The Party of the European Left, DiEM25 and the Transnational Campaign of Jean-Luc Mélenchon towards the European Elections in 2019

transform! Study
The Party of the European Left, DiEM25 and the Transnational Campaign of Jean-Luc Mélenchon towards the European Elections in 2019
By Angelina Giannopoulou | 03 May 18 | Posted under: Elections , European Union , The Left
A study prepared for transform europe! by Angelina Giannopoulou, Facilitator of the European Integration and the Left Strategy programme.
Wassily Kandinsky, Red Square in Moscow, 1916
One year before the European Elections, is still not clear how the left and progressive forces will run and campaign. Meantime, we see three different roads, not equally developed, from the left parties throughout Europe. Though May 2019 is not so far, many developments can change the course of the European left during the following months. Political upheavals may turn upside down the various strategies and convergences may pop up.
The constellation of the European left seems to give birth to various, asymmetrical plans and the divergences among the political actors appear as the root cause of such asymmetries. The puzzlement towards the question of Europe, the lack of confidence in the fight against the Far Right – especially in the discursive level – and the ambiguity in defining the political subject nowadays are the main elements of the dispute among the left forces active in the European level. A courageous strategy of the left, progressive and democratic forces should be able to unite us and not divide us. Unity is an essential goal being fulfilled simultaneously in two levels, the social and the political one. At a social level, we wish to be connected with the working class (traditional working class, modern working class of precarity, migrants etc.), the lower social strata, the women and the sexual minorities. At the political level we must always aim to be united by creating and defining the criteria of this unity and by staying focused on our political role and our duty as leftists and internationalists.
transform! europe as the network of the left political foundations throughout Europe and a structure of European cooperation wishes to contribute to a strategy that will unite the left, not only for the sake of the unity, but for the sake of the European people’s interests and the fight against the Far Right that gains more ground with each passing day.
The danger of a right and far right European Parliament does exist. This is a question of democracy and of the living conditions of the working class the day after the European elections. The left has a duty to fight by all means against this double threat.
Please find the pdf of the study on the right (41 pages, 1.2 MB).
Table of Contents
- The European Parliament and the recent institutional developments
- The European Elections: legal framework and provisions
- The state of affairs in GUE/NGL
- DiEM25
- Jean-Luc Mélenchon and La France Insoumise
- Recent developments
- La France Insoumise
- DiEM25
- Party of the European Left
- Conclusive remark
For our Focus “The European Left: One Mouth, Many Voices” please follow this link.