Speech by the General Secretary of AKEL, Stefanos Stefanou at the presentation of AKEL Left – Social Alliance candidates for the 2024 European elections in the Nicosia district

 

Thursday 28 March 2024, POED Hall, Nicosia

Tonight we continue our Party’s engagement with society in view of the upcoming 9 June elections for the European Parliament. We march with optimism and confidence, which we draw from the excellent work and presence AKEL has had in the European Parliament during these twenty years that our Cyprus has been a member of the EU.

All through these years, AKEL has carried out a rich and multifaceted work.  We declare this in all modesty, as our work and action sets the bar of struggle and contribution high for our Cyprus to all others. Over the years, AKEL has developed important relationships that go beyond any party boundaries, promoting not only Cyprus’ cause, but also positions that concern the peoples of Europe, workers, young people, women, the majority of society.

We are moving forward with optimism and confidence, which we draw from the excellent electoral list we have drawn up. An electoral candidate list which, when announced, had made an impact in general, regardless of political affiliation.

The elections to the European Parliament are taking place at a very difficult time for Europe. European societies are being shaken by the socio-economic consequences caused by successive crises, by the deregulation of labour relations, by the dismantling of the welfare state, by the attacks launched by neoliberalism on rights and gains that until yesterday were taken for granted.

Today, 95 million Europeans live at risk of poverty, 20 million of them children. Energy prices have skyrocketed

Basic food prices are rising up to seven times faster than wages. One in ten European citizens spend almost half their income on meeting their housing needs. The number of homeless people across the EU has increased by 70%.

And banks in Europe – as in Cyprus too, of course – are recording all-time record profits, which they are literally stealing from the economy and society with the blessing of the European Central Bank.

All this confirms our assessments of the character of the policies that are being implemented. Policies determined by the ruling prevailing right-wing forces in Europe. These are the policies the Right believes in. These are the beliefs that have plagued us since 2013 in Cyprus. The problems confirm the relevance of our vision and proposal, of the different Europe that we want and are asserting.

We want and are asserting a Europe of social justice, of modern social rights for working people, for the younger generation, for small and medium-sized entrepreneurs, for all the people who earn their living with their hard work and efforts.

The absurd thing is that the ruling circles in the European Union insist on trying to convince people that the very policies that cause the problems can be the solution to them. Price increases and hikes are nibbling away at their incomes, inequalities are growing but their formula remains the same: Dogmatic, stultifying and dead-end policies.

The reintroduction of austerity policies with draconian controls on governments, as agreed by the forces of the Right and Social Democracy in the revised Economic Governance Framework, will initiate and signal a new vicious circle for the societies of Europe.

“Is there another way?” some will ask. Yes there is!

With policies that respond to people’s needs and demands. With policies that serve the people of labour, that unleash growth for all, with respect for the environment.

This is our vision for the future of our continent. A vision that we link to our demands for today, for now, for people’s needs in life, work, social security, education and health.

Everything that the Cypriots, the Spanish, the Irish, the Germans, the Bulgarians and all European working people are entitled to and deserve.

We assert dignified wages and pensions, stable and full-time jobs, the extension of collective agreements.

We assert public investment to ensure dignified housing for all.

We assert modern social policies and infrastructures for working parents. Cheap electricity and energy affordable for every household. Drastic measures to curb price hikes and increases.

Let them not ask us where we’ll find the money for all this. Because the government ruling forces here in Cyprus and across the EU know that there are solutions.  What is lacking is the political will. The will, for example, to tax here and now – as AKEL is demanding every day – the exorbitant profits of the banks and energy companies and to use these revenues to finance major social programmes for the societies of Europe and their needs. The taxation of super-profits demands a clash with powerful interests. However, the ruling circles represent these powerful interests and precisely for that reason don’t want to confront and combat them.

We want a Europe of peace.

And peace is not about adding fuel to the fire of war in Ukraine, as the European Union is doing by giving tens of billions of euros in arms to the Zelensky government.

Is this the way to end the war – as we are calling for – or is it the way to perpetuate the conflict, with the people of Ukraine and the whole of Europe as the primary victims, to the benefit of the United States?

