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THE EUROPEAN LEFT FACES A HISTORIC CHALLENGE  
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Stefan Bekier
February 20, 2025
Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières
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_ Introduction to the Ensemble! (FR) meeting on the consequences of
the Trump presidency for Europe. Europe must deepen and broaden its
integration or become dependent on the neo-fascist international
forming around the Trump-Putin axis. _

Flag of the European Union,

 

_WHAT CHALLENGES FOR EUROPE CAUGHT BETWEEN TWO NEO-FASCIST
IMPERIALISMS OF TRUMP AND PUTIN? WHY DOES THE FUTURE OF THE EUROPEAN
UNION DEPEND PRIMARILY ON ITS ABILITY TO HELP UKRAINE LIBERATE ITSELF
FROM THE RUSSIAN INVADER? WHAT ARE THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE
EUROPEAN LEFT IN THIS NEW SITUATION?_

My intervention does not claim to provide complete answers to the
questions posed, which are difficult and require collective
elaboration. These are therefore just a few ideas to initiate our
reflection.

I.

▪ Trump is even worse than Neville Chamberlain after the
capitulation to Hitler in Munich in 1938, as noted by British
historian Timothy Garton Ash in The Guardian. At least Chamberlain was
trying to prevent a major European war, whereas Trump is proceeding
within 24 hours to a complete and brutal reversal of alliances in the
midst of war. This is direct support for Putin. The Trump presidency
is simply writing off Ukraine as a loss. And by the same token also
the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (primarily Moldova and
Romania), the Baltic states, the Scandinavian countries (particularly
Finland) - directly threatened by Putin, who openly proclaims his
fantasy of reconstituting the colonial empire of the “Russian
world” not only within the borders of the former Soviet Union, but
also those of the former tsarist empire.

▪ All this with the abandonment of Europe to Russian imperialism in
the worst possible way - let us emphasise it once again: in the midst
of war, and in a typically colonialist manner. The neo-fascist
Trump-Vance-Musk trio wants to bring European countries to their
knees, in a situation of neocolonial dependence on the USA. They want
to transform them into executors and guardians of the “pax
americana” in Ukraine. Indeed, Trump would like Europe to send its
troops there, but not America... Odious blackmail.

▪ All this to have free rein in the Middle East and Asia, facing
China, and aided by his new ally, Putin. Trump aims to take possession
of the mineral and fossil resources of Ukraine, but also of Russia. In
alliance with Putin, promising this war criminal the immediate lifting
of sanctions, a real last-minute oxygen tank for a faltering Russian
economy, which economists predict will collapse in a few months.

▪ Through an infamous lie and a propagandist pirouette, Trump has
just accused Ukraine of being the culprit in this war, not Putin the
aggressor. This is a repetition and legitimisation of all the
typically Stalinist disinformation of Kremlin propaganda.

II.

▪ Europe is now obliged to deepen and broaden its integration. Or
else become dependent on the neo-fascist international that is being
formed around the Trump-Putin axis.

▪ And thus to return to what are called its “values”, and to
defend them tooth and nail: namely, first and foremost, the struggle
for peace, democracy, freedoms, gender equality, anti-racism, the
fight against all forms of discrimination, protection of the
environment, the right of small and medium-sized peoples to
self-determination, etc. The Trump-Putin axis and the fascist
international are in the process of destroying the entire progressive
heritage of the post-Second World War period, built in response to
Nazi barbarism.

▪ But to do this, Europe finds itself at a historic turning point:
to once again become a genuine alternative to this Trumpian-Putinian
fascist international that is already spreading in France, Italy,
Germany, and Hungary, Europe must as quickly as possible abandon its
neoliberal doxa of the “free and undistorted market”, of
austerity, of every man for himself, of the law of the strongest, and
begin to build a policy of common goods, of public health, education,
transport, and mobility services, of upward harmonisation of wage,
social, environmental, and democratic standards, of elimination of
unemployment, etc.

▪ Europe must also defend tooth and nail the right of peoples, all
peoples, to self-determination. The Ukrainian and the Palestinian.

▪ In other words, Europe must be able to offer its citizens and the
whole world a perspective of a different society, desirable, humane,
social, democratic, ecological. Only in this way can it counter the
demolishers Trump, Putin, Musk, Milei, Meloni, Orban and many others.

