Address by the General Secretary of the Central Committee of AKEL, Stefanos Stefanou, at the 5th Mediterranean Conference of the Party of the European Left (PEL)
9-11 June 2023, Cyprus
Dear friends and comrades,
On behalf of AKEL, I welcome you to Cyprus and wish you all a pleasant and productive stay on our island. Our Party is especially pleased and honoured to host the Mediterranean Conference of the Party of the European Left (PEL) in our country. We are confident that the work of the Conference will yield positive results and arrive at useful conclusions.
AKEL believes unreservedly in dialogue, cooperation and unity of action of the forces of the Left, at a European, regional and international level, even through our diversity. We strongly believe that different approaches and ideological backgrounds, different national and historical traditions among the parties of the Left not only do not hinder dialogue and cooperation, but enrich our thinking, analyses and action. And of course it is through this unity of action that we give a content to the slogan of our Conference: ‘Solidarity – Peace – Cooperation’.
AKEL, despite the fact it has chosen the status of an observer in the Party of the European Left, is always present in the debates of both the PEL and any other meeting place of the forces of the Left, because we believe in the power of dialogue, but above all in the strength of solidarity.
We want a Left with a vision for tomorrow. A vision that should be based on peace, democracy, equality, social justice, the guarantee of all individual and collective human rights, the prosperity of all people. At the same time, however, we want a Left that is able to take on the present, its challenges, its stakes, problems and prospects.
I feel the need, on this occasion, to express, on behalf of AKEL, but also the Cypriot people as well, our appreciation to all the parties participating in this Conference and, more generally, to all the forces of the Left in our region, for your consistent solidarity with the struggle our people are waging to put an end to the Turkish occupation and the division of our island that has lasted for almost half a century.
We are firmly convinced that if we succeed in achieving a solution to the Cyprus problem on the agreed basis and framework, this will be not only be a redemption for our own people, Greek Cypriots, Turkish Cypriots, Maronites, Armenians and Latins, but also constitute a contribution of historical dimensions to the cause of peace throughout the entire Eastern Mediterranean. At the same time, the solution of the Cyprus problem will unleash enormous potential for developing regional cooperation in our region.
Dear friends and comrades,
The Mediterranean Conference of the Party of the European Left is a unique forum for dialogue between the forces of the Left on both sides of the Mediterranean – from Europe, the Middle East, North Africa – whose peoples are united not only by the Mediterranean Sea, but also by the struggles for freedom, democracy and human rights, but also for development that respects people and the environment.
The Mediterranean is home to 510 million people and a cradle of nations and cultures with a vast history and contribution to humanity. It is at the same time, a region of unparalleled natural beauty and extremely rich in natural resources. But instead of being a paradise on earth, the Mediterranean is now one of the most troubled and militarised regions of the world.
Indeed, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East are, not by chance, one of the three places on the planet where huge energy battles have reached explosive levels. The other two are Eastern Europe-Caucasus and the South China Sea. Older open wounds across the Mediterranean region, such as the Palestinian issue, the Cyprus problem, Western Sahara, have intersected with newer issues such as the war in Syria, the Lebanon crisis, the break-up of Libya, the intervention in Yemen, and the activities of the “Islamic State”. Now, the NATO-Russia war in Ukraine is plunging the whole planet into unprecedented situations, with dramatic consequences for the peoples, such as energy poverty and food insecurity, which are particularly affecting the countries of the Southern Mediterranean and sub-Saharan Africa.
Inextricably linked to the wars and foreign interventions in the region is the issue of the refugee and migration crisis. No analysis is needed to comprehend how much human suffering and how many tragedies lie behind the 25,000 people who have perished in the Mediterranean trying to reach Europe since 2014 to date.
At the same time, the Mediterranean is in a critical situation with regards the environment too. The Mediterranean is the most polluted sea in the world. Characteristically, 1.25 million pieces of plastic debris per square kilometre are found in the Mediterranean at the same time as its temperature is rising 20% faster than the global average. The climate crisis poses enormous, I would say existential, challenges for both sides of the Mediterranean. At the same time, the Mediterranean is now threatened by the immeasurable dangers posed by the operation of the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant in Turkey, in an earthquake-prone area some 110 kilometres from where we are now.
All this, dear friends and comrades, stress the need for dialogue, understanding and joint action by the progressive forces throughout the Mediterranean basin. They also underline why we must and can put forward and demand a different Euro-Mediterranean cooperation. In particular, the Left in Europe must boldly state that the European Union must not view the other side of the Mediterranean in the terms of serving geopolitical expediencies and interventionism, nor the one-sided promotion of business interests and unequal economic relations.
