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27 January 2011

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The alternatives are there, the choices are clear – now where are the leaders?

Lothar Bisky, Chairperson of the GUE/NGL Group in the European Parliament, on the Hungarian EU Presidency and agenda for 2011:

WITH the EU under the stewardship of one of Europe’s most right-wing governments, the Left’s expectations for the Hungarian presidency were always going to veer towards caution rather than optimism. Beyond the fundamental questions raised by Hungary’s new media law, the wider problem facing the EU in 2011 will remain the ongoing economic and social crisis.
The EU’s lack of will to get to grips with the root causes of the crisis, not to mention its bad management of its symptoms, has let banks off scot-free while the cost of their speculation is paid by citizens via unemployment and savage austerity.
In 2011, our parliamentary group will continue working for measures to break the power of the financial markets and for more economic democracy.
We will insist on the introduction of a Social Progress Clause into EU primary law. This clause should stipulate that fundamental rights have primacy over the ‘fundamental freedoms’ of the internal market that have brought our economies and societies to the brink.
With this in mind, the GUE/NGL is seriously concerned at the Commission’s intention to propose a revision of the Working Time Directive ‘to adapt it to new realities’ and will be calling on the Commission to propose a revision of the directive in line with the goal of reconciling employment and non-work life. This could be a major struggle this year.
This, of course, is of direct relevance to a wider discourse on equality, particularly gender equality. As a feminist group, we will be pushing this year for an EU gender equality strategy with political commitments based on the Beijing Platform for Action.
The human rights of women and girls form an inalienable, indivisible and integral part of universal human rights and, as ever, 2011 will be a year of continuing global struggle for such basic human rights.
One of the places at the centre of the fight for those rights is the Middle East.
The role of the EU in seeking solutions to the Palestine/Israel conflict must focus on putting an end to violations of international law. Europe’s leaders are clearly responsible for the complete absence of the EU from the Middle East peace process and the past decade reads like a long list of lost opportunities for Europe to play an important role in any potential solution. This can, and must change over the next ten years. As European history has shown, peace is the only option.
Finally, at the end of 2011, the next Climate Change conference will be organised by the UN in South Africa. Cancún was a step forward after the failure of Copenhagen but much work needs to be done before we see the necessary ambition and commitments. On this issue, Europe has a chance to lead and prove its potential.
The EU is not a victim of the current crises but one of the motors. GUE/NGL MEPs, and the wider Left, have a central role to play in providing alternatives and prospects for genuine progress. At the current crossroads presented by the crisis, the EU has some basic policy choices to make:
Injustice or equality?
Instability or peace?
Censorship and repression or transparency, rights and democracy?
The alternatives are there, the choices are clear - now where are the leaders?

This is funded by the European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL)

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