Med brexit blev den britiske grænse mellem Irland og det nordlige Irland forvandlet til en ydre grænse for EU’s indre marked og toldunionen. Det skabte en række nye problemer, der ikke kan løses, imens grænsen eksisterer.
Den irske grænse løber 500 kilometer tværs gennem boliger, bygninger, kirkegårde og marker. Der er mere end 300 grænseovergange, men kun 11 ligger ved egentlige hovedveje.
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the injustice and inefficiency of the privatising, outsourcing and commodifying of vital public services. It has also exposed the inadequacy of the current system in dealing with the mass job losses from national lockdowns, magnifying levels of inequality already worsened by several decades of austerity. However, there has also been growth in awareness of the importance of such services in times of crisis, underlining the need for strong, public, services.
Read the full article at Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung - Brussels Office.
The idea of a ‘Green Deal’, or ‘Green New Deal’, has increasingly been seen as a panacea for the unfolding climate crisis. Since the outbreak of the Covid-19, it has also been presented as a solution to the global health and economic crises unfolding in the wake of the pandemic. In Europe, the call for an ‘EU Green Deal’ emerged in 2019, centring around a target of European Union carbon neutrality by 2050. This year EU leaders made this a binding target, setting a further preliminary greenhouse gas emissions reduction target of at least 55% by 2030 (compared to 1990 levels).
Such a rapid transition to green energy and climate neutrality is an urgent necessity, but while welcome, the promised reductions have also been criticised as inadequate. Worse yet, they are unlikely to be met. The reliance on market mechanisms and emissions trading has proved worse than useless, cuts foreshadowed in 2015’s Paris Agreement have simply not eventuated, and without a major change in approach, the latest pledges by world governments at the COP26 summit in Glasgow are likely to go the same way.
Read the full article at Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung - Brussels Office.
For the past two years, the Copenhagen-based Democracy in Europe Organisation (DEO) has teamed up with the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Brussels Office (RLS) on a joint project to address the rise of the populist right and the future of European democracy. This collaboration brought together the political left in Germany, Sweden and Denmark for a number of workshops and has now culminated in the publication of a new anthology: Don’t Panic – Analysis and Strategy on Right-Wing Populism.
Contributors include political actors and analysts such as Swedish anti-fascist researcher Mathias Wåg, DIE LINKE policy advisor Kerstin Wolter, Enhedslisten MP Rosa Lund and Vänsterpartiet Party Secretary Aron Etzler, among others. Divided into three sections, the book examines the development of far-right populism in Germany, Sweden and Denmark and the counter-strategies and tactics deployed by the left. It is an informative and thought-provoking contribution to understanding and combating right-wing populism in Europe and sets out some visions for building a stronger left alternative.
Read the full article at Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung - Brussels Office.
Download the book as a PDF.
On 10 June, the Copenhagen-based Democracy in Europe Organisation (DEO) partnered with the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Brussels Office to host a debate with economist Dr Karen Helveg Petersen, author of Rent Capitalism: Economic Theory and Global Reality (2017), to look at the challenges and opportunities of the coronavirus crisis from a left-wing perspective.
Read the full article at Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung - Brussels Office.
The past year-and-a-half has been extraordinary. The global coronavirus pandemic has caused millions of deaths and triggered an economic crisis on a scale not seen in generations.
This crisis has exposed shortcomings in the neoliberal economic model, particularly in areas such as health and social services, as well as in overall economic democracy—weaknesses that could also serve as an opportunity for a more just, socially-oriented recovery.
The challenge, however, is how the left can use the current crisis to push for the democratisation and redistribution of ownership, and secure greater economic democracy.
Read the full article at Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung - Brussels Office.
On December 14, the Spanish Supreme Court unanimously ordered a re-trial of the contentious 2011 “Bateragune” case against Arnaldo Otegi and other Basque pro-independence leaders, on charges for which they have already served prison sentences. The kafkaesque decision makes a mockery of the rule of law and is a reminder of the entrenched power the political right holds within Spain’s judiciary. The EU has made a great show of condemning breaches of the rule of law in Poland and Hungary. Will it ever act on Spain’s abuses?