▪ And so it must move towards more federalism, pooling of resources,
massive common investments, catching up in the poorest regions. It is
not normal for federalism to be identified only as a right-wing idea.
The left has made a mistake in having abandoned this theme to the
right, and should take back the initiative in this area as well as an
important element in developing a policy of international solidarity,
contrary to a national retreat of each country into itself.

▪ This is the only way to overcome the centrifugal forces that are
in the process of dislocating it from within, which is what the
neo-fascists, Putin, and now Trump are counting on. They will do
everything to pit European countries against each other to dismantle
the European Union.

▪ And if by misfortune, France tips over in the next elections, then
with all this international fascist friendly society that is taking
shape, it will be all of Europe that will tip over. It is the
ecologist Marine Tondelier who said this the day before yesterday, and
she is absolutely right.

▪ And if the AfD in Germany and/or the RN in France come to power,
then it will be the end of the European Union, its break-up or its
neocolonial submission.

III.

▪ And so Europe must also mutualise the armed forces. Devote
military budgets not to selling arms to all the worst dictatorships in
the world - no! We must stop arms exports to Israel, to Saudi Arabia,
and to other despotic regimes, and redirect them to deliver them to
the Ukrainian people, who are fighting for their very survival as a
nation, as an independent country.

▪ Not to intervene there with our armies - no! The Ukrainian people
know perfectly well how to fight and defeat Putin - provided they are
duly helped, instead of being betrayed and sabotaged by a delinquent
billionaire like Trump. But to intensify, multiply the military and
financial aid to Ukraine - aid which must be disinterested and not for
the purpose of enriching oligarchs from the West and East.

▪ If interposition forces were to prove indispensable against Putin,
then it would have to be under the auspices of the UN, the blue
helmets. So Europe should promote right away, without delay, a real
thorough reform, expected for years, of the UN. We must start by
eliminating once and for all the paralysing, colonial system of veto
in the Security Council of the five “great powers” that are
disputing the sharing of the planet and its resources. These resources
must belong to the peoples who live on the lands concerned, and not to
a few billionaires like Trump or Putin. The UN must restore the
central role of its General Assembly of 193 member states, with the
basic democratic principle - one country, one vote. And here too,
Europe has an essential role to play, by allying itself, for example,
with the countries of the South to impose this crucial reform of the
global governance of peoples!

▪ But Europe must also create the Armed Forces of Europe, as
proposed and called for by President Zelensky in his historic speech
at the Munich Security Conference a week ago. As a common defence
army, a deterrent against Putin (and Trump), not as a new army of
aggression and plundering of other peoples.

IV.

▪ All of this poses enormous challenges for all the left-wing forces
in Europe. Enormous but exciting challenges. And possible to meet,
provided we want to and give ourselves the means. We are at one of
those historic moments when the left, particularly in the West, can
and must rid itself of the dross of the past, of its paralysing
sectarian flaws, of its nationalisms and populisms called
“left-wing”. The left must act in a united way to oppose the
neo-fascist wave, but at the same time by advancing a project for a
different Europe, democratic, social, ecological, with the freedom and
independence of Ukraine as its truly internationalist banner. We must
create something that could be called, following the example of the
French left, a New Popular Front of the European Left.

▪ One of its axes should be the central place that must now be given
to the left-wing forces of Ukraine, other Central and Eastern European
countries, the Balkans, the Baltic and Scandinavian countries, as well
as the pro-Ukraine sectors of the democratic and left-wing Russian
opposition. We must put an end to a Western-centred left.

V.

▪ Ukraine’s application for membership of the European Union,
already particularly pressing since the great democratic movement of
the Maidan in 2013-2014 and the annexation of Crimea and part of the
Donbass, has now become an immediate, strategic, existential issue for
the Ukrainian people. Let us add that the future of the European Union
itself will depend on the ability of the European Union and the
countries that make it up to respond in a united and determined way to
this historic challenge.

▪ It is also a very great challenge for the whole European left. For
twenty years, that is, since the halt in the mid-2000s of the so
promising altermondialiste process of the European Social Forums
(ESF), the European left has been sorely lacking an international
orientation and coordination, for a different Europe - social,
ecological, democratic, anti-racist, welcoming to refugees, defending
the right to self-determination and independence of threatened and
aggressed peoples. To such an extent that it has become one of the
causes - not the only one but the main one - of the development within
the Western left of sectors advocating positions openly hostile to
Ukraine, to its membership of the EU. Protectionist, nationalist
orientations, very close on the Ukrainian question to those of the
extreme right of which Putin is the champion. This is clearly seen
when a part, a growing part, of the left-wing MEPs vote with the
extreme right of the hemicycle against resolutions on aid to Ukraine
in the European Parliament.

