Ist Finnlands Hinwendung zum Thatcherismus noch aufzuhalten?

Ein Gespräch mit Li Andersson, Parteivorsitzende der finnischen Linkspartei Vasemmistoliitto (Linksbündnis), über die Prioritäten und Herausforderungen der finnischen Linke vor der Europawahl.

Im Vorfeld der Wahl zum Europäischen Parlament im Juni 2024 führt die Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung eine Reihe von Interviews mit Parteien und Kandidat*innen aus der ganzen EU durch, um den Wahlkampf, die politischen Forderungen und die Herausforderungen für die politische Linke in den jeweiligen Ländern und in Europa zu diskutieren.

Duroyan Fertl sprach mit Li Andersson, EU-Kandidatin und Parteivorsitzende der finnischen Linkspartei Vasemmistoliitto über die Prioritäten der finnischen Linken in diesem Jahr.

Welche Prioritäten hat sich Vasemmistoliitto im diesjährigen Europawahlkampf gesetzt? Was sind Eure wichtigsten Wahlkampfthemen und Forderungen?

Wir wollen den Wähler*innen vor Augen führen, dass die aktuelle Situation in Finnland das ist, was herauskommt, wenn Rechtskonservative mit Rechtsextremen oder Rechtspopulisten koalieren. Auf nationaler Ebene beobachten wir historische Angriffe auf Gewerkschaften und Arbeitnehmer*innen, extreme Sparmaßnahmen im Bereich der sozialen Sicherheit und im Gesundheitswesen sowie Rückschritte in der Klima- und Umweltpolitik. Unsere wichtigste Botschaft ist, dass wir in den Europawahlen dafür sorgen müssen, dass sich diese Entwicklungen auf europäischer Ebene nicht wiederholen – dass bei den Europawahlen genau das auf dem Spiel steht.

Unsere wichtigsten Themen sind Arbeitnehmer*innenrechte und die Notwendigkeit, eine ambitionierte europäische Sozial- und Arbeitsmarktpolitik zu verfolgen. Natürlich hätte in den letzten Jahren viel mehr getan werden können, aber dennoch hat die EU einiges erreicht, insbesondere verglichen mit dem, was die rechte Regierung in Finnland gerade tut. Außerdem ist es nötig, in den kommenden Jahren auf EU-Ebene Jugendrechte, Jungendarbeitslosigkeit und die psychische Gesundheitskrise in den Fokus stellen. Des Weiteren ist natürlich eine ambitionierte Klima- und Umweltpolitik zentral. In all diesen Bereichen könnte ein potentieller Wahlsieg der rechten oder rechtsextremen Parteien den größten Schaden anrichten. Aus diesem Grund stellen wir diese Themen in den Mittelpunkt unseres Wahlkampfs.

Lesen Sie den vollständigen Artikel auf der Website der Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung - Büro Brüssel.

Opposing Finland’s Thatcherist Turn

An interview with Li Andersson, MEP candidate and leader of the Finnish Left Alliance, Vasemmistoliitto, about the challenges facing the Finnish Left in 2024.

As the European Parliament elections this June draw nearer, the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation is conducting a series of interviews with left-wing parties and candidates from across the EU on the election campaign, their political programmes, and the challenges facing left-wing forces domestically and at a European level.

The foundation’s Duroyan Fertl spoke to Li Andersson, MEP candidate and leader of the Finnish Left Alliance, Vasemmistoliitto, about her party’s priorities in this super election year.

What are Vasemmistoliitto’s key priorities in this European Parliament election campaign? What are your key campaign areas or flagship demands?

Our narrative in these elections revolves around reminding voters that the current situation in Finland is what happens when the conservative right wing teams up with the far right or populist right. We are seeing historic attacks against trade unions and workers at a national level, with extreme austerity cuts in social security and health care services, and backwards steps on climate and environmental policy. Our main message is that in the European elections we need to make sure this same development is not replicated on a European level, that this is what is at stake in the European elections.

The main issues we are talking about are workers’ rights, and the need for the EU to pursue ambitious social and labour market policies. Much more could have been done in the past few years, of course, but what has come out of the EU has been fairly good, especially compared to what Finland’s right-wing government is doing. We are also highlighting the need for the EU to focus on youth rights, youth unemployment, and the mental health crisis in the coming years. Of course, we are also talking about the need to continue with an ambitious climate and environmental policy.

These are all areas where a potential right-wing or far-right electoral victory would have the most damaging effect, so we are placing them at the heart of our main narrative in this election.

Read the full article at Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung - Brussels Office.

«Wir besinnen uns auf unsere Grundwerte zurück»

Ein Gespräch mit Frederikke Hellemann, Kandidatin der rot-grünen Allianz, über die Herausforderungen für die dänische Linke im Jahr 2024.

Im Vorfeld der Wahl zum Europäischen Parlament im Juni 2024 führt die Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung eine Reihe von Interviews mit Parteien und Kandidat*innen aus der ganzen EU durch, um den Wahlkampf, ihre politischen Forderungen und die Herausforderungen für die Linke in ihren Ländern und in Europa zu diskutieren.

Duroyan Fertl sprach mit Frederikke Hellemann, der Nummer zwei auf der Liste der dänischen Linkspartei Enhedslisten (EL), über die Prioritäten der dänischen Linken in diesem Jahr.

Was sind die Prioritäten von Enhedslisten für diese Europawahl?

Unsere Priorität in diesem Wahlkampf ist, die Menschen davon zu überzeugen, dass Enhedslisten auf ihrer Seite steht. Wir wollen ein sicheres, grünes und gerechtes Europa schaffen, das sich gegen die Auswirkungen des Klimawandels schützt. Mehr als der Hälfte des Trinkwassers in Dänemark ist mit Pestiziden und PFAS – sogenannten «ewige Chemikalien» – verunreinigt. In Südeuropa erleben wir Waldbrände und Überschwemmungen. All das sind Anzeichen dafür, dass Europa weder sicher noch gesund ist. Dagegen können wir nur angehen, wenn wir den grünen Wandel vollziehen.