In 2011, Otegi - now general coordinator of the Basque abertzale (pro-independence) left party EH Bildu - was convicted along with Rafa Díez, Arkaitz Rodríguez, Sonia Jacinto and Miren Zabaleta, of trying to re-launch Batasuna, a political party declared illegal by Spain over links to the armed group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA - “Basque Homeland and Freedom“). They had been arrested in October 2009 during raids on the headquarters of the left-wing pro-independence trade union LAB, and charged with trying to “re-form the leadership of Batasuna on the instructions of ETA".
Otegi has always maintained his innocence concerning what became known as the "Bateragune” case - after the Basque word for “meeting place”. He argued that he and his co-accused were in fact meeting to design a new peace initiative to end the decades-long bloody violence plaguing his homeland. The arrests also brought a huge public response in the Basque Country - four days after the arrests, 50,000 supporters demonstrated for their release - and, despite the arrests, a new Basque peace initiative was indeed announced at a press conference of 100 abertzale left leaders the following month.
The logic of Spain’s charges is even more grotesque when you consider that, more than any other individual, Otegi was responsible for convincing ETA of the need to end their armed campaign. He was key in initiating and guiding the broad democratic discussion among pro-independence political activists that achieved firm popular support for this strategy. World-famous anti-apartheid and human rights activist Desmond Tutu described Otegi as “the leader of the Basque peace process”.
Nonetheless, Otegi and Diez were sentenced to 10 years jail each, while Sonia Jacinto, Arkaitz Rodriguez and Miren Zabaleta received eight years. The Supreme Court later reduced Otegi’s sentence to six and a half years, which he served in Logroño prison before being released in 2016. Meanwhile, ETA declared a unilateral ceasefire in 2010, announced its decommissioning, apologised for the harm it had caused, and by 2018 it had completely dismantled, ending all its activity after a five-decade campaign.
Otegi’s legal team appealed his sentence to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which in November 2018 overturned the original trial for having violated his fundamental rights. In particular, the European court concluded that Article 6.1 of the European Convention had been violated due to the court's lack of impartiality, with at least one judge having made comments indicating a pre-existing prejudice against Otegi. Nonetheless, it still took the Spanish courts almost two whole years to act on the decision of the ECHR, finally annulling the convictions in July this year.
By this time, Otegi and his co-defendants had already served their prison sentences and been released. It was only with the annulment of the trial in Spain, however, that a further part of Otegi’s sentence - imposed after he left prison - was ended, lifting a ban on him from holding public office. Predictably, when the annulment of Otegi’s ban on holding public office came, it did so just three weeks after the Basque Autonomous Community elections. While EH Bildu achieved its best result ever, finishing as the second largest party with 28 percent of the vote, Otegi was unable to stand as a candidate.
When Otegi was arrested in 2009, Basque pro-independence activists condemned it as an attempt to sabotage and undermine political initiatives developed by the Basque pro-independence movement to resolve the ongoing conflict and to strengthen democracy in the Basque Country. Indeed, the arrests were the first step in a five year period of intensified persecution by the Spanish state, not only of pro-independence activists, but of advocates of a Basque peace process in particular.
While Otegi’s credentials as peacemaker are widely recognised, the Spanish state’s policy remains that "everything that surrounds ETA is ETA”. This flawed outlook saturates Madrid’s attitude to the Basque people. In 2016, several Basque youth in the small pro-independence town of Altsasu got into an argument in a bar with two members of Spain’s paramilitary Guardia Civil, in civilian clothes. While video evidence suggests the altercation went no further than heated words, eight youth were charged with “terrorism resulting in injury” and posing a “terrorism threat.” Their families are still fighting to have them freed.
In the Bateragune case, the Spanish prosecutor's office sought a re-trial on the basis that a mere “procedural error” should not lead to Otegi being cleared of the charges. All sixteen judges of the Spanish Supreme Court's criminal chamber apparently agreed, and unanimously ordered the repetition of the trial. Such a decision - to re-hold the trial, after the ECHR has overturned it, and the sentences have already been completed - is unprecedented, and exposes the shameless abuse of the Spanish court system as a weapon against Madrid’s critics.
