Many national and European political leaders rooted on the left have committed themselves to setting up a system of permanent collaboration and "convergence of actions" at the end of the 2nd Progressive Forum held in Bilbao from Friday 9 to Sunday 11 November.
"We must bring together those forces that want to rebuild a project of a Europe of solidarity, cooperation and respect for peoples, and bring them together to work on a new common project", Pierre Laurent, national secretary of the French Communist Party and vice-president of the Party of the European Left, told EUROPE.
"This is the work we want to assign to this Forum, which for us should not only be an annual meeting, but should be a permanent working structure on the themes of a new Europe", he continued. "The idea of this forum is not to be a new space in competition with others, but to be a space where all these political initiatives can interact with each other and find the way to a common construction", he insisted, hoping that it will be a "space of respectful and pluralistic confrontation".
The declaration adopted at the end of the Forum has four main components. First of all, the Forum wants to "reorder" the wealth created in favour of a new social and ecological model. It proposes to establish new criteria for channelling investment in such a way as to transform production structures and, above all, to adopt a budgetary, fiscal and financial framework convention to establish a new "productive and economic" model along the lines of the UN conference on climate change.
Second axis: the fight for gender equality by ending patriarchy, as well as the promotion of LGBTI rights. The declaration includes the establishment of a protocol to promote gender equality.
The signatories of the declaration also want to put an end to the militarisation of the EU and propose the holding of a pan-European conference for peace and collective security. They call for the creation of a single asylum system and a migration policy based on solidarity and responsibility, particularly with regard to the rescue of migrants in the Mediterranean. This requires the reform of the so-called ‘Dublin Regulation’.
Finally, the statement denounces the neoliberal orientation of the European treaties "imposed without the consent of the people, and sometimes against their will", taking as an example the ECB's mandate focused on inflation, which is beyond any democratic control. Here, the signatories want to draft a new charter for "sovereign democracy" in Europe.
A modus operandi yet to be defined
The contours of this ongoing work have not yet been defined. According to one source, this work could build on the structure already in place for the Forum. It is supported by a small committee of about fifteen coordinators who meet monthly, and a larger committee that meets every two or three months.
However, some fear that the initiative will become a new space for endless discussions, as Benoît Hamon did. The initiator of the Generation.s movement told EUROPE of his fatigue with this "talking" left, when it is time to take action and "move mountains".
"I think our expectations are few, we hope that the Forum is more than just applauding each other speeches, speeches which are all probably recited by heart", said David Adler, spokesman for DiEM25, the movement launched by Yanis Varoufakis, a Greek academic and former finance minister. Mr Adler stressed, with reference to the pan-European European Spring movement (launched by Generation.s and DiEM25 among others), the need to set up a single "truly" transnational movement with a structured and coherent political vision.
Rejection of unilateral exit from the EU
Most participants and speakers seemed to reject as a whole the possibility of a "Lexit" or plan B, as advocated by the French movement La France insoumise by Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
"It is a credible option for those who think so", commented Mr Hamon. "Whether it is credible to save public services, to save our labour rights? I don't believe for a second", he criticised, before raising his claims: "There are only European solutions to the European crisis”. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)