Dazu müssen alle an einem Strang ziehen und die Verschmutzer*innen, die Reichsten, müssen das zahlen. Zum Glück schafft man, wenn etwa Häuser renoviert werden, Windräder gebaut und all das tut, was für ein grünes Europa nötig ist, viele gut bezahlte Arbeitsplätze. Und natürlich wollen wir sicherstellen, dass für diese Arbeitsplätze Tarifverträge gelten.

Deshalb sind unsere Prioritäten Klimaschutz und Artenvielfalt. Wir wollen zu Ende führen, was wir mit dem Grünen Deal, dem Naturwiederherstellungsgesetz und den Vorschlägen zur Landwirtschaft begonnen haben. Wir wollen auch dafür sorgen, dass Geld für die richtigen Zwecke ausgegeben wird. Wir setzen uns dafür ein, das EU-Vergaberecht wieder zu öffnen, damit wir Tarifverträge fordern können, wenn wir als Regierungen oder als Kommunen einkaufen. Wir wollen ein faires Europa und ein besseres Abkommen für Flüchtlinge, damit sie gerechter auf die Mitgliedstaaten verteilt werden und die Kosten von den Reichen getragen werden.

Lesen Sie den vollständigen Artikel auf der Website der Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung - Büro Brüssel.

“Back to Basics”

An interview with Red-Green Alliance candidate Frederikke Hellemann on the challenges facing the Danish Left in 2024.

As the European Parliament elections this June draw nearer, the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation is conducting a series of interviews with left-wing parties and candidates from across the EU on the election campaign, their political programmes, and the challenges facing left-wing forces domestically and at a European level.

The foundation’s Duroyan Fertl spoke to Frederikke Hellemann, second on the list for Danish Left-Green Alliance, or Enhedslisten, about the Danish Left’s priorities in this super election year.

What are Enhedslisten’s key priorities or campaign areas in this European Parliament election campaign?

For this campaign, we have an umbrella theme of convincing people that Enhedslisten is on their side. This means creating a Europe that is safe, green, and just, that is safe from climate change. We are finding dangerous pesticides and PFAS — so-called “forever chemicals” — in over half of the drinking water in Denmark. We see flooding and forest fires in the south of Europe. All these things point to a Europe that is not safe and not healthy and the only way to combat these things is to complete the green transition.

For this to happen we need everyone on board, and to make sure that it is the polluters — the richest — who pay. Luckily, when you renovate homes, when you build windmills, when you do all the things that are necessary to create a green Europe, you also create many well-paying jobs. And, of course, we want to make sure that those jobs have collective agreements.

Therefore, for us the key priorities are going to be climate action and biodiversity — to finish what we started with the Green Deal, with the Nature Restoration Law, and with the proposals touching on agriculture. We are also campaigning on ensuring public money is spent in the right way. We want to reopen the EU Public Procurement law so we can demand collective agreements when we are buying as governments or as municipalities. We want a fair Europe and a better deal for refugees, with a fairer division among member states, and for all of this to be paid for by the rich.

Read the full article at Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung - Brussels Office.

„Wir müssen den Menschen Hoffnung geben“

Ein Gespräch mit Hanna Gedin von der schwedischen Linkspartei über die Prioritäten und Herausforderungen der schwedischen Linken vor der Europawahl.

Im Vorfeld der Wahl zum Europäischen Parlament im Juni 2024 führt die Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung eine Reihe von Interviews mit Parteien und Kandidat:innen aus der ganzen EU durch, um den Wahlkampf, ihre politischen Forderungen und die Herausforderungen für die politische Linke in den jeweiligen Ländern und in Europa zu diskutieren. Duroyan Fertl sprach mit Hanna Gedin, der Nummer zwei auf der Liste der schwedischen Linkspartei Vänsterpartiet, über die aktuellen Prioritäten der schwedischen Linken.

Welche Prioritäten setzt sich die Vänsterpartiet für diese Europawahl? Was sind die wichtigsten Wahlkampfthemen und Forderungen?

Wir haben drei Prioritäten in diesem Wahlkampf: Klimawandel, gute und sichere Arbeitsplätze, und die Lebenshaltungskosten-Krise. In mancher Hinsicht ist die EU beim Klimaschutz progressiver als die rechte schwedische Regierung, die gerade klimapolitische Errungenschaften der letzten Jahre wieder zunichtemacht. Dennoch verbietet das auf EU-Ebene vorherrschende neoliberale Dogma staatliche Beihilfemaßnahmen für die gewaltigen Investitionen, die für den grünen Wandel nötig sind. Es muss den EU-Mitgliedstaaten erlaubt werden, massiv in eine gerecht gestaltete sozial-ökologische Transformation, in die Schaffung von Arbeitsplätzen und in eine bessere Lebensqualität für viele Menschen zu investieren. Gleichzeitig muss die EU aufhören, die fossile Industrie zu subventionieren.

Beim Thema gute Arbeitsplätze geschieht die Priorisierung von Kapital und Wettbewerb in der EU zu Lasten der Qualität der Arbeit. Ein Beispiel dafür ist die aktuelle Debatte um die Richtlinie zur Plattformarbeit. Wir wollen außerdem die Regeln für das öffentliche Beschaffungswesen ändern, die den niedrigsten Preis zum Hauptkriterium für die Auftragsvergabe gemacht haben, was zu Sozialdumping führt. Zusammen mit den europäischen Gewerkschaften fordern wir eine Erneuerung des öffentlichen Vergabewesens, die Sozialklauseln und Tarifverhandlungen in den Vordergrund stellt.

