In contrast to the meeting of European leaders, the “Social Summit” of Granada is taking place and we have participated in it. The EU is being questioned. There are alternative projects.
By Rubén Tzanoff
Crème de la crème
During October 5 and 6, in the city of Granada, the European Political Community will meet at the “Alhambra Summit”. This meeting was convened by the Spanish presidency of the EU led by Pedro Sanchez (PSOE). 47 EU and non-EU leaders are invited, Charles Michel (President of the European Council), Ursula von der Leyen (President of the European Commission) and Roberta Metsola (President of the European Parliament).
Easier said than done
The aim of the event is announced addressing issues on “how to make Europe more resilient, prosperous and geostrategic”. When its protagonists leave the Palais des Congrès, those will be transformed into policies at the service of employers’ profits and expansionism. Beyond surnames and positions, who are the people that will attend the Summit?
Those responsible for social and democratic deficiencies
The Summit will be attended by those responsible for the precariousness of labor, for the expensive services and rents, for the inflation that devalues wages and for the cuts in health and education. They are the ones who sustain governments and regimes with anachronistic monarchies, who limit democratic rights and assimilate retrograde characteristics, such as the repression of large mobilizations as in France, the normalization of the ultra-right, the anti-immigrant racism in “Fortress Europe”, the servility to the United States and NATO.
The echo of other voices
There are plenty of reasons to repudiate the “Alhambra Summit”. This is being carried out by the various social, trade union and political sectors that have taken the initiative to convene the “Granada Social Summit” under the slogan “Another Granada, another Europe is possible”. The ongoing talks and demonstrations are the echo of voices different from those that will be heard at the meeting of the powerful. For these reasons, we have participated in counter-summit actions with a delegation of Socialism and Liberty (SOL), as part of the International Socialist League (ISL).
Internationalist Rally
On Friday the 29th we attended the Internationalist Act that was called by IZAR, NPA and OKDE Spartakos. It was held in the Plaza de la Libertad, with a disproportionate police operation around it, this is a preannouncement of the deployment of the 5,000 troops of the Guardia Civil and the police who will control the city during the development of the Summit.
Unitary demonstration
On Saturday the 30th we set up a table with our proposals and the magazine Revolución Permanente. Then we lined up with the comrades of IZAR and the NPA to participate in the demonstration that, with more than 3,000 people, marched through the streets of Granada from the Fuente de las Batallas to the Jardines del Triunfo. The color was provided by flags and banners displaying messages such as: “Your Europe does not represent us”, “We do not eat money” or “Let’s put an end to capitalism”. A new demonstration is planned for the first day of the Summit.
Europe of and for the workers
The EU embodies a questioned project, crossed by the economic crisis, the political tensions and the war in Ukraine; structured to guarantee the profits of a handful of privileged to the detriment of the great social majorities. The strikes and mobilizations that shook France, the United Kingdom, Spain and Greece, point out the course to follow so that the capitalists pay for the crisis. In the heat of the struggles, it is necessary to build new political alternatives, overcoming reformism, independent of the “Eurosceptics” and the “Europeanists”, unshakable before the right and the ultra-right. With the strategy of a Europe of the workers and peoples and a socialist system.