▪ Now, it is without delay that Ukraine, a country that has been
attacked precisely because it wanted to enter the EU and is asking to
be protected, should be accepted. But while at the same time beginning
to regulate social, wage and environmental standards by the EU and
member states, in order to begin implementing a policy of upward
harmonisation of these standards from the outset.

▪ This is a very delicate problem and not at all easy. But the
Western left must discuss it and work together with the Ukrainian left
and that of other Central and Eastern European, Scandinavian and
Balkan countries to seek adequate solutions together in this dramatic
and unprecedented situation.

▪ This is why also the trade unions of the EU countries and the
Ukrainian trade unions have an enormous role to play in fighting
together the neoliberal policies applied by capitalists in the West
and East, to relocate production to countries where wages are lower.
Joining the EU would allow Ukrainian and Western workers to fight
together for. For example, around demands such as “Equal pay and
social benefits for equal work”, for the cancellation of the
Ukrainian debt and many other common objectives.

VI.

▪ We must convene a new European Social Forum! To discuss all this,
but also to establish a European coordination of the left. In
Ensemble, we have already proposed this several times over the past
three years, unfortunately without much echo. The majority of former
leaders of the altermondialiste movement - not all fortunately, but
the majority - remain silent, are on campist or even openly Putinist
positions (as in Italy, Greece, or Latin America), and are
disinterested in the peoples of the central and eastern part of
Europe.

▪ The campists will probably align themselves with the Trump-Putin
axis, and the Putinists of course too. This is today an important line
of demarcation within the European left.

▪ To our first call at the end of February 2022, a few days after
the start of Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine, the
internationalist sectors of the European left began to meet and very
quickly resulted in the creation of the European Network of Solidarity
with Ukraine, the RESU/ENSU. Now we need to go further.

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Three European events for the defence of Ukraine, on this
3rd anniversary of the full-scale Russian invasion, will be held in
Brussels on 26-27 March: the conference organised at the European
Parliament at the initiative of Scandinavian and Portuguese MEPs, with
the participation of activists from the Ukrainian social movement; the
conference and workshops organised by the European Network of
Solidarity with Ukraine, also with the participation of Ukrainian
left-wing organisations; and a meeting organised by the Rosa
Luxembourg Foundation. We must of course participate in the debates
that are bound to take place there on how the European left can
decisively increase its support and aid to Ukraine, and more broadly
how it can already lead social, democratic, and environmental
struggles, all together.

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We should then bring together all the trade union, associative, and
political left forces in Europe that support Ukraine, for example
around June, to discuss the possibilities of preparing a European
Social Forum towards the end of 2025 or the beginning of 2026.

VII.

▪ These will only be the first steps towards the rebirth of an
internationalism and altermondialisme, which some on the left have
forgotten or disfigured, but first steps that are indispensable for
moving forward. For only in this way can we begin to lay the
foundations for a genuinely left-wing policy of building a new Europe
as an alternative to neoliberalism and the return of fascism, together
in the East and West.

▪ We are in a situation not identical but analogous to that of
Europe facing the Spanish Republic’s fight against Francoist
fascism, supported by Hitler and Mussolini. With this difference that
the Munich betrayal of 1938 is already here, since two months.

▪ It is the Trump-Vance-Musk presidency. If Europe does not manage
to pull itself together and reorient itself towards a progressive
policy, and if progressive forces in Russia and the USA do not
reorganise to remove the neo-fascists from power in these two
countries, then it is very likely that Europe will go straight towards
a new European and world conflagration.

Thank you for your attention.

20 February 2025

Stefan Bekier - former activist of the left opposition in Poland,
activist of the European Network of Solidarity with Ukraine
(RESU/ENSU), member of Ensemble!

oOo

Three supplements from 11 March 2025

▪ I would like to draw attention to these very interesting
reflections by two parliamentarians from the Danish Red and Green
Alliance, Jakob L. Ruggard, member of the Danish parliament, and Per
Clausen, MEP in the European Parliament from the same formation. Under
the title “The failure of the United States in Ukraine and Europe
demands new offensive solutions from the left”, they say among other
things:

“Europe is surrounded by offensive and far-right superpowers with
Russia on one side and the United States on the other. There is no
other solution than the rapprochement of Europe and the Nordic region.
But it is also an opportunity for the left - because Europe’s
security must also be ensured by freer, greener, more equal and safer
societies.” [link removed]

▪ We should also point out here two recent contributions by Hanna
Perekhoda, a Ukrainian historian from the Donbass, researcher at the
University of Lausanne and activist in the Ukrainian left-wing
movement Sotsialnyï Roukh (Social Movement).