Letztlich sehen wir bei den Lebenshaltungskosten, dass die Inflation zu mehr Armut und sozialer Ungerechtigkeit geführt hat, während gleichzeitig Schwedens Großkonzerne historische Gewinne erzielen. Wir müssen eine neue Gesellschaftsform aufbauen, von der alle Menschen profitieren statt nur einige wenige. Ein tiefliegender Grund für die Wohnungskrise in Schweden – die durch Wohnungsknappheit und steigende Mieten verursacht wird – ist, dass Wohnraum auf dem europäischen Markt schlicht als Ware angesehen wird, was uns daran hindert, staatliche Beihilfen für den Bau neuer Wohnungen zu vergeben und öffentliche Wohnungsunternehmen dazu zwingt, die Marktregeln einzuhalten.

Lesen Sie den vollständigen Artikel auf der Website der Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung - Büro Brüssel.

 

”We need to give people hope”

An interview with Hanna Gedin from the Swedish Left Party Vänsterpartiet on the priorities and challenges of the Swedish Left ahead of the European elections.

In the lead up to the 2024 European Parliament elections this June, the Rosa Luxemburg-Stiftung is conducting a series of interviews with parties and candidates from across the EU on the election campaign, their political demands, and the challenges for left forces domestically and at a European level.

Duroyan Fertl spoke to Hanna Gedin, second on the list for Swedish left party Vänsterpartiet, about the Swedish left’s priorities this year.

What are Vänsterpartiet’s key priorities in this European Parliament election campaign? What are your key campaign areas or flagship demands?

There are three key priorities for this campaign: the climate transition, securing good and safe jobs, and the cost of living crisis. In some respects, the EU is more progressive on climate than the right-wing Swedish government, which is now dismantling years of climate policies, but the neoliberal dogma that prevails at the EU level prevents state aid measures to deliver the large investments needed for the green transition. EU member states must be allowed to make huge investments for a just transition, creating jobs and a better life for many people, and the EU must stop subsidising the fossil industry.

On the issue of securing good jobs, the EU’s prioritising of capital and competition comes at the expense of job quality – the recent fight around the platform work directive is a case in point. We also want to change the rules around public procurement, where securing the lowest price has been made the key condition for making procurements, something that leads to social dumping. Alongside the European trade unions, we are calling for a new kind of procurement where social clauses and collective bargaining are made the key factors.

Finally, on the cost of living, we can see that inflation has led to more poverty and increased social injustice, while at the same time the big companies in Sweden are making historic profits. We need to build a different kind of society, one that works for all the people, not just for a few. One reason we have a housing crisis in Sweden – which is being caused by a shortage in apartments and increasing rents – is because housing is deemed to be just another commodity on the European market, preventing us from using state aid to build new housing and forcing public housing companies to operate under market rules.

Read the full article at Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung - Brussels Office.

Northern Lights? Nordic lessons for the just transition

For many, Scandinavia is synonymous with social democracy, high union density, public ownership, and progressive governments inclined to climate action and sustainable policies. A recent study tour to Norway and Denmark, hosted by Rosa Luxemburg Foundation’s New York and Brussels offices, found that both countries still struggle with entrenched interests – local and international – holding back a genuine “just transition”.

The five-day study tour in October brought ten experts – legislators, researchers, and activists – from North America and Europe to Norway and Denmark. It was the aim of the tour to explore the renewable energy landscape in Scandinavia, and to exchange experiences from both sides of the Atlantic around building a “just transition”: a greening of the economy in a fair and inclusive manner that creates decent work opportunities and leaves no one behind.

Taking as its starting point the role and strategies of left parties, trade unions and climate justice groups in the Nordic region, the visit also looked at the larger challenges, including the regional and global dynamics surrounding a green transition. The results were challenging, and sometimes inspiring, but contradictory.

Leading on renewables?

Denmark and Norway are rightly seen as world leaders on renewable energy, but this status is riddled with incongruities. While Norway’s hydro sector supplies over 99 percent of the country’s electricity needs and is more than 90 percent state-owned, wind power faces significant public opposition. Unlike hydro, onshore wind generation in Norway is 75 percent privately owned, largely exported for profit, and pays lower taxes than other energy sectors. Offshore wind production – which faces less criticism – mostly serves to electrify Norwegian oil and gas platforms.

Opposition to onshore wind has even emerged within Norway’s environmental movement and indigenous Sámi population, most notably around the Fosen wind farm in central Norway. In October 2021, Norway’s Supreme Court ruled the wind farm had been built in clear violation of the Sámi people’s human rights, but the government has failed to take any action. Both environmental groups and the Sámi people continue to protest against the wind farm, and the case has only helped deepen public opposition to wind energy in the country.

Read the full report at Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung - Brussels Office or Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung - New York Office. 

Denmark’s left in crisis?

Denmark’s radical left party, the Red Green Alliance, is in a spin. At the November 1 general election, it lost a quarter of its support, a third of its seats, and its influence with government. Alongside the immediate financial and political ramifications, the result has opened up both internal and public debate on what went wrong and why – exposing strategic disagreements over the party’s direction.

This was the Red Green Alliance’s (RGA) third electoral retreat in a row, following the 2019 national election and last year’s municipal vote. The party won just 5.1 percent of the vote, down from 6.9 percent in 2019 and its historic high-water mark of 7.8 percent in 2015. The result is worse if you consider the party was averaging 8.1 percent support when the election was called in October. Compared to expectations during the campaign, the election results came as something of a shock.

In the regions, the party’s vote continued to drop, with many voters turning to the Social Democrats or the Green Left party, and confining RGA support largely to the big urban centres. There too the party faced setbacks, with many supporters of radical change backing the new Independent Greens or the environmentalist Alternative instead.