The leaders of the major political groups in the European Parliament – the Right wing EPP to which DISY belongs, the Conservatives to which ELAM wants to join, the Social Democrats belonging to DIKO and EDEK are members of, the Liberals with DIPA as its member and the Greens to which the Ecologists belong to – in a joint communiqué demand that the delivery of arms and ammunition to Ukraine be accelerated.

It should be pointed out that since the start of the war in Ukraine to date, the EU member states have spent more than EUR 100 billion on military equipment.

No questions arise in this specific case as to where the Europeans will find the money. In the case of Ukraine, they go on about international law. And rightly so.

But why do they look the other way in the face of the ongoing war crime being committed in Palestine?

Why don’t they stand up to the extreme right-wing Netanyahu government that is slaughtering the Palestinian people unhindered?

This June, we will vote if we want these forces to continue to dominate the European Parliament.

In June we will have to choose sides.

Do we want a Europe that turns a blind eye and is indifferent to the ongoing crime?

Or do we want a Europe that takes political and diplomatic initiatives for a ceasefire and peace, for respect for international law, for solidarity?

Do we want a Europe that takes decisions behind closed doors?

Do we want a Europe run by bureaucrats and executioners of the European Central Bank that is accountable to no one?

Do we want a Europe where the only directly elected body by citizens, namely the European Parliament, has no right to initiate legislation?

Do we want a Europe where the few and powerful decide and the rest simply execute orders?

Do we want a Europe that is preparing to abolish the veto that protects smaller states, such as Cyprus?

Do we want a Europe that turns a blind eye to the far right and deals with it under the table and sometimes in the open in order to gain its support?

This, of course, is what is happening in Cyprus. Wasn’t the far right the force that elected Anastasiades?

Wasn’t it the far right that elected Annita Demetriou [DISY President] as Speaker of the House of Representatives?

The boundaries between the Right and the far right have become so undistinguishable and blurred that the former first deputy President of DISY, Mr. Pelekanos, easily abandoned DISY and joined the ranks of the far-right ELAM party. And instead of DISY reflecting on its policy of building bridges with the far right, its only concern is that AKEL will benefit [from this action] instead of worrying about Cyprus. All these years when all the other political parties have been engaging with ELAM only AKEL refused to reach out to them, refusing to ‘normalise’ the far right.

AKEL openly confronted and combated the Golden Dawn of Cyprus, at the same time as other forces and circles were telling us “but ELAM has elected MP’s democratically “. Let me just recall that Hitler seized power through elections. The late Archbishop even declared “But they are good guys…”. But the good guys do not give Nazi salutes, nor do they indulge in hateful and bigoted rhetoric.

Democracy does not mean opening the door to hatred and fanaticism that imposes its views with baseball clubs, hooded masks and by engaging in pogroms. We call on every democratic citizen of Cyprus to join us in this great social alliance that we are building through fermentation and content with faith in democracy and progress, in the values of solidarity and humanism, in the unity of working people regardless of nationality, religion and language, in ecology, in the respect for diversity and multiculturalism.

This is what AKEL and the entire Left in Europe, and in particular the Left Group in the European Parliament, is fighting and working for.

We will wage the battle of the European elections with all this in mind. With a programme, positions and assertions for our Cyprus. For Europe and its peoples. For a Europe of peace, cooperation and progress. We are waging the battle of the European elections with our candidates as protagonists.

Giorgos Georgiou, Anna Theologou, Stavri Kalopsidiotou, Andros Karagiannis, Niyazi Kizilyurek, Melani Steliou.

• We have a well-balanced electoral candidate list, consisting of capable and honest people ready to fight for our country and people. For Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots.
• We have an electoral list that once again conveys a strong political answer to those who claim that Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots can neither cooperate, nor live together in a common homeland. In a common bi-communal state where they will co-exist within the framework of a Bizonal, Bicommunal Federation with political equality. They can, not only because they have a common past, but also because they have a vision for their common future.
• We have an electoral list that unites forces and people who do not come from AKEL, but who rally their forces with AKEL and the Left in this struggle, in this great effort that we have begun to join forces, to take Cyprus forward.

Together we are waging a great electoral battle which we will win. And our victory will send clear messages in all directions and to the government of Nikos Christodoulides, that it has a strong Left confronting it, which together with its fellow activists continues to fight for what we deserve. And we deserve a lot!

So let’s keep working!

With enthusiasm!

With confidence!