For a better life! For equality!
For peace, cooperation, social progress!
The elections for the European Parliament will be an important moment to strengthen the struggle for a better life, for equality, for peace, cooperation, social progress.
Multiple important struggles are taking place in defence of labour rights, social rights, public services, the environment, peace and in solidarity with the Palestinian people and other peoples, as well as for a Europe that serves the workers and peoples and which responds to their needs and aspirations. The political forces that signed this Appeal are deeply committed to these struggles, in convergence with trade unions and other social organizations and movements.
The workers, the youth, the women and, in general, the peoples, are not doomed to accept the difficulties, the lack of answers for their problems, the regressions that the European Union wants to impose.
We call on all to strengthen your demands and aspirations for progress, peace and social justice, through your vote in the forthcoming elections for the European Parliament, by strengthening the forces which signed this Appeal. In this way, strengthening hope and confidence in achieving a better present and future for our peoples, our countries and our continent.
In recent years, the way in which the pandemic, inflation, war, sanctions have been used has resulted in greater inequality and social injustice; more exploitation; deteriorating environment; attacks on freedoms, rights, sovereignty and democracy; further accumulation and concentration of wealth – namely in the hands of financial, pharmaceutical, weapons, energy, agri-business, and large distribution groups.
The European Union – a capitalist integration process – continues to push policies to reduce the real value of wages, to deregulate working hours and raise the retirement age. EU rules restrict public investment, they undercut the financing of public services and the social functions of the State – such as healthcare, education, social security, housing, culture or science –, they promote liberalisation and privatisation. The European Central Bank's policy of raising interest rates and keeping them at high levels ensures fabulous profits for banks, at the expense of families, companies and the most dependent and indebted States. The EU reactivated the Stability Pact, which means more austerity policies, that is more attacks against the social and economic rights of working classes. All these policies curb possibilities for economic and social development and have profoundly negative consequences for the lives of the workers and the peoples, particularly of young people, who see their future jeopardised.
The European Union, contrary to what is proclaimed by its “Green Deal”, does not promote policies that provide real answers to the problems of climate change, loss of biodiversity and degradation of the environment and ecosystems, but rather places above all else the commodification of nature and its resources and business profits – demonstrating that capitalism is not green.
The proclaimed values of the European Union cannot conceal a worrying and growing curtailment of freedoms and democratic rights – namely social, including labour and trade union, economic, political, cultural and environmental rights. Its carries out operations of falsification and rewriting of History, resorting to manipulation, lies, censorship, aiming to impose a single thought and to make reactionary and fascistic conceptions widespread. Anti-communism is promoted and democracy is attacked; far-right forces lead, participate in, or support governments in several countries. Racist, xenophobic, chauvinistic and discriminatory concepts are promoted – questioning the idea of equality.
As is shown by the war in Ukraine, instead of promoting peace and diplomacy, collective security and cooperation, the European Union has increased its submission and dependence on the US and NATO. It is aligned with a policy of escalating tensions, which is rejected by a large majority of countries throughout the world. The dramatic situation in Palestine highlights the immense hypocrisy of the EU and its unacceptable stance of whitewashing and complicity in the face of Israel's crimes against the Palestinian people – which are so serious that South Africa decided to submit a complaint against Israel at the ICJ, charging Israel with violating the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Increasing its militarisation, the EU diverts more and more resources, which are necessary to urgently solve social problems and promote economic and social cohesion, to the business of weapons and war. At the same time, the selective, repressive, and inhumane nature of migration policies is enhanced, which ignores the causes of migration, but criminalises migrants and leaves refugees unprotected.
The times we live in demand joining forces for an alternative course for Europe, for a better life for the workers and the peoples.
The forces that sign this Joint Appeal affirm their will to join forces in the struggle for a better life, for equality, for peace, cooperation, social progress, for the present and the future of our peoples, of our countries and our continent. A struggle of the youth, of working people, of women, of all peoples. We call for this struggle to be taken to the ballot box in the forthcoming elections to the European Parliament.
For a Europe of social and labour rights
- Raise wages, pensions and welfare benefits, which is the indispensable path to a fairer distribution of wealth; we reject the so-called austerity.
- Eradicate job precariousness; reduce working hours without loss of pay; lower the retirement age.
- Defend and promote labour and trade union rights, namely the right to strike and collective bargaining which gradually ensures a 100% coverage, including the digital economy workers' rights.
- Promote full employment; eradicate poverty and social exclusion.
- Institutionalise the principle of social non-regression, ensuring convergence towards the best labour and social standards.
- Defend and promote public services, implement the right to healthcare, education, social security, housing, or culture – freed from the rules of competition.
- Put an end to the dependence on Big Pharma by lifting patents on medicines; promote public research, production and distribution of medicines.
- Ensure the rights of children, youth, the elderly, people with disabilities and other more vulnerable social strata.
For the right of the peoples of all countries to economic development
- Ensure the right of all peoples to development, the sustainable use of each country's full potential; promote real economic and social upward convergence of all countries; repeal the EU's European Economic Governance and the Stability Pact.
- Defend public control of strategic sectors of the economy; counter neo-liberal EU policy and measures which oppose this requirement; put an end to the neo-liberal energy market and to all deregulation, liberalisation and privatisation processes in other sectors.
- Reject the European Central Bank's dependence on the interests of financial capital; reverse the interest rate increases and adopt urgent measures to deal with their consequences.