The party’s Main Board soon announced an internal review and plans to address the sudden financial shortfall, but this review was pre-empted somewhat by an article in Politiken, Denmark’s main newspaper. In it, former party spokesperson and outgoing MP Pernille Skipper blamed the poor result on – among other things – outdated party structures, calling for an intensification of the “modernisation” process begun a decade and a half ago, and for greater political manoeuvrability for MPs.

Read the full article at Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung - Brussels Office.

Denmark to hold early elections as Social Democrats move right

On November 1, Denmark will vote, seven months ahead of schedule. Polls show left and right blocs almost neck-and-neck, and the risk of an outright win for the right-wing remains real. However, with Social Democratic Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen seeking to hold onto power through an unlikely coalition across the middle, a rightwards shift seems inevitable.

The early election was called when the Social Liberals, one of three smaller parties propping up the Social Democrat minority government, threatened a no-confidence motion after damaging criticisms in a report on the government’s handling of a Covid-19 mutation on Danish mink farms in 2020.

Frederiksen, widely applauded for her handling of the Covid pandemic, faced accusations of arrogance and abuse of power over the government’s cull of all 17 million of the country’s farmed mink. The official investigation revealed no legal basis for the cull, and while the Prime Minister avoided sanction, it has damaged her popularity.

Denmark is dominated by bloc politics and coalition governments, and both major political blocs – red (left) and blue (right) – currently sit even in the polls, with a slight advantage to the red bloc. With no obvious winner, two new parties – one nominally centrist, the other on the right – may decide the outcome.

Unusually, Frederiksen has called on centrist and centre-right parties to join her in a broad coalition across the political middle ground, to find "joint solutions to the country's major challenges”. While the Social Liberals, the Socialist People’s Party and the Moderates agree, the leaders of the two traditional opposition parties, the Liberals and the Conservatives, have rejected the idea.

The proposal is also opposed by parties on the far-right, and by the radical left Red-Green Alliance, another of the parties that has kept the government in power for the last three years. Indeed, Frederiksen’s proposed coalition is also deliberately designed to diminish left-wing influence on government, and to shift Danish politics further to the right.

Read the full article at Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung - Brussels Office.

Historic Copenhagen budget leaves Social Democrats out in the cold

Duroyan Fertl interviews Line Barfod, a former Enhedslisten MP and the current Mayor for Technical and Environmental affairs on Copenhagen Council.

On September 9, the 2023 budget for the City of Copenhagen was agreed in historic circumstances. For the first time in a century, Denmark’s Social Democratic Party – which has long treated Copenhagen as its crown jewel – was outside the deal. Instead, radical left party Enhedslisten (the “Red-Green Alliance”) took the lead in budget negotiations, delivering robust funding for social welfare and the climate, with support from parties of the centre, right and even far-right.

In November 2021 municipal elections, Enhedslisten eclipsed the Social Democrats in Copenhagen for the first time, taking a quarter of the vote. In the negotiations that followed, however, the Social Democrats held on to the coveted position of Lord Mayor thanks to support from the right-wing parties. Enhedslisten took responsibility for the Technical and Environmental, and Social Affairs, portfolios instead.

But in negotiations for the first budget since that vote, the Social Democrats, along with the Socialist People’s Party (or “Green Left”, as it now wants to be known internationally), found themselves outside the room, as their budget proposal failed to win support. Instead, Enhedslisten brokered a budget agreement that secured significant climate and welfare spending while bridging the political divide.

Rather controversially, Enhedslisten’s budget agreement was built on the support, not only of the political centre, but of parties of the right and even the extreme right, with the Danish People’s Party and even more radical Nye Borgelige (the “New Right”) both participating in negotiations and signing up to the agreement.

Being cut out of the budget is yet another massive defeat for Lord Mayor Sophie Hæstorp Andersen and the Social Democrats in Copenhagen, but what does the deal mean for Enhedslisten, and for the broader political situation in Denmark, where early elections will be held on 1 November?

The new 2023 budget agreement is a pretty big departure from the norm, and has left quite a few people scratching their heads. Why did Enhedslisten make a deal with parties of the centre and right, rather than with what many would consider your more natural allies on the left wing, the Social Democrats or Socialist People’s Party?

This is the first time ever in Copenhagen that the Lord Mayor, a social democrat, is not part of the budget, but we had thought the whole way through negotiations that we would make a budget with the Social Democrats. However, after four days of negotiations they still hadn’t delivered anything on climate, and only very little on welfare – both issues that we had said from the start were our key areas. This was particularly the case on the matter of the climate crisis – we simply couldn’t agree the budget unless we had agreement on something that really made a difference for the climate.

Read the full article at Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung - Brussels Office.

„Wir müssen mit Dänemark zusammenarbeiten, aber gleichberechtigter“

Duroyan Fertl interviewt Aaja Chemnitz Larsen, Mitglied des dänischen Parlaments für Inuit Ataqatigiit

In Kalaallit Nunaat (Grönland) errang die linke Partei Inuit Ataqatigiit („Volksgemeinschaft“) bei den Wahlen im vergangenen Jahr einen Erdrutschsieg und gewann 37 Prozent der Stimmen und 12 der 31 Sitze im Inatsisartut (Parlament Grönlands).

Das vergangene Jahr erwies sich jedoch als schwierig und führte zu einem Wechsel der Koalitionspartner. Unterdessen steht das Land vor zahlreichen Herausforderungen, da es einen Ausgleich zwischen wirtschaftlicher Entwicklung und sozialer Gerechtigkeit und Maßnahmen in den Bereichen Klimawandel und Umweltschutz herstellen muss und mit einer sich verändernden globalen Sicherheitslage konfrontiert ist, wobei Dänemark noch immer die Kontrolle über die auswärtigen Beziehungen und die Verteidigung hat.