The decision is a
divisive issue even within the traditionally conservative judiciary,
with Spain’s National Court recently arguing against a re-trial. The new trial will be held, not only after those accused have already finished their sentences, but also very much after the fact. In reality, Batasuna was never rebuilt, and ETA has lain down arms and long since ceased to exist - precisely because of the efforts of those once again accused of terrorism, and despite the repeated interference of the Spanish state.
Why, then, has the Supreme Court decided to re-open the case? One reason is that trials of the Basque independence movement in Spain are never simply legal - they are always political. The persecution of Otegi is not only an infringement of his individual rights, it is also an attack on the Basque movement’s peaceful path towards independence, and a further warning to anyone - Basque, Catalan or otherwise - that in the Spanish state, Madrid’s authority remains absolute.
On this front, at least, it certainly won’t work. Responding to the Supreme Court’s announcement, Otegi accused the courts of wanting to criminalise the leadership of the pro-independence nationalist left, adding “They didn't tame us, they didn't bend us, they won't subdue us! Smile, we shall overcome!”, while Arkaitz Rodríguez pointed out that “12 years after our arrest, after having spent 6 years in jail in an absolutely unfair and illegal way, after a European annulment and without even that organisation already existing, they have decided to try us again for belonging to ETA. Democracy? What democracy?”.
The court’s move could also destabilise the balance of forces in Spain’s fragmented parliament. It comes only days after Otegi's party helped Spain's minority left-wing government approve the Spanish budget on its first reading. Unsurprisingly, then, the political right - apoplectic about what it considers a “social-communist” regime (due to the presence of Podemos and United Left ministers in the coalition) - resoundingly welcomed the court’s decision. The centre-right parties the Popular Party and Citizens reacted with joy, calling for the “full weight of justice” to fall on Arnaldo Otegi and his co-accused, as if they had not served unjust prison terms already.
The extreme right-wing party Vox also celebrated the decision, describing it as a “triumph of justice”, and repeated their demand that EH Bildu be outlawed. Vox considers both the left and independence movements to be threats to the integrity of the Spanish State - the Secretary-General of Vox even acted as a private prosecutor in the Catalan leaders’ trial. This is a view shared by some elements of the Spanish state, and many of these same forces, who yearn for the “order” of the Franco dictatorship, have been at the forefront of the persecution of both the Basque and Catalan independence movements.
The rapid growth of Vox, and its broadening support in organs of the Spanish state - the police and army in particular - is increasingly disturbing. Recent disclosures about Francoist and anti-democratic forces in the Spanish military suggest that ongoing connections exist between the party and elements of Spain’s armed forces, but the details remain - for now - unclear.
Nonetheless, the political-judicial absurdity decreed by the Spanish Supreme Court on Monday should act as a reminder - like the verdicts against the Catalan pro-independence leaders for organising a peaceful referendum, and the police violence on referendum day - that powerful forces in the Spanish state are not interested in democracy. The Spanish state has repeatedly instigated and sought out violence across the Spanish state to conceal its undemocratic nature and to maintain the status quo.
Until Spain's post-Francoist institutions - still teeming with those who would happily wind back the clock on democracy - are truly reformed, and the right to self-determination is genuinely respected, Spain will remain a failed state, where talk of “democracy” and the “rule of law” should only be used in an aspirational sense. For those living in the shadow of Madrid, the hypocrisy of a European Union critical of Poland and Hungary, but silent on Spain, is daily testimony to the failure of Europe to defend fundamental rights from abuses occurring right under its nose.
[Republished at Brave New Europe here: https://braveneweurope.com/duroyan-fertl-spain-re-opens-controversial-bateragune-case-against-basque-leaders]
It features a short chapter from myself on the EU's failure to adequately respond to the pandemic and its consequences, a failure which has served to deepen the divisions already deep-running through the bloc, along with many other thoughtful and informative contributions.
While the book is in Euskadi (Basque), for those few of you not able to read the language, these contributions, and many more to come, are available in translation on the Telesforo Monzon eLab website.
Eskerrik asko to TM eLab for the opportunity to contribute to this important discussion. The debate on the global response to the COVID-19 crisis - and what this means for those of us trying to build a more democratic, socially and environmentally just society - will continue for some time, and it will need to be both broad in terms of input and far ranging and audacious in scope. I am honoured to have contributed to one of several useful and thoughtful starting points on this road.
Read the full article at Brave New Europe.