The first, “How to finance European defence (and how not to do
it)”, published in English on her Facebook account. Extract:

“The left must reject the false choice between social justice and
national security. Security must not come at the price of reduced
pensions or health spending, but must be ensured by fair contributions
from billionaires and multinationals. The left must fight for tax
justice, removing opportunities for tax fraud that benefit companies
and taking action against tax havens, including Switzerland. No
European country can defend itself alone. Instead of each nation
massively increasing its own military budget, the EU should strengthen
its collective security mechanisms. Energy security must be seen as
part of the military strategy: by reducing dependence on Russian
fossil fuels, we can prevent future economic blackmail from that
country. Above all, the left must urgently press for the confiscation
of Russian state assets. Delaying this decision for fear of the
reaction of financial elites only encourages aggressors.”

The second is an interview given to the VoxEurope site under the title
“The struggle for freedom in Ukraine is intimately linked to the
global struggle against the rise of fascist forces”, in which Hanna
says, among other things:

"... Seen from the inside, the EU can be perceived as a project where
market logic takes precedence over social justice; where decisions are
often made behind closed doors; and where the interests of major
economic powers such as Germany impose their priorities. In this
context, it is not surprising that some see the EU as an obstacle to
be got rid of.

But for European countries that are not part of the EU, and
particularly for Ukraine, it embodies something different.
“Europe” represents above all an aspiration, an idea of a future
where the rule of law, individual freedoms, and a certain level of
prosperity prevail. What is less obvious for Western Europe is that
here the EU embodies an alternative to an authoritarian and oppressive
model, a model that Russia imposes on its neighbours by force.

Thus, for EU citizens, it is primarily an economic project. But for
those who are not part of it, the EU is primarily a cultural and
civilisational project. Whether they admire or hate it, its supporters
and opponents outside the Union treat it as a primarily political
force. Russia, for that matter, is explicit in this regard: since at
least 2013, it has treated the EU not as an economic competitor, but
as a geopolitical and ideological rival.

This dimension became even more evident in 2014, when Ukrainians
literally gave their lives to defend the ’European’ future of
their country. It was an act that many Europeans viewed with
incomprehension, if not condescension or pity. Yet for these
protesters, ’Europe’ was not an economic space, but a symbol of
dignity and freedom."

▪ Finally, it is not useless to recall here the paragraph concerning
the Russian invasion of Ukraine in the programme of the New Popular
Front, which remains entirely relevant, but which some on the left, in
their recent statements, seem visibly to want to forget... This
“legislative contract” was adopted in France in June 2024, on the
eve of the early legislative elections, by four parties: the
Ecologists, La France Insoumise, the French Communist Party and the
Socialist Party, with the support of Place Publique, Génération.s
GES, GRS, MRC, LRDG, L’engagement, GDS, PEPS, Révolution
écologique pour le vivant (REV), Allons enfants, ADES, Nouvelle
Donne, La Jeune Garde, Union démocratque bretonne (UDB), ESNT and
L’APRES. We quote this paragraph in full:

"Defending Ukraine and peace on the European continent

To defeat Vladimir Putin’s war of aggression, and to make him answer
for his crimes before international justice: to defend unwaveringly
the sovereignty and freedom of the Ukrainian people and the integrity
of its borders, through the supply of necessary arms, the cancellation
of its external debt, the seizure of the assets of oligarchs who
contribute to the Russian war effort within the framework permitted by
international law, the sending of blue helmets to secure nuclear power
stations, in an international context of tensions and war on the
European continent and to work for the return of peace."

oOo

STEFAN BEKIER

_Abonnez-vous [[link removed]] à la Lettre de nouveautés
du site ESSF et recevez par courriel la liste des articles parus, en
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_UNITED STATES: QUESTIONS ABOUT A DISASTER
Videoconference organised by the International Committee of Ensemble!
20 February 2025_
Translated for ESSF by Adam Novak

* Europe
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* European Left
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* European Union
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* European Union
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* Ukraine
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* Donald Trump
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* Vladimir Putin
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* Anti-Fascism
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