Conference Report "Actual Crisis in Central and Eastern Europe" in Prague (13-14 June 2009)

On the 13th and 14th June 2009 transform! Europe and the Society for European Dialogue (Spolecnost pro evropský dialog – SPED) organized jointly a seminar in Prague entitled Actual Crisis in Central and Eastern Europe – political, social and economic links – from the leftist point of view.

For obvious reasons the Left has to deal more seriously with the ongoing socio-economic and political crisis in the CEE countries. As the experience of the last months show the crisis rather leads to more competition between the “old” and the “new” Europe than to cooperation.

Moreover the preparation of the seminar revealed how loose the contacts between transform! europe, its members on the side But at the end there were more than fifty participants from eight different countries at the meeting: Czech Republic (obviously more than a half of all participants), Austria, Federal Republic of Germany, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Greece, France and Estonia. The participants could listen to more than twenty extensive papers and several power-point presentations. During the eight-hour plenary session on Saturday the 13th June 2009 there was a very intensive and active debate. The meeting on Sunday took place in a more intimate atmosphere. It was an informal consultation with a clear objective - summarize, discuss and articulate some feedback from the work during the previous day.

The content of all papers and interventions during the debate was very diverse. Some papers focused on the situation in individual CEE countries and included concrete data related to different aspects of the development and consequences of the crisis. The main focus was given to the description and analysis of socio-economic sphere and less time was spent with the assessment of political aspects and role of political structures in the CEE countries during the crisis.

The individual problems of the left in the CEE countries were assessed in the framework of TRANSFORM! The aim of this assessment was to look for common characteristics and differences between these countries and the so-called traditional EU states in Western Europe. This approach was seen as very positive by all participants. It is obviously true, that such an extensive debate didn’t allow a deeper analysis of many individual aspects. Some of the participants also thought that many aspects were only mentioned without any deeper assessment. It needs to be mentioned that the spectrum of different political perspectives during the debate was very wide. Among the diverse perspectives of analysis we can mention the traditional Marxist dimension, alterglobalism of the European Social Forum, opinions close to the social democratic left etc. Nevertheless, the objective of this meeting was not “to give grades” to individual interventions. On the contrary the main objective was to look at the same problem from as many different perspectives as possible, in order to be able to asses the situation as well as possible..

The aim of the Sunday meeting on the 14th June 2009 was an informal consensual debate related to the summary of the workshop. It was stated that:

First: None of the participants doubted how important this meeting had been. On the contrary it was stated that it is absolutely fundamental for all members of TRANSFORM and on the European level to talk about the different developments in various parts of Europe. This situation is not marginal and it can be expected that the differences are going to become even sharper (even from the point of view of the left).

Second: The socio-economic dimension of causes, the development of consequences of this crisis, the political dimension and the role of socio-political subjects in this phase are important topics which need to be followed and discussed.

Third: Therefore TRANSFORM wants to organize minimum three other events (mainly working seminars) related to the crisis in the CEE countries before the end of 2009. It was recommended to discuss these topics during the Summer University. At the same time these topics should be also debated on the ESF platform and their relevance should be reflected in the ESF program.

Forth: All participants were asked to contribute actively to the preparation of the next Journal TRANSFORM, which is going to focus on individual aspects of the crisis. It is absolutely essential to include the topic Crisis in the CEE countries in the next publication. Therefore we need a high quality contributions related to this topic.

Fifth: We need to seek for all communication possibilities – internet, personal meetings, exchange of opinions and facts between the partners and individuals. The creation of new language versions (as well as on-line versions) of the Journal is one of the aims of TRANSFORM.

Sixth: Organizers – SPED – promised to collect all papers and presentations from the meeting, publish them in their English version online on the TRANSFORM website and prepare a selection of contributions in the Czech and publish it on the website of TRANSFORM.