Ihre Partei, die Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA), gewann im April letzten Jahres die vorgezogenen Wahlen in Grönland. Welche Erfahrungen hat die IA als linke Regierungspartei seither gemacht?

Der Schwerpunkt unserer nun bereits beinahe einjährigen Tätigkeit lag auf der Zusammenarbeit mit unseren Koalitionspartnern der Partei Naleraq, einer noch weiter links angesiedelten Partei als wir, die sich aber auch sehr stark auf die Unabhängigkeit Grönlands konzentrierte und dies viel früher tat als wir bei der IA.

Es ist normal, dass sich die grönländische Bevölkerung über die Unabhängigkeit Gedanken macht – wenn man sich die Geschichte anschaut, sieht man, dass wir schon 1953 unabhängig werden hätten können, als wir (zumindest auf dem Papier) mit Dänemark gleichberechtigt wurden.

Der Schwerpunkt lag sehr auf der Unabhängigkeit und darauf, wie wir in der Außenpolitik eine andere Rolle spielen können. Wir haben eine Redewendung: „Nichts über uns ohne uns“, was bedeutet, dass jede Diskussion über Grönland oder die Arktis im dänischen Parlament (das über unsere Außenpolitik verfügt) mit grönländischer Beteiligung geschehen sollte.

Wir haben uns also sehr auf diese Themen konzentriert. Die Zusammenarbeit mit der Naleraq verlief nicht immer reibungslos. Es war irgendwie chaotisch und es gab einen ziemlich großen internen Fokus auf diese Zusammenarbeit.

Sie haben kürzlich die Koalitionspartner gewechselt, von der Naleraq zur sozialdemokratischen Partei Siumut. Gab es andere politische Gründe für einen Wechsel der Koalitionspartner oder war es vor allem die Frage der Unabhängigkeit?

Ich denke, es ging vor allem um die Haltung gegenüber Dänemark. Ich denke, dass sowohl die Siumut als auch die IA verstehen, dass wir mit Dänemark zusammenarbeiten müssen, aber wir müssen dies auf viel gleichberechtigtere Weise tun.

Wir müssen eine gute Zusammenarbeit sicherstellen und respektvoll miteinander sprechen. Dies ist für uns bei der Inuit Ataqatigiit sehr natürlich, aber nicht unbedingt für die Naleraq.

Aus diesem Grund sind die auswärtigen Angelegenheiten – insbesondere die Beziehungen zu Dänemark, aber auch zu den USA – etwas, das in den grönländischen Zeitungen viele Schlagzeilen gemacht hat.

Jetzt sind wir also zur Siumut als Koalitionspartner gewechselt. Hoffentlich können wir uns jetzt viel mehr auf die außenpolitischen Fragen konzentrieren, mit denen wir uns befassen müssen.

Lesen Sie den vollständigen Artikel auf der Website der Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung - Büro Brüssel.

“We need to collaborate with Denmark, but in a more equal way”

Duroyan Fertl interviews Aaja Chemnitz Larsen, Member of the Danish Parliament for Inuit Ataqatigiit.

In Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland), the radical left party, Inuit Ataqatigiit (‘Community of the People’) won a landslide election last year, taking 37 percent of the vote and 12 of the 31 seats in the Inatsisartut (Greenlandic parliament). The past year has proved difficult, however, leading to a change in coalition partners. Meanwhile the country faces multiple challenges, balancing economic development and social justice with action on climate change and environmental protection, and an evolving global security situation, where Denmark still controls all foreign affairs and defence powers.

Your party, Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA), won Greenland’s snap elections in April last year. What have IA’s experiences as a left party in government been over this time?

The main focus for the nearly a year was on collaborating with our coalition partners Naleraq, which is a party even more left-wing than us but which also very much focused on achieving independence for Greenland and doing so much sooner than for us at IA.

Independence is, of course, something that is natural for the people of Greenland to think about - looking at history you can see that we could have been independent already in 1953 when we became an equal party (at least on paper) with Denmark.

The focus has been very much on independence, as well as on how we can play a different role in foreign affairs. We have a saying: “nothing about us without us”, meaning that every time something concerning Greenland or the Arctic is being discussed in the Danish parliament (which has authority over our foreign affairs) it should be with Greenlandic involvement.

So, we have been focusing very much on these issues. It hasn’t always been a smooth ride for us with Naleraq. It’s been kind of chaotic and there’s been quite an internal focus, I would say, on this collaboration.

You recently changed coalition partners, from Naleraq to the social democratic party, Siumut. Were there other policy reasons for changing coalition partners, or was it mainly the independence issue?

I think it was mostly about the attitude towards Denmark. I think both for Siumut and for IA we understand that we need to collaborate with Denmark, but we need to do it in a much more equal way.

We need to make sure that we have a good collaboration and talk respectfully to each other. This is something that is very natural for us in Inuit Ataqatigiit but not necessarily for Naleraq.

For this reason, foreign affairs - especially the relationship towards Denmark, but also towards the United States - is something that has been filling a lot of headlines in the Greenlandic newspapers.

So now we have changed to Siumut as a coalition partner. Hopefully now we’ll be able to focus much more on the external political issues that we need to deal with.

Read the full article at Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung - Brussels Office.

COVID-19: The EU has failed a test of solidarity. The price will be more austerity - and worse.

The European Union (EU) has been tested over its response to the COVID-19 pandemic - and it has been found sorely lacking. The resulting lack of vision, of solidarity in times of crisis, raises fundamental questions about the long-term viability of the bloc.

As the economic crisis caused by COVID-19 deepens, we have now entered the worst downturn since the Great Depression. The economic and political consequences are already massive – and will continue to grow.

In the space of just one month, International Labour Organisation predicted worldwide job losses grew from from 25 million to 305 million, with working hours lost equivalent to 124 million full time jobs in the first quarter of 2020 alone. By contrast, the crash of 2008-2009 led to the loss of approximately 22 million jobs worldwide.