- Support micro, small and medium-sized companies, and the cooperative sector.
- Support local authorities and local development.
- Promote cooperation to prevent and combat money laundering and fraud, tax evasion and avoidance; put an end to tax havens and unregulated capital flows; combat speculative activities; promote tax justice, with bold measures to reinforce taxation on big capital income, capital and profits.
- Promote cooperation on capital taxation, such as a tax on financial transactions or on multinationals in the digital sector.
For the right of the peoples of all countries to ecologically sustainable development
- Promote food sovereignty and security, local production and consumption, sustainable and equitable use of natural resources for the benefit of all peoples, increase the use of renewable resources; respect the right of each country to defend its energy mix.
- Defend and ensure public ownership and management of water and sanitation services.
- Promote and safeguard the environment; guarantee the democratisation of access to, and fruition of, nature.
- Combat climate change; abandon market mechanisms, launch a significant public investment programme and ensure an effective reduction of greenhouse gas emissions; promote public transport; promote energy efficiency and renewable energies.
- Reject the patenting of life and the commodification of the environment, namely the carbon market, with its emissions trading schemes.
- Decrease the production of waste and promote recycling; defend and promote biodiversity and animal welfare; respect the precautionary principle.
For a Europe of equality, freedom, democracy
- Respect and deepen the right of each people to decide their own path, the sovereignty and equal rights of peoples and States, democracy, democratic participation.
- Fight the EU treaties and their neo-liberal and antidemocratic basis; defend a different kind of cooperation amongst sovereign States and peoples in solidarity, for peace and social progress.
- Combat the amalgam and the “revolving doors” between political power and economic power; prevent and combat corruption and lobbying.
- Respect and promote cultural diversity, multilingualism and the identity of all peoples.
- Defend democratic freedoms and guarantees, including citizens' digital rights, privacy, personal data protection and Internet neutrality; reject repressive control, surveillance and censorship mechanisms.
- Combat all forms of discrimination against women and promote equality and women's rights, including their sexual and reproductive rights; combat all discrimination, namely based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
- Combat all forms of fascism, racism, xenophobia, chauvinism, anti-communism.
For a Europe of peace and cooperation with all peoples of the world
- Respect for the principles of the United Nations Charter and international law; promote the peaceful resolution of international conflicts; defend and promote peace.
- Stop instigating and fuelling the war in Ukraine and start serious negotiations with all parties involved; urgently reach a political solution to a conflict that has lasted already ten years; promote a system of collective security and cooperation in Europe, based on the principles of the Final Act of the Helsinki Conference.
- Put an end to the arms race, to the militarisation of international relations, to the militarisation of the EU, to the expansion and the very logic of political-military blocs, namely NATO.
- No more double standards: reject interference, aggression, sanctions, and blockades, the weaponization of trade relations, which strongly affect peoples.
- Promote general, simultaneous and controlled disarmament and reduce military expenditures.
- Sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons; promote the global abolition of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.
- Promote friendship and win-win cooperation among peoples around the world.
- Develop effective initiatives and actions aiming at, among other situations: respect for the national rights of the Palestinian people, with the creation of the State of Palestine; the reunification of Cyprus on the basis of a Bi-communal Bi-zonal Federation with political equality; the fulfilment of the right to self-determination of the Sahrawi people; the end of the US blockade against Cuba – as determined by UN resolutions. Support the reunification of Ireland.
- Guarantee the rights and inclusion of migrants and refugees; promote development policies that tackle the causes of migrations.
- Promote a real policy of cooperation and aid to development, with adequate resources and based on effective solidarity, which rejects all forms of neocolonialism, inequitable relations and the plundering of raw materials, which combats hunger, disease, poverty, which respects and ensures development and the sovereignty of the peoples of Africa, namely, contributing to the improvement of their living conditions.
Join forces for a better life!
At this challenging moment, we consider important that the broadest forces of the left rally together for the peoples and workers of Europe. We commit ourselves to give continuity to the Confederal Group of the European United Left / Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) – The Left in the European Parliament, which for three decades has constituted an arena for cooperation, respectful of the diversity of paths and experiences that characterise us and that values what unites us in the fight for a better life, for a better Europe, for a better world.
We reaffirm the distinctive character and identity of this parliamentary Group, as a confederal space of cooperation – with its principles of equality and consensus – which gives voice in the European Parliament to the struggles of the workers and the peoples, giving concrete expression and content to the struggle for a different course for Europe.
We commit ourselves to uphold the goals and guidelines of this Joint Appeal. The stronger we are, the stronger will be the fight that we can wage for a better life, for equality, for a Europe of peace, cooperation, and social progress, for a Europe of the workers and the peoples.
Parties signing the Joint appeal for the elections to the European Parliament, June, 2024:
Communist Party of Austria
Workers’ Party of Belgium
AKEL, Cyprus
Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, Czech Republic
Communist Party of Finland
French Communist Party
German Communist Party
Hungarian Workers’ Party
Italian Communist Party
Communist Refoundation Party - European Left, Italy
Communist Party of Luxembourg
Portuguese Communist Party
Communist Party of Spain
United Left, Spain
Communists of Catalonia
Communist Party (Switzerland)
Communist Party of Britain
This Joint Appeal is open for signatures.
The Joint Appeal was announced with its first subscribers on February 14, 2024.
