Bundestag Elections 2009: Die Linke's Vision
Wednesday 23 September 2009By EU Reporter Correspondents
The former President of the EU Commission once compared the European Union with an UFO - an unidentified flying object with an unknown destination. And indeed the EU has changed dramatically since Delors' farewell in 1994. However, it hasn't changed in a way the French socialist, whose name is associated with proposals for a European economic government and a European social union, would have preferred.
On the contrary the neoliberal direction pursued by the governments has also taken the upper hand on the European level, although with different characteristics. With the election of Barroso as the new old President of the EU Commission, by a conservative majority of the European Parliament last week, an already failed political strategy seems to have been revived. The most recent and most dramatic expression of these policies is the economic and financial crisis which started with the collapse of Lehman Brothers in the US, and which spread to Europe (and the world) shortly afterwards.
The crisis isn't only an export of the United States but also the result and consequence of the policies pursued here in Europe over the last couple of years, mainly the redistribution (of wealth) from the bottom to the top, more and more liberalised markets and the carte blanche the business and finance community have been given, and the deep cuts into the existing social nets for the employees. Ten years ago the EU Commission decided on a plan to liberalise financial services in Europe, and within the framework of the Lisbon Strategy (dating back to the year 2000) both governing coalitions in Germany (social democrats and greens as well as conservatives and social democrats) have been happy to implement that plan.
Officially it had been the aim of the Lisbon Strategy to turn the EU into the most dynamic economic region in the world, to strengthen social standards and to reach the goal of full employment. This strategy, however, has failed (at least for the foreseeable future), and nobody talks anymore about full employment or the European social policy. What's left is the unleashing of market forces.
The Left in Germany and Europe have always warned against this scenario and have proposed alternatives to this development. That makes it the only political force that isn't compromised. Not least because left-wing parties have managed to get re-elected to the European Parliament and to form a political group there, regardless of partially serious domestic problems in certain left-wing parties. Remarkable in that respect was the first joint election programme of the Party of the European Left (www.european-left.org), which also demonstrates its ability of presenting a common political alternative agenda directed at changing the future European integration.
The question where Europe has to go to has never been more relevant than today; should one just carry on regardless of the crisis, the dismantling of the welfare state, an increasing militarisation of the EU foreign policy, and a rising recklessness when implementing European interests, or are the alternatives a European social model, the rejection of world-wide military interventions and rearmament, the consistent compliance with civil liberties and human rights, and the commitment to a fair structure of the world economy and world trade ?
Based on the knowledge that every year more than 1,000 immigrants die at one of the EU’s external borders, that according to current forecasts and in addition to the already existing 15 million official unemployed in the EU another 8 million might lose their jobs, that the European countries will continue to unreservedly support the US intervention in Afghanistan, and that apart from very expensive presents for the banks and big business neither the individual governments nor the EU Commission have a recipe against the crisis, one should be able to come to a decision.
Against that background the European Left has not only drafted a common approach but also common goals such as peace, social justice, democracy, environment, and solidarity - that are the central demands of the 30 member and observer organisations of the European Left for a modernized European Union. The 35 MEP's of the GUE/NGL (European United Left / Nordic Green Left) who are representing 15 socialist and communist parties of 13 (EU) countries stand up for these goals.
One might argue that the GUE/NGL has in fact lost seats, but it is also true that the width of our group, both as regards the regional diversity (e.g. for the first time there is a representative from the Baltics in our group) and the substance have profited. In any case the GUE/NGL would like to be judged by the policies and alternatives it is proposing. In that respect we can easily resort to the work that has been done by our colleagues during the previous parliamentary term, not the least because they stood for a better working time directive, against Bolkestein, against the port services directive, and against further militarization and fortress Europe.
The German party DIE LINKE is the biggest national delegation within the GUE/NGL and one of its members, Prof. Lothar Bisky, has even been elected president of the GUE/NGL. The German party DIE LINKE has recently and continuously been blamed for being against Europe, andthat is in so far insincere as parties from the right-wing spectrum in Germany (e.g. the Bavarian CSU) are not faced with such allegations (leaving even aside the fact that some of their prominent figures not only backbite against Brussels but also appealed before the highest German court against the Lisbon Treaty).
What DIE LINKE is mainly blamed for is its strict rejection of a further militarisation of the EU and of its military actions. But looking at Afghanistan, where only a week ago a NATO bombardment (on instructions of the German forces) killed dozens of innocent civilians, one cannot but admit that such a position is the only true alternative: to stop the logic of using military means as a policy instrument for dealing with conflicts and tensions between and within countries.
Since it is our goal to make the EU more democratic, social, peaceful and ecology-minded, one cannot blame us for being anti-European; it is true, however, that with our position we're in sharp contrast to the mainstream policies, and that's what we're actually attacked for! Moreover, DIE LINKE is a party where the topics are discussed in lively debates instead of being given the opinion from above. The latter does of course imply that when it comes to individual topics there might be different views. That is relevant in relation to the German party but also towards the European Left.
It is clear that the crucial questions of peace, democracy, environment, solidarity and social issues are always on top of the (European) agenda - as all political decisions made either on the national or the EU level are linked with each other - The EU is just another frame and level where the political and social actors in our societies have to act - in the interest of Europe and all its citizens.
Europe isn't anymore an unidentified flying object as Delors described it (in a funny way, though). However, where Europe will go to in the future still seems to be open. The representatives of the European and German Left have got a clear idea in this respect - we'd like to see a European social union which commits itself to peace and disarmament, the termination of the exploitation of the South, the democratisation of the EU, a sustainable and truthful environmental policy.
Helmut Scholz is a German MEP from the left wing 'Linke' party. He sits in the GUE/NGL group.