The global economy was already heading into a downturn when the latest novel coronavirus struck. But it is now experiencing a unique crisis, one reaching deep into the productive sector and challenging established orthodoxies.

Panicked economic and social lockdowns to contain the pandemic have ground much production to a halt, while consumption has also shrunk massively. With millions now working from home, and millions more frontline workers all but sacrificed to the market, the logic of capitalist production and social organisation doesn’t seem quite so “logical” any more. The EU sits perched on a cliff-edge.

[Read the full article in TELESFORO MONZON eLab / Euskal Herrigintza Laborategia here, in Brave New Europe here, and in The Left in Berlin here].

Coronabonds or bust? - Gridlock over EU response poses an existential threat

The European Union’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has exposed a dangerous lack of solidarity between member states, as longstanding divisions over the future of European integration frustrate the fight against the coronavirus and the downturn it has caused – the worst since the Great Depression. After weeks of bungled responses, old fault lines between “north” and “south” have re-emerged, a marathon Eurogroup meeting on April 7 failing once again reach agreement. The European Union (EU) sits perched uncomfortably on an economic and political precipice, and the consequences could be massive.

The coronavirus pandemic has triggered a human catastrophe and economic crisis worldwide, with panicked lockdowns grinding economic gears to a near-halt. The global economy – already heading into a downturn when the coronavirus struck – is now experiencing a crisis that reaches deep into the productive sector of the economy, but the EU response has been patchwork and incoherent, a series of reactive and inadequate measures not equal to the scale of the problem.

The initial response came from national governments, most of whom instinctively closed their borders, locking down society and – eventually – industry. As the walls went up, desperate appeals from Italy for assistance fell on deaf ears, unheeded by all but China and Cuba, and Italy’s ambassador to the EU, warned that Europe’s leaders risk “going down in history like the leaders in 1914 who sleepwalked into World War I”. It was beginning to look like “European solidarity” was an idea for fairer weather.

The EU’s response

The European institutions shifted clumsily into catch-up mode, the European Central Bank (ECB) proposing a package of 120 billion euro to ensure liquidity in the financial and banking sector the same day that its President Christine Lagarde declared the central bank was “not here to close spreads” in sovereign debt markets. This brought a furious response from Italy, casting doubt on whether the ECB would provide member states the necessary support.

The ECB then announced its “bazooka” response – a €750 billion package of Quantitative Easing (QE) named the “Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme” (PEPP). To allow the rapid expansion of public debt and facilitate heavy government spending, the ECB can buy large amounts of government and corporate debt until the end of the year, with significantly more flexible rules than previously. It suspends the 33% purchasing limit on national bonds, includes Greek sovereign debt and the ECB will target short-term debt maturing in as little as 70 days. State aid rules have also been loosened.

Crucially, the “general escape clause” of the EU’s Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) was activated – pausing a mechanism responsible for imposing austerity on member states through inflexible deficit and debt limits and structural reforms. Unprecedented stuff – but still not enough, and concerns remain about what the short duration of the PEPP will mean for EU member states’ capacity to service the resulting debt during a recession.

The burgeoning crisis quickly spilled over into a high-stakes political showdown across the EU. When the Eurogroup – the eurozone’s finance ministers – met on March 24 to draft a longer term “pandemic crisis support” tool. The main proposal was fresh loans under the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the EU’s 410 billion euro bailout fund that allows eurozone members to draw a credit line worth 2 percent of their economic output – with conditions. This option is strongly supported by fiscally more conservative countries, like Germany and the Netherlands.

[Read the full article in TrademarkBelfast and Rosa Luxembourg Stiftung - Brussels' Post Brexit Europe here].

Capitalism is not green: you can't solve the climate crisis without changing the system

This is the text of a speech given on behalf of Sinn Féin at the conference "O Capitalismo não é verde. Uma visão alternativa sobre as alterações climáticas" ("Capitalism is not green - an alternative view on climate change"), held on 13 September 2019 in Lisbon, Portugal. It was organised by the Portuguese Communist Party and the European United Left/ Nordic Green Left in the European Parliament.

The challenge of climate change is unprecedented, transcending national borders. I won’t tell you what you already know, but the earth is - literally - on fire. Massive fires are engulfing the world, the ice is melting and biodiversity loss is hitting record levels. Microplastics are now throughout our food chain, they are in the water we drink - even in the rain itself. The ecology of our entire planet is threatened with irretrievable mutilation.

We need urgent, radical actions - the rapid, far-reaching reorganisation of industry, energy, transport, and mass consumption patterns, and the massive transfer of clean technology to developing countries. There is just one problem: these actions are impossible under Capitalism.

Attempts to make climate a global political priority have been repeatedly led astray by corporate interests. The global climate agreements, from Kyoto to Paris, have woefully inadequate targets, and promote corporate-friendly, market-based mechanisms that simply do not work. Carbon markets don’t cut emissions, but they do create tradable “rights” to pollute, protecting the perverse incentive to profit off pollution.

When we aren’t being sold dodgy emissions markets and carbon offset “indulgences” for our climate sins, we are offered “green consumption” - electric cars, reusable plastic coffee cups, long-life light bulbs. This is also the underlying approach of most mainstream environmental groups and the major Greens parties. Worse, this consensus has been accepted by most environmental activists.

But leaving things to the market is a recipe for disaster. The internal logic of Capitalism is to constantly seek out new opportunities for profit - whatever the social or environmental cost. For capitalists, the climate crisis is less a threat than it is an opportunity for new markets and new profits. And even if the climate threat were solved, the massive over-exploitation of the planet would continue, and the threats to the global ecosystem would deepen.

So, no, Capitalism cannot be green. It is like the proverbial scorpion, that, after stinging the frog that was carrying him across the river on its back, condemning them both to death, could only offer in its defence: “I could not help myself. It is my nature.”

