Towards the end of next week, the peoples of the European Union will have to elect their representatives in the European Parliament.
It seems that quite a lot of people say: “Why should I go voting, the European Parliament has not much to decide about European Politics, anyway”.
This is wrong! We must vote!
Right, we will not vote for a government. But since the time it was first elected directly, the Parliament has got more and more competences, and it is using them. Above all, this Parliament is the only possibility for us, the citizens of the European Union, to exert any influence whatsoever on European politics.
The following seems very important to me:
Many European polititions say that for the forthcoming of the European Union the Lisbon treaty must come into force soon.
This treaty is not only neo-liberalist, unsocial, but, which makes me really afraid: terribly militaristic. It clearly obliges the member states to improve their military capacity, and for that purpose, a “European Defence Agency” has already been created. That means for the national budgets: again more money for rearmament, again less money for necessary social and other projects!
The Lisbon treaty was ratified by most national parliaments without participation of the people; where it was put to the direct vote of the people, it was rejected.
In the European Parliament, there was only one group who rejected the Lisbon treaty, that was the European Left.
I am reading in the election platform of the European Left:
“We reaffirm our “No” to the Lisbon treaty…. The EU citizens must discuss and decide on an alternative to the Lisbon Treaty…
No war should ever start from Europe’s soil again. We do not consider war and militarization to be political instruments and want a strategy where security for all is granted. Disarmament and conversion of military industries are pivotal tasks. We campaign against the rearmament provision of the Lisbon Treaty, not only because of the lethal and ecologically destructive weapons, but also because it detracts funds from economic, social and ecological development. The EU Defence Agency should be replaced by a disarmament agency designed to stop the arms race, the proliferation and possession of weapons of mass destruction, and the militarization of outer space and the oceans on the basis of disarmament agreements”.
This is what I want.
The parliamentary group of the European Left has at present 41 of the 783 seats in the European Parliament – that is not enough.
If we want a change in the European politics, if we want a better, a more social, a peaceful European Union, than we must strengthen the group of the European Left in the European Parliament.
This means: we must vote, and we must vote the party in our country, which is or will be part of the parliamentary group of the European Left, or which has the same goals!
Tags: EU, European Defence Agency, European elections, European Left, European Parliament, European Union, Lisbon treaty, peace, Politics, poll, rearmament
