In a joint statement, the Parties that participate in the European Communist Action (ECA) stress out:
"The European Union (EU) aligns with the interests of capital, promoting measures that favour monopolies, capital concentration, and centralization. It is the union of European capital. The EU is an imperialist economic, political, and military bloc, contrary to the interests of the working class and the popular strata. It serves the capitalist system that leads to poverty, unemployment, imperialist wars like the one in Ukraine, atrocities like that of the occupation state of Israel against the Palestinians, waves of refugees.
Although the EU managed to conceal its genuinely anti-people nature behind a facade of expectations of prosperity for a significant period, the past decades have undeniably exposed the reality. The so-called "prosperity" and apparent benefits for the workers were essentially bait, luring them into a trap that intensified attacks on their rights, especially after 1990 across the entire EU.
In the current context, the Stability Pact is reintroduced with strict budgetary discipline in order to make the working people pay through heavy direct and indirect taxation; cuts to social services and their commercialization are promoted, in order to raise capital through budget surpluses for the investments of the big business groups. A series of EU and government directives promote the abolition of collective labour agreements, the erosion of stable daily working hours with inhuman working hours, widespread unemployment with punitive measures that deprive the unemployed even of unemployment benefits, underemployment and increased flexibility, teleworking, meager pensions and privatized social security systems. All the above leads to deprivation, combination of two or more poorly paid jobs, raising of the retirement age and work beyond that age, the disintegration of public health systems and rising costs for the working class and the popular strata who are suffering from skyrocketing prices, energy poverty, savage taxation, high rents, foreclosures of their houses, especially after repeated interest rate increases by the European Central Bank (ECB). At the same time, intimidation by employers is intensifying, while laws that penalize and ban strikes and trade union activity are being enacted throughout Europe. Big employers utilize the tool of employer-led trade unionism to pass their plans to achieve a cheap, flexible workforce in order to worsen the already dire working conditions and intensify exploitation.
We believe in an alternative trajectory for the people, in the vision of another Europe of well-being and social advancement for the populace, for the working class that produces the wealth. A Europe of Cooperation, Peace and Socialism. This goal illuminates the struggle for work with full rights and collective labour agreements, democratic and trade union freedoms, the right to strike, for the satisfaction of the workers’ contemporary needs.
It is extremely important and promising that despite the negative correlation of forces in the workers'-trade union movement, workers in a number of countries are organizing struggles and strikes and getting co-ordinated. The parties of the ECA are putting all their energy into the development and success of these mobilisations.
We believe in the need of a resolute fight against any form of bourgeois administration within the exploitative system, whether liberal or social-democratic. This endeavor necessitates a steadfast opposition to opportunism and reformism in the workers’ - trade union movement, which manifests as the influence of bourgeois ideology on the labour movement. It cannot be achieved without actively opposing, resisting, and disobeying in a class-oriented way the reactionary capitalist EU and challenging all the anti-popular directions, regulations and directives of the European Commission. Our fight is directed against capitalist exploitation, aiming for the establishment of socialism-communism. Ultimately the main internationalist task of every Communist Party consists of serious and persistent work in its own country as a contribution to the international, worldwide struggle.
We are dedicated to addressing the current needs of workers and the popular strata by uniting in a class-oriented, militant direction and coordinating the action of the labour and trade union movement, with other popular movements. Our focus is on directing these efforts towards a collective struggle against monopolies, capitalism, as well as the EU and NATO."
In the current context, the Stability Pact is reintroduced with strict budgetary discipline in order to make the working people pay through heavy direct and indirect taxation; cuts to social services and their commercialization are promoted, in order to raise capital through budget surpluses for the investments of the big business groups. A series of EU and government directives promote the abolition of collective labour agreements, the erosion of stable daily working hours with inhuman working hours, widespread unemployment with punitive measures that deprive the unemployed even of unemployment benefits, underemployment and increased flexibility, teleworking, meager pensions and privatized social security systems. All the above leads to deprivation, combination of two or more poorly paid jobs, raising of the retirement age and work beyond that age, the disintegration of public health systems and rising costs for the working class and the popular strata who are suffering from skyrocketing prices, energy poverty, savage taxation, high rents, foreclosures of their houses, especially after repeated interest rate increases by the European Central Bank (ECB). At the same time, intimidation by employers is intensifying, while laws that penalize and ban strikes and trade union activity are being enacted throughout Europe. Big employers utilize the tool of employer-led trade unionism to pass their plans to achieve a cheap, flexible workforce in order to worsen the already dire working conditions and intensify exploitation.
We believe in an alternative trajectory for the people, in the vision of another Europe of well-being and social advancement for the populace, for the working class that produces the wealth. A Europe of Cooperation, Peace and Socialism. This goal illuminates the struggle for work with full rights and collective labour agreements, democratic and trade union freedoms, the right to strike, for the satisfaction of the workers’ contemporary needs.
It is extremely important and promising that despite the negative correlation of forces in the workers'-trade union movement, workers in a number of countries are organizing struggles and strikes and getting co-ordinated. The parties of the ECA are putting all their energy into the development and success of these mobilisations.
We are dedicated to addressing the current needs of workers and the popular strata by uniting in a class-oriented, militant direction and coordinating the action of the labour and trade union movement, with other popular movements. Our focus is on directing these efforts towards a collective struggle against monopolies, capitalism, as well as the EU and NATO."
eurcomact.org
