In Porto, during the closing of the ELA congress—the European Left Alliance for Peoples and the Planet, BE’s coordinator focused part of her speech on international issues such as the Middle East and Ukraine conflicts, accusing Netanyahu (Israel), Putin (Russia), and Trump (USA) of symbolizing “empires and emperors vying for power, territory, and resources” that have “buried international law.”
She pointed out leaders in the European Union as “a set of alienated political leaders, sitting at their tables, discussing what percentage of GDP to cut from health or education to spend more on weapons, equipping armies to serve Trump’s generals to defend themselves from Trump or Trump’s ally called Putin, without realizing the attack comes from within.”
“Trump’s friends, Putin’s friends are inside. The enemies of democracy are inside, they speak our language, and they are winning elections,” she asserted.
According to Mariana Mortágua, “defending Europe is not about supporting the existing system or the austerity rules” which, she stated, “strangled workers and destroyed the future for the people.”
“Moreover, they told us it was our fault, the Southern peoples, that we lived beyond our means. Defending Europe is not about endorsing the forced liberalization that privatized and destroyed public services, imposed by European rules (…). Defending Europe is about defending our peoples. It is listening to our peoples and fighting for everyone. Those who support us and those who do not,” she mentioned.
At the ELA’s first congress, a political cooperation platform among parties, Mariana Mortágua addressed those who did not vote for the left: “Those who are fed up, those who are desperate, those who are angry… We must listen and fight for all. For those who were afraid and voted for socialist parties that privatized, liberalized, and impoverished, contributing to creating inequalities. For those who were afraid and voted for the right, against some invented ghost.”
“To all the disillusioned, the desperate, we want to say that the right is not an alternative to socialist parties. And to all, we want to say the far-right is not an alternative to the right,” she declared.
ELA includes the Left Bloc (Portugal), La France Insoumise (France), the Left Alliance (Finland), Podemos (Spain), the Red-Green Alliance (Denmark), Razem (Poland), and the Left Party (Sweden).
