AKEL: the voice of our workers and people in Europe

 

 

Statement by the Central Committee of AKEL for the 2024 European elections

19 July 2023, AKEL C.C. Press Office, Nicosia

The Plenary of the Central Committee of AKEL convened today and approved the Party’s political framework and objectives for the 2024 European elections.

For AKEL, our presence in the European Parliament represents an arena of struggle for the interests of our people and country and, at the same time, a field of action for the rights of the working people of our country and continent. The 20-year presence of the Cypriot Left in the European Parliament is characterised by assertiveness, knowledge, experience, seriousness and multifaceted action with a resonance that transcends the size of our country.

AKEL recognises that the decisions that are taken at the level of the EU increasingly determine national policies and directly affect the lives of Cypriots. Our criticism of the EU and its policies is opposed to the Euroscepticism of the far-right and the abstention and indifference to the European elections.

Our critique projects positions and promotes action for a radically different, socially just, democratic and peaceful Europe, a Europe that truly belongs to and serves its peoples.

AKEL’s call for the European elections is addressed not only to those who agree with us ideologically and politically, but to all those in our country who:

• We are asserting drastic policies to tackle low wages and the deregulation of labour relations, expensiveness and the high cost of living, the housing problem and energy poverty that are harming all of Europe, against the ruling EU policies that exacerbate inequalities, both within and between European states.
• We project the urgent need for peace and the respect for international law in Ukraine and everywhere else in the world where ongoing wars and military interventions are raging, against militarisation and the policies that are escalating tensions.
• In the European Parliament, we defend human rights, gender equality, democratic freedoms and multiculturalism against the conservatism of the Right and extreme-right.
• We are fighting so that the new era that is opening up in the world with digitalisation and artificial intelligence will be one that will be to the benefit of societies and the working people of Europe and not to their detriment and to the detriment of democracy and freedom.
• We want bold environmental policies that base the green transition on social justice and not on the hidden agenda of powerful business interests.
• We are calling for a different and effective asylum policy based on solidarity with those in need of protection and solidarity between European states so that all states assume their own share of the responsibility to host refugees, instead of being trapped in the Mediterranean south.

A strong AKEL in the European elections will be the strength of the voice of progress, of the working people and of the young generation of Cyprus in the European Parliament. At the same time, our Group in the European Parliament, the Left Group, has been the most consistent and proven ally of the Republic of Cyprus and the Cypriot people in the struggle we are waging for liberation and reunification and, therefore, its strengthening can only be positive for our country.

At the same time, a strong Left in the European elections will also send out messages domestically against the Christodoulides government, which, as far as our country’s major challenges are concerned, is essentially continuing the policy of the Anastasiades government.

AKEL’s goal for the upcoming European elections is to increase its electoral strength in relation to the percentage it received in the last parliamentary elections so as to secure two seats in the European Parliament.

In the period ahead, the procedures for the formation of our electoral list will be initiated and our goal is that this candidate list should be composed of competent and honest people with knowledge of European affairs and a readiness to work and fight for visions, values and for the policies that the people of Cyprus and the peoples of our continent need.