Europe

To start this process, we invite you to join the European Peace Conference that will take place in Rome on Oct. 27–28, 2023.

As signatories of this Appeal we ask for:

• the immediate halt of arms shipments to Ukraine;
• an end to the sanctions on Russia, as well as the Russophobic campaign;
• the invalidation of the statement condemning Russia as a terrorist state;
• an armistice between the belligerent forces;
• a truly neutral and democratic Ukraine; and
• a stop to the arms race and the dissolution of NATO.

Like the banker he’s been all his life, Macron is obeying EU orders to make no concessions. However, the French president was unable to win a vote in parliament, even from other pro-capitalist parties, to pass the new pension plan. To impose these cuts on the working class, Macron was forced to use a maneuver in mid-March to pass the plan by decree.

Though this maneuver was technically legal and constitutional (Article 49.3), it was an insult to democratic rule. Workers’ anger exploded. Unionists in France, especially those in the industrial and transport unions who are members of the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), held periodic walkouts. They stopped transit, held up refining fuel and withheld electric power. They showed just how vital the working class is in capitalist society.

The government’s sole response has been to use the capitalist state to assault the workers’ movement. It has ordered police to beat and arrest demonstrators and judges to keep them in jail awaiting trial and has made it illegal just to protest. Even people just walking near demonstrations have been arrested.

So far, Macron has refused concessions. The workers have refused to submit. The class struggle, instead of softening through some sort of negotiations, has intensified.

The New Communist Party of Yugoslavia released a statement on its website that gives a more honest assessment of the anti-NATO protests than those published by the corporate media.

“The New Communist Party of Yugoslavia (NKPJ) and the Alliance of Communist Youth of Yugoslavia (SKOJ) condemn the brutal beating of citizens, who tried to prevent a violent assault on the buildings of these three municipalities by the Kosovo police, who threw tear gas at those present.”

The announcement further declares: “Washington, London and Brussels are constantly pressuring Belgrade to officially recognize the independence of the false ‘State of Kosovo,’ which the communist and workers’ parties of the world vehemently oppose, and demand that this retrograde Act, directed against peace, stability and prosperity, carried out for the sake of the expansionist goals of big capital should immediately end.” (nkpj.org.rs, May 30)

Erdoğan has a long history of repressing the Kurdish people and imprisoning their leaders, as have past leaders of the country. And he has prevented or tightly controlled and arrested political protesters, including on International Women’s Day[.] Publicly, he denounced LGBTQ rights during his election campaign.

Erdoğan managed to scrape by against an opponent who was, if anything, more pro-imperialist than him. Leftist and Kurdish parties were not represented in the runoff at all and were repressed during the election. Neither candidate offered any meaningful change for the Kurdish population, a nationally oppressed minority, and there are reports that it was more difficult to vote in Kurdish areas.

It is clear that the struggle in Türkiye isn’t over.

The tweet in question is a video, in which you can see the moment of the arrival of the ex-prisoner to Casco Viejo and the applause of dozens of neighbors gathered there. The text that accompanies the tweet says, “Dozens of people give Ongi etorri [a welcome] in Alde Zaharra of Iruñea to Iñaki Etxeberria ‘Mortadelo,’ Basque political prisoner who was released after 25 years of imprisonment. [Amnesty for all who are political prisoners of the Spanish state].

It is clear that the tweet does not extol anything but is dedicated to reporting in an objective way about what happened that night in Alde Zaharra in Iruñea.

The negative popular reaction to Macron’s “charm offensive” resulted in the administration showing its teeth. During Macron’s visit to Strasbourg, a city east of Paris on the German border, three people were arrested for giving him “the finger.”

The Constitutional Council, a cabal of pro-capitalist former politicians, and Macron ignored the millions of French workers, both active and retired, youth and students, farmers and other progressives, who took to the streets April 13 to protest. The CC approved the new pension system, with a few minor objections, and disapproved a request to hold a popular referendum on this issue.

(Reminder that antisocialists have a fucked up idea of what democracy looks like.)

We reject these bans on demonstrations for Palestinian Prisoners’ Day and declare that our voices will not be silenced. We must shout, louder than ever, for the release of all Palestinian prisoners locked in [neocolonial] jails and for the liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea. And we declare, clearly and firmly, that this form of state repression will not succeed in silencing our support for the Palestinian people, their resistance and their prisoners’ movement struggling to end colonialism and racism.

For almost three months, the class struggle in France has been growing sharper. A meeting on April 5 between the union confederations and Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne ended after half an hour. Neither side had flinched.

