[A-List] European Left Party

[Sabri Oncu <soncu@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

When Mark Jones was still with us, a few Europeans on
this list had talked about building a European Workers
Party.

Maybe we could not do much about it, but here is
another European Party you may want to hear about.

I just came across this party so I neither support nor
denounce it.

I need to know more before I can take a stance.

Best,

Sabri

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Italian communist to lead new European Left party

09 May 2004

Italian Communist leader Fausto Bertinotti was Sunday
unanimously elected president of the European Left at
the party's founding congress in Rome, officials said.


The new party, which will campaign in next month's
European parliament elections, groups 16 communist and
left-wing parties from across the EU.

Bertinotti, national secretary of Italy's Refounded
Communists, told hundreds of delegates that the new
left-wing party should sever links with Stalinism,
which he said had become a by-word for oppression.

"The break with Stalinism is meant to liberate the
idea of communism from oppression and look toward the
future. We have to go back to our roots to move
forward," he said.

The founding congress of the European Left was
preceded by preliminary meetings in Berlin and Athens
earlier this year.

Unlike some other prominent opposition figures in
Italy, Bertinotti said he would take part in street
protests to oppose the visit to Rome next month of US
President George Bush.

Italy's foreign ministry confirmed on Saturday that
Bush would visit Rome on June 4 for celebrations
marking the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the
Italian capital during World War II.

"If Bush comes, we must show that we are part of
another world. We need to peacefully demonstrate our
aversion to someone who is chiefly responsible for the
war in Iraq," said Bertinotti.

Several left-wing leaders, including Democrats of the
Left president Massimo D'Alema and Guglielmo Epifani,
chief of the country's biggest trade union, have come
out against the idea of anti-Bush protests.

Grouping parties from Austria, the Czech Republic,
Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg,
Slovakia and Spain, the new European Left was formed
with the aim of strengthening the radical left
throughout a newly-enlarged EU.

Among those represented at the two-day congress were
the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) of Germany,
the United Left of Spain, the French Communist Party,
the Slovakian Communist Party, Luxembourg's The Left,
the Greek Coalition of the Left, Movements and Ecology
(Synaspismos), the Estonian Social Democratic Labour
Party, the Austrian Communist Party and two Czech
parties -- the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia
and the Party of Democratic Socialism.

Several small Italian radical groups were also
represented.

http://www.eubusiness.com/afp/040509143826.40zpedlw