Despite becoming only the second country in the world to declare a climate emergency earlier this year, the Irish Government remains the third worst climate performer in the EU. While 25 percent of its electricity comes from wind, Ireland continues to support the fossil fuel industry, and imposes a regressive carbon tax that shifts the costs of corporate pollution onto ordinary working people.

The Irish government has urged people to “lead by example” by buying electric cars, but for the vast majority of working people, this is a fantasy. Meanwhile, public transport in Ireland - which barely exists outside of Dublin - is facing one cut after another. And now, with the EU’s Railway Package, we are facing further privatisation, removing a vital sector from public hands.

It’s not all negative, of course. In May a delegation of Irish civil servants visited Copenhagen to research cycleways. Dublin has four new - albeit separate and disconnected - Climate Action Plans, each run by a different council, and some of the initiatives in these Plans are good. The most innovative is to build Ireland’s largest district heating system by piping excess industrial heat from Poolbeg peninsular to warm homes. There are also plans to install solar panels on all new public housing, adaptation plans, and awareness raising, but this is all just a drop in the ocean.

Another idea now gaining support in Ireland and elsewhere is to plant trees to draw down carbon. But Ireland already has forest plantations. The countryside is covered in countless hectares of fast-growing Sitka spruce - an invasive, non-native species. These plantations are dead zones - eerily quiet, without bird or animal life. They are green deserts, which exist solely as a cash crop. Many farmers want to invest in mixed plantations of native, broad-leaf species, but the supports available to Sitka plantations are not yet available for more sustainable options.

Onshore fracking was banned in most of Ireland two years ago, but in the six counties still under British rule there are plans to start operations, right next to the border, a move that would effectively render any ban null and void.

Earlier this year, Sinn Féin helped push a Climate Emergency Bill through the Dáil, the national parliament. It would have made Ireland the fifth country in the world to ban oil and gas exploration by halting the issuing of new licences.

But because the Bill may have required the use of public money, the government used a procedural technicality to effectively freeze the legislation. Around the same time, it was revealed that a key advisor to the Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) had held secret meetings with a lobbyist for the oil sector.

Unfortunately, while they are formally better on fossil fuels, the Irish Greens also still accept the logic of the market. But because they are called “Green”, people still look to them for the answers. The challenge now is to change that conversation.

A further weakness of the Western ecological movement is its failure to put, not just Capitalism, but the issue of Imperialism, at the centre of its analysis. Capitalism has always been a global system, transferring wealth from developing countries to the nations at the centre of world capitalism, whether by direct force or commerce. The arms industry, and wars for oil and other resources, are everyday reminders of this.

So too are the vast palm oil plantations in developing countries, and the recent EU-Mercosur trade deal. The Mercosur deal encouraged the apocalyptic fires in the Amazon by providing an incentive to clear more land for cheap beef and soy for the EU. But it is also about expanding the market for German cars - securing short-term profits for a dirty manufacturing sector already entering recession.

Mercosur has an Irish angle too. Cheap beef from Brazil flooding into the EU market will undercut more sustainably produced Irish beef. It will drive Irish beef farmers out of business, destroying rural society in Brazil and Ireland, and damaging the environment as well as the development of sustainable agriculture globally.

Why? Because the scorpion only cares about profits.

The largest power station in Ireland runs almost entirely on coal from Colombia. Most of this coal is from the Cerrejon mine, where trade union leaders and environmental and indigenous activists are regularly murdered. The Irish nationally-owned energy corporation, the Electricity Supply Board, also has massive investments in coal mines in the Philippines, where local activists are also being murdered.

The ruling classes in the Global North - including the EU - have an historic debt for the exploitation and destruction of the developing world, a debt which is growing every day. Any climate action and transition to “green jobs” must therefore have climate justice, repaying this global debt, at its heart, or it will be nothing but a new “Green Imperialism”.

In the EU, we are caught in a capitalist web, with a failed Emissions Trading Scheme, a stifling Energy Treaty, and state aid and competition rules that restrict urgent direct action by national governments. We are now hearing more and more talk of a “green deal” and “green growth”. At best, this is a half-hearted attempt at green washing; at worst, it is cover for business as usual.

Brexit will make things worse too - a new tax on heavy polluters, to replace the already ineffective EU ETS in Britain after Brexit, will see a reduction to nearly half the EU carbon market price.

The situation seems so daunting, many are beginning to question if we can succeed. A recent article in the New Yorker put it plainly, arguing “The climate apocalypse is coming. To prepare for it, we need to admit that we can’t prevent it.” There you have it! Behind all the greenwashing, all the electric cars, lightbulbs, reusable coffee cups and other junk, this is what the “green capitalists” and “progressive liberals” have to offer.

They can imagine the end of the species, but they can’t imagine the end of Capitalism.

Those of us who can imagine it must do more than just imagine. It is inspiring today to see and hear about local initiatives showing that there are alternatives ways of doing things. We must connect our ambitions to stop climate change to the reality on the ground - to show people that genuine change is possible, and how it will impact, and can improve, their daily life. This isn’t enough, of course, but it shows there is a way, that the technology and know-how exists - if there is the political will.

But we must do still more.

I’m not going to rattle off numbers about greenhouse gases, and targets and so on, but I do want to give you one number. 14 months. In November 2020, the 26th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC - or “COP26” - is scheduled to take place in Glasgow. If the EU, US, and other Western countries are to act meaningfully on climate, and begin the necessary policy processes, the political point of no return will effectively be at COP26.

Acting in a decade will be too late. For this reason, we should also work to build the largest possible popular mobilisation around COP26 next year. Here in Europe, in the historical cradle of Capitalism and Imperialism, we have an opportunity - and a duty - to make this fight winnable. 