“The prime minister turned us down,” said the new secretary general of the CGT, Sophie Binet, “and we will respond in the streets.”

The government refuses to bargain seriously. The unions and especially the rank-and-file workers who carry the struggle refuse to submit. One can easily ask, are Borne and President Emmanuel Macron trying to provoke an explosion? And if the struggle explodes, how will workers worldwide show their solidarity with workers in France?

Workers’ power also showed itself in other ways. The energy workers, through clandestine operations, cut off electricity to the headquarters of Macron’s party, to the homes of his deputies and of big businessmen, to big multinationals and especially to data center firms, to road radar trackers and other instruments of control. On the contrary, free electricity was provided to hospitals, schools, elderly people’s homes, working-class neighborhoods where the most oppressed sectors of the class are concentrated, etc.

And the struggle continues jusqu’ au bout (until the end). And these are not just words. For the first time in recent history, and taking up again one of the sacred rules of the International Workers Association, resistance funds have been set up, which in a few days have collected more than 3 million euros.

In the past few days, Verdi had already recorded the largest participation in decades, with 400,000 joining warning strikes. According to Werneke, the March 27 action was the largest strike in the Federal Republic of Germany since 1992. At that time, the ÖTV [Public Service Transportation] union paralyzed public service for 11 days.

The workers’ determination has already affected French diplomacy. France and England had spent months negotiating the new British King Charles III’s visit to France. This visit was to begin March 28, which is coincidentally the day the union coalition scheduled the next, the 10th day of protest/strikes. The CGT announced that its members, who would be responsible for setting up the red carpet and carrying out the services to greet a foreign monarch, would go on strike instead.

To avoid disrupting the youths’ exam, the union coalition deliberately chose to wait a few days until March 23 to begin their protests, marches and strikes. The early part of the week is scheduled to be filled with parliamentary maneuvers and legal moves. The unions decided that union power is best applied in the street and on the shop floor.

The General Confederation of Labor (CGT) says many workers went on strike on March 7 without demonstrating, and on March 11 a million protesters came out for the same issue. The CGT is the largest union group in the coalition that has called for major demonstrations throughout the country for the day the French parliament votes on increasing the age of retirement from 62 to 64 years old. The vote must take place on or before March 26.

If Macron’s government refuses to consider the people’s demands regarding pensions, the inter-union coalition is calling for hardening the unions’ struggles and a total work stoppage in all sectors of the economy for March 7. They plan a big effort on March 8 — International Working Women’s Day — to explain the pernicious effects these pension changes will have on women’s retirement.

Pretty sure he won't win however. All the liberal candidates together have 65%.

Check out AKEL btw. One of the most supported Communist parties inside the EU.

Bücker writes of a “narrowing of political space” in Germany to express opinions opposing German participation in the proxy war in Ukraine against Russia. The charges brought against him for his speech, for which he can face up to three years in prison and a fine, is proof of it. This increase in repression of antiwar forces, he writes, also exists in other European Union countries.

"Beijing must be wetting themselves with laughter. It would be funny if it was not a serious project, and if we had not paid for it all."

Context: Belgian wages are (for a lot of people) tied to the inflation, meaning if inflation is 2%, wages HAVE to be raised at least 2%. So for januari 2023, the wages wil rise with the official percentage of 11.xx%. This is not a raise, it's a compensation for the increase in cost of living at best.

A week or something ago the government allowed companies to not raise wages above the inflation index for two years, effectively blocking Belgian employees from getting a raise. To 'compensate' workers, the government allowed companies to give out cheques of up to 750 euro if they wanted to. 80% are now saying that they won't, meaning Belgian employees get nothing really.

Unions have already called for new nation wide actions on december 16th.

Feeling the heat, bosses have made concessions in some places, averting potential strikes. Just recently, the union Unite announced they had secured an 11% increase for roughly 150 members at a Heinz factory at Telford in Shropshire. Unite was able to secure a raise of 11.5% at other workplaces in the fall. As the British Marxist newspaper New Worker suggested, “Hopefully this is a sign that bosses are worried about taking on their organized workforce, but it could also be a sign that they have so much money in the bank that they can easily afford to pay up.”

In Greece, a 24-hour strike and demonstrations took place Nov. 9 in Athens and other cities to demand price control measures and wage increases. The actions were called by the most representative union confederations in the country, the General Confederation of Greek Workers and the All Workers Militant Front.

In the capital, thousands of people filled the streets of the city center and, waving placards and banners, denounced the policies of the right-wing government and the European Union that “generate poverty, hunger and inequality” and “leave people frozen while they warm up the profits of big business.”

(Emphasis original.)