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Weekly Worker 557 Thursday December 16 2004

CPGB proposals

Democratise ESF assemblies

Political parties must be able to participate openly at all levels of the ESF - for the open clash of ideas in front of the working class. We must not allow them to be sidelined to round-table discussions or ‘special meetings’. This is deeply dishonest: not only do parties play leading roles in the social movements across Europe - they are centrally involved in organising the ESF. By forcing members of the SWP, LCR or Rifondazione Comunista to hide behind front organisations we make the ESF process a lot less transparent than it could be. Participants should be informed as to why representatives of Globalise Resistance, the Stop the War Coalition, Genoa 2001, Project K and others always agree with each other.
Discussion documents should be circulated in advance. National delegations do come with proposals - but they are not written down. Add to this the fact that often complex concepts have to be translated and that very different political trends use different political vocabulary and you have a recipe for misunderstanding and confusion.
We need meetings with an agreed agenda and proper minutes that record the decisions taken - as well as the debates that have led to those decisions. We have nothing to hide and the working class across Europe should be able to test and scrutinise those that claim to lead it. The partial involvement of political parties, for example, was agreed almost three years ago, but the organisers of this year’s ESF have ‘forgotten’ about it - and there are no minutes to prove otherwise.
Permanent working groups on certain practical ESF issues could free the EPA to concentrate on the bigger picture, the politics of the ESF and on sorting out particular problems that have occurred. Naturally, these permanent working groups and their email discussion lists should be open to anybody who wants to participate.

Politicise the ESF

For real debates in the plenary sessions of the ESF (or ‘big meetings’, as some want to rename them). Plenary sessions should not be abolished - but they need a radical overhaul. Speakers should not be selected according to a ‘national quota’ or whether they are close political allies of the ruling clique. These flagship meetings of the ESF should reflect the real political differences and outlooks that exist on the European left. And by preparing for these meetings (ie, having political debates on the question of the hijab, the occupation of Iraq, the European Union, etc), we will actually start to clarify - and hopefully overcome - our own political differences.

So we should first of all identify the areas where clarification is most required, and then national delegations and international networks should consider which speakers would best be suited to provide a particular viewpoint. At the ESF 2004 in London, no consideration at all was given to the content of a speaker’s contribution. All that mattered was their position in society - which explains why 13 members of the trade union bureaucracy were appointed to speak in the 30 plenary sessions, but not a single trade union militant was allowed by the SWP-Socialist Action.

It was, after all, the union bureaucracy that to a large extent sponsored the ESF - though, as with other financial questions, ESF activists are not allowed to know about details of the unions’ donations and whether they were conditional on speakers’ slots.
Use the EPA to build and develop European-wide campaigns and networks. As our networks are so weak and underdeveloped, one day of every EPA weekend should be dedicated to the setting up and developing of such networks and discussing their political outlooks and objectives. This recognises that coordinating our campaigns and activities is not just a nice idea, but vital. We need continent-wide campaigns, strikes and demonstrations against cuts, privatisations, war and all attacks on our class and the democratic rights it has won.
A democratically elected and accountable leadership of the ESF that can take decisions and act. There is an unelected and unaccountable international leadership that huddles together whenever decisions are to be made. It instructs chairs on their ‘rulings’ on how a debate should be conducted and how a meeting should progress. But, at the moment, we cannot hold it accountable and or challenge it, as it has not been elected - officially it does not exist. All meetings at all levels should be open to observers.
The CPGB argues that a Communist Party of the European Union is needed to unite our class on the highest possible level. A real Communist Party, that is: where political debates can be held in the open, where minority viewpoints can find democratic expression - but which acts in a united way.