The so-called Euro-Mediterranean partnership that the EU began to build 28 years ago with the Barcelona Declaration has evidently not achieved its declared objective of creating an area of peace, shared prosperity and exchanges on the level of human resources and culture. Now, the new effort launched in 2021 by the EU to “renew the partnership with the countries of the Southern Neighbourhood” will, we believe, fail once again if it is not based first and foremost on the spirit of solidarity, mutual respect and equality, of mutually beneficial cooperation on ambitious goals such as human development, environmental protection, educational, cultural and technological cooperation.
First of all, however, a radical reorientation is needed in the EU’s foreign policy and in its position towards the open outstanding issues in the region, with the Middle East and the need for a solution based on the creation of an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders and with East Jerusalem as its capital. This is provided for in the relevant UN resolutions which must guide the EU. Europe, provided it so decides, has the geopolitical, diplomatic and economic weight to determine developments in this direction. The elephant in the room of interests is of course the export of arms by European military industries to states in the region, such as Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia and others, which in fact violate even the EU Council’s Common Position on the rules that must govern the arms trade.
The continued ongoing militarisation of our region is one of the most dangerous components of the landscape, making it a combustible powder keg. It is for this reason that the peace movement’s call for the declaration of the Mediterranean and the Middle East as a zone free from weapons of mass destruction has never been timelier. In the past, there has been movement to convene an international UN conference to do so. A few years ago, the Cyprus Parliament, through a resolution tabled by AKEL, unanimously adopted this goal, while the European Parliament also expressed its support again last November. There may be obstacles to attaining this goal – such as, for example, Israel’s nuclear arsenal, which is not a signatory to the UN Non-Proliferation Treaty – however, it is worth working and fighting for such a step to become a reality, which would lead to a substantial de-militarisation of our region. It would constitute a major step forward for peace and security for our entire neighbourhood.
Dear friends and comrades,
The forces of the left on both shores of the Mediterranean have much for which we can and must struggle together. First of all, we must stand in solidarity with all the peoples of the region who are fighting for freedom, democracy and gender equality, but also for social progress, modern workers’ and social rights. At the same time, we prioritise priorities and fields of action such as:
- The defence of international law, peace and the territorial integrity of states must be defended and, at the same time, the need to resolve through dialogue the disputes between states in the region regarding maritime zones, in accordance with international law and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
- The promotion of progressive and modern energy policies that make energy a social good that contributes to the well-being of societies should be highlighted. The abundance of renewable energy sources in the countries of the southern and eastern Mediterranean can form the basis for a different and mutually beneficial Euro-Mediterranean cooperation, which is ecological and social in nature and boosts the development of the countries of the region.
- We must assert a European asylum policy based on solidarity with those in need, on the basis of the right to asylum and human rights, far from inhumane practices of pushbacks. Solidarity between member states must also be an integral part of such a policy, so that, unlike the Dublin Regulation, which traps all refugees in the European south, the responsibility for hosting refugees is shared among all European states according to their own capacities. The main thing, of course, is to address the causes that force millions of people from Africa and the Middle East to uproot themselves from their homelands in search of safety and a better life in Europe.
Dear friends and comrades,
A Conference like today’s focuses on the Mediterranean and Euro-Mediterranean cooperation, but inevitably it also concerns the European Union itself, its policies and priorities, the question of what kind of Europe we want. It is the subject of another debate because the European Union is failing today at various levels, disproving expectations and refuting promises.
However, it is worth saying on this occasion that our criticism of the EU and its policies has nothing whatsoever to do with the Euroscepticism of the far-right and new nationalisms that are emerging on our continent. On the contrary, we are the real counterweight to all this because our criticism is at the same time both a proposal and a vision for a truly united Europe, a fundamentally different Europe.
A Europe that is socially just, with an economy that serves those who produce the wealth, namely the working people, the overwhelming majority of every European society.
We want a Europe that is democratic and participatory in its structures and functioning, not a Europe in which its decisions are in fact initiated by the powerful elites of Brussels and Frankfurt without any accountability and transparency.
A Europe that is a global force for peace, solidarity and respect for international law, a Europe which builds relations of cooperation and solidarity with its neighbours in the Mediterranean and throughout the whole world.
With these thoughts in mind, we welcome you back to Cyprus and Nicosia. We wish you every success in the deliberations of the Mediterranean Conference and of course every success in the struggles you are waging in your countries for the rights of your peoples.
