Declaration of the Continental Coordinating Committee ICOR Europe on the European Elections on 25 May 2014

No to the imperialist EU-Policy – Yes to internationalism!

The elections to the European parliament on 25 May 2014 take place at a time of the shifting of the burdens of the deepest worldwide capitalist financial and economic crisis. The exploitation of humanity and nature by the international ruling finance capital is being intensified. Contrary to all the propaganda of those in power about a “Europe of peace, wealth and liberty”, the EU is an imperialist alliance of states and is waging a real social war against the working people and people's masses. In all EU countries a gigantic redistribution of wealth from bottom to top on the backs of the people's masses is taking place via the so-called “austerity programs”. The so-called Troika (EU, ECB, IMF) is an expression of the dictatorship of capital, which plunges entire EU countries into misery without any legal basis.

The result is millionfold misery.  24.8% of the people in the EU (124.5 million) are threatened by poverty and social exclusion (Eurostat, 5 December 2012), with increasing tendency: in 2008 these were still 23.7%. The figures regarding official unemployment in the EU are also “impressive”. In this way 26.65 million (10.9% in the EU and 12.1% in the euro zone) have become victims of capitalism. Especially the high youth unemployment is scandalous. In Spain alone, 57.7% of the youth under 25 years are without work; in Greece they are 54.8% and in all of the EU 5.6 million. Almost one quarter of the young people are doomed to be the “lost generation” in Europe.

In addition to this, exploitation is intensified by the systematic deterioration of the working and wage conditions and an all-out attack on the social attainments which the European working-class movement has achieved in struggle. With the same energy the EU pursues policies of endangering the foundations of human life: it abandons its climate aims, advocates nuclear policy and fracking for securing the profits of the monopolies.

Parallel to this, a policy of dismantling democratic rights is taking place in the EU. Under the pretext of fighting against terrorism, a police and surveillance state is developing EU-wide. The refugee policy of the EU, which is focusing more and more on a militarized fight against refugees through FRONTEX / EUROSUR, has already taken ten thousands of victims. The EU has transformed the Mediterranean Sea into a mass grave!

The EU is more and more developing into a war power. The Treaty of Lisbon includes an obligation to armament (!) and the deployment of so-called Euro-Battlegroups shall underline the belligenrence of the EU. In Ukraine the imperialist interference of the EU, the USA, as well as of Russia, in the struggle for spheres of influence has led to an acute danger of war. 

The policy directed against the working people and people's masses has provoked massive resistance in all countries of the EU. In many countries workers' and people's struggles developed, also on a cross-border level, like the simultaneous general strike in several EU countries on 14 November 2012. In Spain two million people demonstrated “for their dignity!” in March 2014.

 In Brussels 50 000 male and female workers demonstrated against the EU-policy on 4 April. Again and again  general strikes take place in various countries like Greece.. In Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Serbia workers fight for their jobs and payment of wages. Sections of highways and train routes are blocked for doing away with dictates of the EU concerns. Under red flags demands are put forward for politicians to live on the average wage of 420 €.  In many countries the protest is increasing against the TTIP (free trade agreement between the EU and the USA) with the planned drastic deterioration of the working and living conditions of 800 million people.

During these days the 24 steelworkers in Greece / Aspropirgos have our full solidarity. At the beginning of April they were sentenced in Athens to up to 23 months in prison for their heroic nine-month independent strike against mass dismissals two years ago. This scandalous verdict must fall by international solidarity! 

(police against Greek steelworkers of Aspropirgos)

In order to break the powerful force of the working class and the people's masses as a danger for the  rule of capital, worst reaction in all of its shades is unfolding all over Europe: ultrareactionary policies, racist and nationalist propaganda. Protofascist and fascist organizations are wreaking havoc – often supported by the state. The aim is the division of the working class and the people's masses.

The ICOR Europe calls for:

Protest and resistance against the reactionary EU policy: YES!

No to ultrareactionary and fascist parties and organizations!

The “Declaration to the working people and peopl's masses in the countries of Europe” (2^nd Continental Conference of the ICOR Europe, 23 June 2013) reads: “Contrary to the reformists and opportunists of all kind, who convey the illusion of a social, democratic, peaceful and ecological Europe, the European Continental Conference of the ICOR has the view that in the end all struggles can only be successful with a revolutionary perspective of overcoming the profit-oriented system of crisis, war, fascism and environmental destruction...”

The damage which the modern revisionists caused by their policy of betrayal of the socialist idea must be overcome. Already in 1915 Lenin stated in an article “On the Slogan for a United States of Europe” that “...a United States of Europe, under capitalism, is either impossible or reactionary.”(Lenin Collected Works, Vol. 21, pp.339-343).Parties of ICOR Europe are also running for the European elections, like the MLPD/Germany and BCP/Bulgaria and other revolutionary parties. They represent the direction of working-class and people's struggles in Europe, the coordination of the struggles and for a socialist perspective.

• Fight the Europe of the dismantling of social achievements and democratic rights, of war and environmental destruction!
• Workers of all countries, unite!
• Workers of all countries and oppressed peoples, unite!
• Forward to Socialism – worldwide!