“It’s not a leftist lost in tech circles, it’s focused on action”

“It’s not a leftist lost in tech circles, it’s focused on action.” The new European party that Podemos has joined is presented as: Left Coalition for People and Planet. Irene Monteiro and representatives of La France Insoumise, the Portuguese Bloc, the Left Party (Sweden), Razum (Poland), the Finnish Left Alliance and the Red Green Alliance (Denmark) have defended the need to promote a “reunified” left. Pablo Iglesias, The ‘Now the People’ platform, launched in 2018 by Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Caterina Marins, and which reflects distance from the Party of the European Left (PIE), although they share a parliamentary group in the European Chamber.

The promoters of the new party assure that their aim is not to promote a new parliamentary group, but they acknowledge disagreements with PIE, where the creation of a new party has not gone well.

The Bloc representative, who left the other party together with the Danish party, assured that these differences have been going on for a long time. “We believe that the European Party must have very concrete ways of having a dialogue with people across Europe, that it has to have conversations about workers’ rights, about climate change, about feminism, really. There should be concrete methods, he should be able to make joint operations.” They can talk to all generations, including the young, about the change we want, and have a party that focuses on campaigns and issues that can speak to people across Europe,” Marins explained. , who acknowledged that PIE had “another kind of organization.”

Marins said in a harsh criticism of PIE, “We like a left that doesn’t veto itself, we like a left that can negotiate.” In which he said that integration of new structures is not possible. Although not mentioned, the emergence of Podemos is an example of the fracture within the European left, with Izquierda Unida falling under the umbrella of PIE.

“We need stronger ties with unions, NGOs, and this is one of the first objectives of our alliance. The second objective is to lead a concrete campaign on taxes on the rich, on the right to housing, on climate and transport, on a ceasefire in Gaza,” said Manon Aubry of France Insoumise, who is also co-chair. Leftist group in the European Parliament. Aubry has taken the opportunity to harshly attack the Socialists and the Greens for being part of the majority supporting Ursula von der Leyen. “They have accepted what is probably the most extreme right-wing commission in history,” he lamented.

“European elites responded to the crisis with a brand of austerity or Grand Coalition. 14 years later, these same elites are building a broad global consensus across Europe with the support of Social Democrats, Greens and right-wing parties,” said Irene Monteiro, who has lamented increased military spending and support for a . “Military escalation” rather than “health care, education or the defense of feminist rights.” “The war of the Great Coalition has been a pretext to bring Meloni’s extreme right to the center of decision-making in Europe, and would threaten to advance social and fiscal justice, feminist rights and planet-care policies. This Great War Coalition wants us to believe there is no alternative, they are doing it,” said the former Podemos minister.

Participants in an event held in a room of the European Parliament in Brussels called for a ceasefire and against “genocide” in Gaza. He has also sought to break up the EU’s trade deal with Israel. But where disagreements arise is over support for Ukraine. While Nordic or Eastern parties support military support provided by the EU, forces such as Podemos or Bloc believe that the war should not be funded. But contradictions exist within national parties themselves, such as the case of the Finnish Left, which was divided in the vote on the country’s entry into NATO.

Aubry concluded, “We are an anti-NATO alliance.” “The question is that once we say we don’t want to depend on the United States, (…) then the question is: what do we replace it with? And how to guarantee mutual assistance within the EU? And that’s what we’re working on as an alternative proposal for an EU defense system, which as it is currently proposed, is completely in line with NATO’s principles, with NATO’s purpose and, therefore, with the United States. “Kind of aligned,” clarified the French MEP on the issue of the EU’s strategic security, in which differences between countries of the East and West are largely transferred to national parties.