The opening speech by the General Secretary of the C.C. of AKEL Andros Kyprianou at the GUE/NGL “Study Days”

8th January 2019, Nicosia

First of all, I would like to wish all the very best for the New Year to all of you, both personally and in the struggles and battles we have before us on a national level, but also in the European Parliament. I also welcome you on behalf of AKEL to Cyprus and hope your work here will be productive and fruitful. In particular I would like to welcome and thank on behalf of all of us all our comrades who have come from the countries of our region, the comrades from Syria, Palestine, Israel, Turkey and Iraq.

Although we will subsequently have the opportunity to talk extensively about the Cyprus problem, I would like to stress from the outset that you have come to our island at a crucially important time for Cyprus’ future. The threat of the final partition of our country has never been more visible. I would like to express AKEL’s sincere and unreserved appreciation towards the Confederal Group of the Left and to the separate national delegations in GUE/NGL, for your unwavering solidarity with the Cypriot people’s struggle for liberation and reunification. The Group of the Left has proven to be and has always been Cyprus’ most consistent ally in the European Parliament. All Cypriots, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, Maronites, Armenians and Latins must know this.

The content of these “Study Days” of GUE/NGL addresses three critical issues the European Union is confronted with.

1. The situation as regards labour relations and unemployment, within the framework of the economic crisis, but also the policies being pursued by the EU.
2. The growth of the ultra-right.
3. The geopolitical situation in the wider region of the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean, with the responsibilities of the EU for the situation that has evolved well-known.

These issues demand a comprehensive and ongoing scientific analysis, together with the elaboration of political proposals and demands that we need to raise in both the European parliament, but also in our national parliaments. Above all, however, in order to confront these big issues of our era, the waging of struggles, mobilizations and joint action of the communist, left-wing and broader progressive forces of our continent is demanded.

The warnings issued by the Left about the capitalist character, strategic choices and the path pursued by the EU – as they have been set out in its Treaties and promoted through the policies being implemented by the right and social democracy of Europe – have been verified. We are facing dramatic – for the peoples and workers – social conditions. Gradually in recent decades and more rapidly in the years of the crisis, there has been a big reversal in living standards for the majority of citizens in European societies. As it has characteristically been said, young people today will be the first after a century that will live worse than their parents’ generation. It is also extremely important, in our view, that we should all understand one crucial point: neither the consequences of the crisis, nor its vicious circle have ended. The International Monetary Fund itself admitted in a report it had released recently that the global economy remains vulnerable and that a new crisis is looming.

We therefore do not share the celebrations of the European People’s Party and its allies, who provocatively declare that they are proud of the imposition of austerity policies and privatizations in recent years because they supposedly helped towards overcoming the crisis precisely because the crisis has not ended, but mainly because these policies have widened the gap between the privileged rich and everybody else; because they have driven a large section of the people to poverty without, it appears, any prospect of this crisis ending.

It is up to each and every one to reflect on where they will lead the peoples and workers to if the European Right continues to decide the policies in the European Parliament or it will supplement its forces with a stronger ultra-right which is increasingly declaring its willingness to cooperate with it officially.

Therefore in the face of an EU that not only does not listen to the voices of the peoples, but instead is constantly strengthening the draconian mechanism of suffocating control over member states, which is deepening the Economic and Monetary Union and completing the Banking Union, we must continue to put forward assertions for the present and the future in a different direction for policies that serve those who produce the wealth and drive the economy, namely the working people. With immediate and practical demands such as the EU’s accession to the European Social Charter, demanding programs for investment in creating permanent and dignified jobs, but also demanding radical changes that have never been more necessary, such as the abolition of the “Fiscal Pact”, the “Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance” and the “European Semester”, and their replacement with policies promoting social convergence, employment and sustainable growth without exclusions.

In the face of an EU that is allocating billions of Euros for the war arms industries, planning to create an EU army, selling weapons worth billions in the warring Middle East and deepening its connection with NATO, we project peace and solidarity in Palestine, Syria, Yemen, Sudan and all the struggling peoples of the world. We project our struggle against militarism, wars and foreign interventions. The approval last November by a large majority of the report submitted by the MEP of our Group, our comrade Sabine Losing, on the scourge of the EU arms trade with states like Saudi Arabia, demonstrates that our work, pressure and insistence on remaining consistent to positions of principle on these issues can yield results.

In the face of the neo-fascists and reserve forces of the system such as Le Pen and Calvini, we propose and are struggling to forge a broad anti-fascist front. A front, not without a class-based basis and apolitical, but a front with positions and an orientation that unites the masses of working people and young people in a struggle against the ultra-right, but also against the very system that give birth to it, against the4 policies that feed it. A front that defends democratic freedoms and the rights of our peoples. A front that must combat on a daily basis racism and xenophobia, asserting for solidarity and human-centred policies towards immigrants and refugees.

All of these are just some of the positions making up our proposal, our own vision for the alternative Europe, which is feasible, necessary and more than ever before timely; the Europe that will serve the working people and their needs, young people and their aspirations. The Europe of the Peoples.

In closing this introduction, I would like to repeat – in view of the upcoming European elections – that we need a stronger Group of the Left in the European Parliament, which will continue to be the voice of the working people, social justice and peace in the European Parliament. A Group that respects diversity and the confederal character of our Group, with the will to build on what unites us and aware of the real nature of the European Union and the current negative balance of forces on a European level, but with unwavering determination and perseverance on the path that connects today’s struggles with the vision for the future. This, in any case, is the way by which the left wins the trust of the working people and the peoples, and is recognized as their pioneering force and paves the way for great social changes and reversals.