On Tuesday, 27 February, ‘Now the People’ – an alliance of left-wing parties and movements that is composed of ten or so European parties and movements such as La France Insoumise, Podemos, Sinistra, and even Die Linke – published its campaign manifesto. The document highlights climate change and inequality against a backdrop of combating the far right.
With the European elections just over three months away, the various parties – which met in Copenhagen on 16 February – intend, first and foremost, to emphasise taxing the richest people and windfall profits in order to “reduce social inequalities”. Among other things, the document calls for the EU to “step up” its fight against tax evasion by, for example, instituting “the blacklisting of European tax havens”.
The document also outlines the alliance’s vision with regard to the environment. On this issue, the left-wing parties are calling for there to be greater ambition with respect to the environment and environmental planning. In order to achieve climate neutrality, they recommend eliminating subsidies for “environmentally [damaging] and climate-damaging activities”, particularly in the fossil fuel sector. The text summarises, “The large emitters must pay the most”.
A section of the manifesto is also devoted to combating the far right and “the spread of its hate speech”. Co-chair of The Left group in the European Parliament, Manon Aubry told EUROPE on Monday, 26 February, “The general principle is to resist the far right. This principle must be stated very clearly” (see EUROPE 13358/20).
Still on the subject of the topics on which The Left group is attempting to set itself up as a bulwark against the far right, the document – which the left-wing groups co-wrote – also intends to make women’s right to control their own bodies one of its hobbyhorses.
Furthermore, the document emphasises employment, wages, the fight against austerity, and even the right to housing by making “large investments” in the construction of new social housing. Beyond the EU’s borders, the alliance reiterates its support for the “right to freedom and self-determination” and believes that this support should be “strengthened” and coupled with the imposition of “strong targeted sanctions against invading powers”, referencing Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine and the war in Gaza.
Finally, The Left group in the European Parliament has repeatedly made transparency within the European Parliament a priority. The manifesto endorses this stance by calling for lobbies to be driven out of the European Parliament. The alliance concludes, “To break with this model, we will be defending an in-depth change to the treaties and policies”.
See the document: https://aeur.eu/f/b16 (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)