Ahead of the European Parliament elections, interested parties discussed various ideas for a democratic and sustainable Europe at the Polish Failure Club on June 6, 2024. Beforehand, an exercise on the election slogans of the various parties dared to make a cheerful comparison between perception and reality.
Election slogans and their parties
And it went like this: the election slogans of the parties were laid out on tables, as they were emblazoned on the election posters on the streets. They had to be matched to the party logos. Bündnis90/Die Grünen had the worst luck: their slogans were assigned to the SPD (“Renewing prosperity. Do what counts”), the FDP (“Only democracy creates freedom. Do what counts”) or even the AfD (“Defending values, protecting peace. Do what counts”). Only the statements of the Volt party were correctly assigned – as apolitical and simple as they were often formulated. The Sahra Wagenknecht alliance scored points with its aliterations (“Muzzle or opinion?”), the CDU was not given credit for many things (“Off we go: For freedom. For security. For prosperity.”), with the AfD “Our country first” seemed plausible, but not “Ensure energy supply”.
Naturally, this raised a number of questions about the profile of the respective parties in the election campaign. And which of the issues raised were actually relevant to Europe?
Pressure of events : Europe moves closer together
This led to the question of the nature of the European Parliament – which has no right of legislative initiative, as is the task of a parliament. Why is this the case? Will this be changed soon? What do we know about the history of cooperation between the states of the European Union since the Second World War? What about various ideas to bring the people of the continent closer together instead of dividing them?
Increased cooperation after the end of the war was largely driven by the USA. The loans and aid deliveries from the Marshall Plan (1948-1952) were linked to the condition that the states cooperate and also do so with the European Payments Union (1950-1958) with regard to their currencies. Among other things, the American Committee on a United Europe (1948-1960) prepared the foundation of the Council of Europe in 1949, an NGO which in turn was to promote the formation of European institutions and which still exists today. The European Coal and Steel Community was established in 1952, the Treaty of Rome was signed in 1957 and the Treaty of Maastricht came into force in 1993, establishing the free movement of capital, goods, services and people and agreeing the European Monetary Union.
Treaty of Lisbon
The perennial issue of the democratic deficit led to discussions about a European constitution and the establishment of a corresponding convention. The result, the draft constitution, was rejected by a majority of the French and Dutch populations in referendums in 2004 and 2005. Large parts of the text were nevertheless incorporated into the Treaty of Lisbon (2007). To this day, it is the central treaty document for the intergovernmental and ‘supranational’ organization of European cooperation. Innovations included the fact that the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Convention on Human Rights became legally binding and the possibility of a European Citizens’ Initiative was created (this requires one million signatures from citizens of seven countries). In addition, the regulations on EU military missions turned the EU from an economic alliance into one that can wage war.
Manifesto of Ventotene
The Italian anti-fascists Altiero Spinelli and Ernesto Rossi had written a manifesto as prisoners on the island of Ventotene off the coast of Naples in 1941. In it, they denounced nationalism, the militarization of European societies and the decline of society as nothing more than a struggle between interest groups. They were not sparing in their criticism and diagnosed a “parasitic existence of idle landowners”, “monopolies and cartels that exploit the consumer” and “trade unions that are becoming police supervisory bodies”.
Tasks of the post-war period
For the period after the end of the war, they advocated a federalist reorganization of Europe. In other words, they advocated a European federal state with its own armed forces so that the individual states would not wage war against each other again. Freedom of speech and association were considered to be of central importance.
Reform of society
The cooperation of European states at European level must go hand in hand with a transformation of societies. ” The European revolution must be socialist in order to meet our needs : it must work for the emancipation of the working class and the creation of more humane living conditions. ” it says. And further: “Private property must be abolished, limited, corrected or extended on a case-by-case basis and not be managed according to a purely dogmatic set of principles. ” This mainly concerns companies that, as monopolies, have the power to exploit consumers. These include the energy supply, but also the iron industry, mining industry, major banks and large companies in the arms industry (the latter to prevent militarism). In addition, industrial and agricultural reform should change property and inheritance laws so that people do not earn an income for which they do not work and so that workers are given the means to earn an income.
Education and access to modern technology should enable workers and working-class children to exercise their freedoms – through greater social equality.
The manifesto can be read on this website.
Discussion
Most of those gathered had not yet heard of the various ideas. The discussion revolved around the question of whether the ideas of the Italian anti-fascists were still relevant or had already been ‘used up’ by the failure of socialism in the Eastern European countries. Some answered in the affirmative, while others saw inspiration for the future. One Syrian participant asked laconically: “And what about the war in Ukraine?
An event as part of the project Making voices heard – Co-determination and Participation in the European Horizon, sponsored by the abriporta Foundation.