The new climate movement is already having its internal debates about whether you can solve the climate crisis without changing the system, or if a greener Capitalism is enough. The left needs to join in and help strengthen this movement, as well as the anti-Capitalist position in that movement.

We can’t replace Capitalism tomorrow, but we can build real alternatives in our communities that bring people together, giving them a glimpse of what a sustainable, socialist, society could look like. At the same time, we can help bring the largest number of people onto the streets, forcing governments to act, even against their will. And with these people we can build a larger political movement for change.

And remember, we are facing a battle - not just for human civilisation (such as it is) - but for billions of other species on this small blue, fragile, planet as well. We have no option other than to win.

Ireland: Sinn Féin fights welfare attacks in the north

Sinn Féin MLA and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness

On Monday March 9, Sinn Féin announced it would oppose the new welfare reform bill in the northern Irish Assembly, accusing its government partners – the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) – of acting in bad faith on protecting welfare recipients.

Sinn Féin is in a power-sharing arrangement as part of the Good Friday peace agreement signed in 1998, which sought to end the violence that had wracked Ireland's north since the late 1960s, known as The Troubles.

The same day, Sinn Féin moved a Petition of Concern — supported by the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) — in the Assembly to prevent the passage of the bill, which would impose cuts to welfare. This forced the DUP Minister for Social Development, Mervyn Storey, to withdraw the bill and re-enter talks to resolve the stand-off.

The welfare reform bill forms part of the recent Stormont House Agreement (SHA) – a five party agreement covering national identity issues, welfare reform and government finance in northern Ireland that was agreed to on December 23 last year, after several months of fraught negotiations.

Throughout last year, disagreements between Sinn Féin and the DUP on a range of issues escalated dangerously, and there was growing risk that failure to arrive at an agreement on the SHA might bring down the Stormont administration.

Ireland: “Political” arrests used to intimidate water charge protesters

Jobstown protest against water charges

A series of coordinated early morning police raids in south-west Dublin have seen at least seventeen people – including several left-wing politicians – arrested for attending a peaceful rally against water charges last November, amid claims of “political policing” and intimidation.

Shortly before 7am on Monday February 9, six police arrested Anti-Austerity Alliance (AAA) TD and Socialist Party member Paul Murphy at his home while he was still in his pyjamas, having breakfast with his children.

Two AAA councillors on South Dublin Council – Mick Murphy and Kieran Mahon – were also arrested in separate raids the same morning, as was Scott Masterson from socialist republican group Éirigí. They were held for several hours, questioned, and then released without charge.

The following morning, ten police burst into the home of a 16 year old boy, arresting him as he got dressed for school. Another three people were arrested by the same morning, and then later released, amid ominous warnings that another 40 people were going to be arrested.

The pattern was repeated again on February 11 and 12, with four arrests on Wednesday morning, and five on Thursday, including boys aged only 14 and 15. All were released without charge, but their files have been sent to the Department of Public Prosecution, and charges are expected at a later date.

Outcry at plans to make a comedy about Irish Famine

Irish Famine Memorial in Dublin

On 30 December, the Irish Times set off waves of outrage and disbelief when it reported that British TV station Channel 4 was commissioning a comedy set to the backdrop of the Irish Famine.

The Famine (or An Gorta Mór, as it is known in Irish), lasted from 1845 until 1852, and saw well over one million people in Ireland die from starvation and disease.

Many of them were buried without coffins, in mass pauper graves; others were left where they dropped for fear of contagion, their mouths green from the grass they ate in desperation to stay alive.

For many that died, their names and deaths were not recorded; their memory lost forever. A further one and a half million emigrated during the Famine to places like Boston, New York, Liverpool and Australia.

The Irish population dropped by 30 percent in six short years, and the political and cultural impact of the Famine can still be felt to this day. So too can the demographic impact – the Irish population has never properly recovered from the impact of the Famine, and is still lower than pre-Famine levels.

A Change.org petition calling on Channel 4 to not make the show has already reached close to 40,000 signatures.

Irish water protesters bring Dublin to a standstill

Up to 100,000 protesters shut down Dublin city on December 10 in the latest mass demonstration against the introduction of water charges.

Protesters from across the country braved media hysteria, riot police and police barricades, and the threat of a fierce storm to descend on the centre of Dublin, placing Leinster House – home of the Dáil (Irish parliament) – and other government buildings in “lockdown”.

The protest – organised by the Right2Water campaign – was the third major protest against the charges in two months, following on from a 100,000 strong march in Dublin on 11 October and protests across Ireland on 1 November that attracted around 200,000 in dozens of towns and cities.

The introduction of new charges on water use, levied via new state-owned company Irish Water, has brought years of anger with austerity cuts and government arrogance to a head.

Not only is the cost of water already covered by general taxation, however, but it is also widely believed that water charges are only the first step towards the privatisation of Irish Water and water charges.

Lift Redfern Station Campaign

Redfern Railway station is one of the busiest stations in the country, with over 40,000 people passing through its gates each day, yet it doesn't have a single lift.

Never mind the residents nearby with children, disabilities or heavy luggage; never mind the elderly, frail or unwell; never mind the thousands of students of diverse backgrounds and needs who use the station on a daily basis.

No, if you want to catch or get off a train at Redfern, you have to climb one of the steep concrete staircases, or - if you're lucky - catch an equally steep escalator to the underground platforms.

For many people, this challenge is simply too difficult - or too dangerous - to seriously contemplate, and they are effectively excluded from relying on rail transport to get around. This is an outrage, and is totally unacceptable.

It is, of course, nothing new, nor is the empty government rhetoric about 'reviews' and 'plans' for upgrades. Successive governments have been making - and breaking - promises to fix the situation since at least the 1990s.

So, in January this year, the people of Redfern launched the broad-based Lift Redfern campaign to get the NSW government to pull its finger out.