Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations of Europe (June 2008)
We greet with great joy the victory of the NO vote in Ireland. It is a victory for the Irish people and for all the peoples of the EU who have been massively opposed to a text that essentially reproduces the content of the objectives set in the European Constitutional Treaty.
We salute the forces that have carried out a campaign to give the NO vote a progressive content and that have played a decisive role in this victory. The peasants, workers, in short the people, have defeated the vast coalition of political and social forces, of the bosses and the media that mobilized for the YES. They tried to blame the Irish people and have threatened them with “reprisal.” Merkel, Sarkozy, Barroso and company multiplied the pressures and intimidations. For them it is also a serious political failure.
As the French and Dutch peoples did in 2005, the Irish people have thrown sand in the gears of the monstrous neoliberal machine, synonymous with social dumping, of the competition of all against all, of the priority of the magnates of the agriculture in detriment to the small peasantry. The Irish people have said NO to the militarized Europe that NATO is creating.
Despite this new popular slap, the EU and its spokespersons of the anti-democratic governments, the European Commission… have stated that they will “continue.” For them, the vote is only democratic if goes in favor of its decisions! This is the image of the process of European construction, a process that is being carried out against the peoples, on its backs, and that does not accept objections. A process that is being constructed against the peoples of Europe and Africa, to establish the EU as a great imperialist power that will rival the other powers by its markets and control of raw materials. A European Union that has just legalized 65 work hours per week and replaced collective negotiations by the face to face relation between the boss and the wage worker, and to put an end to the social gains and the right to work. An EU that hunts undocumented immigrant workers, puts them in concentration camps, expels them, and at the same time, tries to “select” the brains and hands it needs. A European Union that promotes the reactionary “values” of the Church and tries to prohibit abortion.
Faced with the anti-social and reactionary attacks of the EU, mobilizations of workers are developing everywhere. This political victory for the peoples encourages us to develop even further the ties of struggle and of solidarity to jointly fight against policies at the exclusive service of the monopolies and the financial oligarchy.
We must demand respect for the vote of the Irish people and stop the process of ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon.
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