The institutions of the European Union change their faces but maintain their nefarious policies. Last Thursday the summit to define the community leadership and the opening session of the European Parliament took place.
In Brussels the high positions were defined: Ursula Von del Leyen (Defence minister of Germany) as president of the European Comission; Christine Lagarde (managing director of the IMF) as president of the European Central Bank, Josep Borrel (minister of Foreign Affairs of Spain) high representative of Foreign Policy and Charles Michel (Belgian Prime Minister) as president of the European Council.
This list guarantees austerity, cuts of democratic liberties and the infringement of human rights. Among them, we can highlight Lagarde, who leads the Fund, looter and provoker of great social malaise of poor peoples, applying brutal cuts. There is also Borell, a fantic opponent of Catalan self-determination.
They reached an agreement after three days of strong deliberation, in which the socialists led by Pedro Sanchez and the liberals represented by Emmanuel Macron could not unseat the European People’s Party. Now the disputes are transferred to the Parliament, which has the last say on the definitive approval of the agreement. No matter who the authorities are, the imperialist bloc will face great problems, while it prepares for more looting and rapine.
The current president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, celebrated the agreement in particular “for including two women”, trying to use the sympathy raised by the feminist wave. But Von de Leyen and Lagarde are pro-imperialist and pro-bourgeois, having nothing to do with the mobilization and demands of the working women.
That day, in Strasbourg the opening session of the ninth European Parliament , born from a masquerade election in which abstention reigned, was held. The Chamber had 748 seats instead of 751, due to the absence of the three Catalan MEPs: Carles Puigdemont, Toni Comín (exiled) and Oriol Junqueras (political prisoner) who were denied their accreditation. Previously, a dictum of the General Court had rejected the request for recognition presented by the lawyers of the Catalan leaders.
Within the chamber, the brief ceremony prepared by the interim president Antonio Tajani was interrupted by Irish MEP Matt Carthy (Sinn Féin), who defended the Catalan right to the self-determination and the recognition of the three Catalan MEPs.
Outside the premises there was an unprecedented event: the presence of thousands of protesters mobilized from Catalonia with starred flags and banners, in support of the elected MEPs. The Catalan people continue to show their willingness to fight for independence, for the freedom of political prisoners and the exiled. Neither the EU nor the ’78 regime will easily defeat them.
In Brussels and Strasbourg, the names of the politicians who represent the banks, the rich and big business changed, but the politics will not change. The institutions of the imperialist bloc are a cave of white collar robbers, who loot the poor, oppress workers and ignore essential rights.
We differentiate ourselves from the “Eurosceptics” and the “Europeanists”. In any of the political versions they adopt, they support capitalism and increasingly less democratic and more discriminatory regimes.
To face the crisis, we must promote the mobilization of the working people and build a new political representation, independent of the bourgeoisie and its accomplices. We do not expect anything positive from the EU, we have to break with it to advance in the path of a free Federation of European Socialist States. That is what the member organizations of the International Socialist League fight for.
