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Europe’s left parties discuss need for ‘rupture’ with neoliberal EU

ARE attitudes to the EU changing among Europe’s parties of the left? On the basis of last week’s meeting in Lisbon the answer is a qualified Yes. 

There is now a much fuller rejection of the EU as a neoliberal, pro-competition and anti-working class institution — not by all on the left but certainly marking significant change. 

Organised by the Portuguese Communist Party under the auspices of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left parliamentary grouping, delegates attended from Portugal, Spain, Cyprus, Belgium, Britain and Sinn Fein from Ireland. 

The position of most delegates was that project to reform the European Union, to create a “social Europe,” had definitively failed.  
This assessment was embedded in the meeting’s title, “No to a European Union of transnational companies and big powers — Yes to a Europe of co-operation, social progress and peace.” 

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