Joint position regarding the EU Treaty

The Parties that subscribe to this joint statement denounce the real and stated goal of the current reform of the European Union treaties: to recover the essential contents of a previously rejected draft treaty, whilst at the same time seeking to avoid a democratic debate and the expression of the peoples’ will, namely through referendums.

This attempt is unacceptable and is a profound disrespect for democracy and for the sovereign will, expressed by the French and Dutch peoples, in the 2005 referendums.

If it were to be ratified in the various countries, this treaty would represent a new qualitative leap in the configuration of the European Union as an economic, political and military block contrary to the interests of the workers and the peoples; a new step towards the institutionalisation of neo-liberalism, the promotion of militarism and a stronger domination by the leading great powers of the European Union already implemented by the cornerstones of the EU building: the Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice treaties and the Lisbon Strategy.

This treaty is impregnated with neo-liberal policies that will further jeopardise economic and social gains of the workers and the peoples, whether through the liberalisation of markets, the primacy of competition or the monetarist policies that do not take into account growth and employment; or by dismantling and privatising public services, in keeping with the interests of the big economic and financial groups.

This treaty promotes the militarisation of the European Union within the framework of NATO and in coordination with the USA, an increase in military spending, an arms race and the militarisation of international relations.

This treaty counters the interests and aspirations of the workers and peoples of Europe. We say NO both to the new Treaty and to the antidemocratic process that tries to impose it.

The right of each people to have their say on a treaty which has such profound consequences for the present and the future of each of their countries and of Europe must be guaranteed, through a broad and democratic debate and through the expression of the popular will.

With full confidence in the possibility of a different Europe, of cooperation, economic and social progress and peace, the Communist, workers’, progressive and left-wing Parties that undersign this joint position agree to promote a series of actions in their own countries and on a multilateral level, in order to struggle for the rejection of this Treaty and to demand broad and democratic popular debates and the expression of the peoples’ will in the various European Union Countries, namely through referendums.

List of endorsing Parties (17.10.):

• Communist Party (Flanders) – Belgium
• Communist Party (Wallonia) – Belgium
• Workers’ Party of Belgium
• Communist Party of Britain
• Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia
• Communist Party of Bulgaria (Georgi Dimitrov)
• Communist Party of Bulgaria
• AKEL (Cyprus)
• Communist Party of Denmark
• Communist Party in Denmark
• Communist Party of Finland
• French Communist Party
• German Communist Party
• Communist Party of Greece
• Hungarian Communist Workers’ Party
• Communist Party of Ireland
• The Workers’ Party of Ireland
• Party of the Italian Communists
• Socialist Party of Latvia
• Communist Party of Luxemburg
• New Communist Party of the Netherlands
• Communist Party of Poland
• Portuguese Communist Party
• Socialist Alliance Party (Romania)
• Communist Party of Spain
• United Left (Spain)
• Communist Party of People of Spain

27 communist and other left parties 17.10.07: