the meeting there was talk of capitalism and imperialist wars to monopolize the planet's resources, aware that they are increasingly limited, especially fossils, but not only. This is what has been done for decades in the Palestinian land and it continues like this so far for gas, oil, water, etc. The great battle of the left is the cultural battle to explain the true political and economic causes of conflict, what happens in Middle East, opposite to a religious discourse dividing societies and used by the extreme right to empower the xenophobia and fascism. "We have to explain that the origin of all conflicts is the appropriation of resources. Besides, remove the explanations given by the heads of state of the power to go to war. We have to win public opinion, "said Corinne Morel Derleaux, Party of Gauche. Throughout the meeting global issues affecting everyone, such as debt that suffocates countries; free trade agreements as a way to dominate the peoples; the imperialist offensive against the BRICS; attempts to destabilize Latin America, where the left rules; Islamic financing; and the need to fight together against extremist both Islamist groups and the far right in order to find ways to solve it, including through education, support for youth and women.
NATO and the increasing militarization
The meeting continued with the analysis of the situation in the Middle East and North and South of the Mediterranean. The discussion was about how Egypt is heavily militarized, as Germany is doing, which has a budget similar to that of Russian weaponry. Germany is developing a new military policy with the "determination to become a global power," explained Claudia Haydt, Die Linke, who denounced how NATO, following its recent summit in Warsaw, is strengthening the alliance to increase its military interventions, and increase to 3% GDP the money with which each country contributes to the transatlantic organization. The group expressed concern about how NATO is exploiting the crisis of refugees to enter the Southeast Mediterranean with the excuse of protecting the borders of the arrival of new displaced caused by conflicts. Sending NATO forces to the Russian border is increasing extremely the international tension. He also spoke of NATO integrated command and how it shapes the European political. It was noted that all the five countries responsible for ensuring peace in the world are involved in international conflicts and the French foreign policy has not changed when the French Socialist Party came to power. In fact, it maintained the same geostrategic policy of Sarkozy’s, including the sale of weapons to countries like Egypt, Tunisia, etc. Alongside NATO, it has been denounced the state terrorism as practiced by the so-called "Trio of the Azores" with Barroso, in the war and destruction of Iraq, justifying the intervention without any real evidence, as demonstrated the Chilcot report which opens the way to relaunch international civil platform Trial Aznar. "Because those responsible must go to the Hague Tribunal," said the EL Vice-president Maite Mola. It was emphasized that the report should serve as a precedent to change international politics. From Lebanon it was asked to help to support refugees raising up to 40% of the country's population, and the need to join the civil platform, which is the only one able to bring everyone together to fight the crisis, with left political parties to work together in resistance of US policies. Palestinians claimed their right to live in peace in a Palestinian state, asked to work for the solution of the problem of refugees. They also denounced the more than 7,000 Palestinian political prisoners jailed in Israeli prisons, stressing that Palestinian children of 14 years can be imprisoned for 6 years. From Tunisia have been reported serious social and economic situation they are living in, with the government calling everyone to the National Union to share the weakness of Parliament. Cypriots spoke on the negotiations for the unification of the island, and the Greeks intervened on how they addressed the refugees situation.
The Third Mediterranean Conference
The meeting concluded with the definition of the themes to be discussed at the Third Mediterranean conference, focusing on six points: natural resources and geostrategic issues in the area; social struggles against the neoliberal agenda; migration and refugees not only as a humanitarian issue; imperialist wars and occupation; Secularism, religion and politics; democracy and the power of people with an agenda for cooperation. It was also decided that the Fourth Summit of the Mediterranean, might be held in 2018 in Tunisia and earlier, in November or October 2017 the expanded coordination meeting on the Middle East might be in Cairo, accompanied by a political event. The meeting was attended by various representatives of the parties of Die Linke, PCF and PG, France, PRC Italy, Syriza Greece, Red Green Alliance of Denmark, OPD Turkey, New Cyprus Party (YKP) and AKEL Cyprus, Socialist Popular Alliance of Egypt, Lebanese Communist Party, the Popular Front of Tunisia, the Palestinian people's Party, the Palestinian Democratic Union and PINGO for Palestine and the Democratic Way of Morocco, among others.
