For over fifteen years, transform! has been working as a horizontal network with alternative thinking and political dialogue at its core – always in relation to social and labour movements, as well as in close cooperation with critical researchers. We now are a network of 29 European organisations from 20 countries, active in the field of political education and critical scientific analysis, and are recognised as the political foundation that corresponds to the Party of the European Left (EL).

The facilitating team of transform!, in charge of implementing the programmes and projects in compliance with the decisions collectively made at the General Assembly, drafted this activity report focusing on the highlights of 2016. It does not claim to be exhaustive, but rather to provide readers with concrete information regarding the activities carried out by our network over the year, the research questions we tried to tackle, as well as on the partnerships we established to this end.

European Integration and the Strategic Perspectives of the Radical Left

Angelina Giannopoulou

In 2016 the research programme ‘European Integration and the Strategic Perspectives of the Radical Left’ developed the following focuses:

• the so-called ‘EU coup’ against the first Syriza government in July 2015;
• the effects of the worst refugee crisis since the Second World War;
• the continuing crisis of the eurozone and the EU as well as the proposals for the future coming from various sides; the new economic governance strategy as well as the left alternatives;
• the development of different political trends in various parts of Europe (the rise of the extreme and populist right in Central, Eastern and Northern Europe and hopeful signs of progressive changes in Southern Europe); 
• the current state of the traditional political actors in Europe; the state of the social democrats and their interrelation with the radical left.

The activities carried out involved a significant number of people from a broad spectrum of political views and from various national contexts. We all had the opportunity, through transform! europe’s events, to discuss the crucial issues the European left is facing. Many people who became involved for the first time in transform!’s activities wanted to contribute to an alternative plan and strategy for Europe, against the neoliberal doctrine implemented by the European elites. transform! europe organised or co- organised the following events:

1) Structure and Strategy Workshop, March 3-4, in Vienna, organised by transform!, Rosa Luxemburg Foundation (RLF), and Der Wandel. In this event organisational and structural coordinators from various left and progressive parties in Europe had occasion to reflect on the practices of their individual organisations and learn from the experience of others. The programme combined plenary presentations, spotlight sessions, peer2peer discussions, and extended strategy workshops. The invited organisations were KPÖ and Der Wandel from Austria, Die LINKE from Germany, Izquierda Unida and Podemos from Spain, Syriza from Greece, Bloco de Esquerda from Portugal, HDP from Turkey, Združena Levica from Slovenia, and Razem from Poland. There were c. 30 to 40 participants during the two days, while in the public event at the end of the second day the audience included about 200 people.

2) The ‘Building Alliances to Fight Austerity and Reclaim Democracy in Europe’ Conference, March 18-20 in Athens, organised by transform!, Syriza, the Party of the European Left, and the Nicos Poulantzas Institute. The conference aimed, on the one hand, at analysing some of the major problems the EU and its Member States are facing today and, on the other, to contribute to establishing broad political and social alliances to confront these problems in the interest of democracy and of the European peoples and dominated classes. The debates were organised around six thematic axes and two public events where 67 speakers (moderators included) – coming from a broad spectrum of political and social forces – presented talks and interventions. Approximately 200 people attended the various sessions, and Saturday’s public event took place in a crowded hall with more than 600 people. Furthermore, 43,500 individuals watched the conference through live online streaming, with 36,000 watching Saturday’s public event, where Alexis Tsipras, Pierre Laurent, Declan Kearney, Ska Keller, Marisa Matias, and Tania González addressed the attendees.¹

3) The Berlin Seminar ‘State of Affairs in Europe’, July 7-9, in Berlin, organised by transform! europe and the RLF. The seminar aimed to trace the possibilities for common perspectives and action of the left in Europe by bringing together intellectuals, experts, and activists to debate the recent developments in Europe that raised many questions and arguments in Europe’s left. The main points addressed through this event were focused on the state of the EU, the state of the movements, and the state of politics. The discussion was organised in 12 sessions presented by 26 speakers. The organisers intend to publish an electronic or printed edition of the seminar’s contributions.

4) The ‘New Economic Governance’ Project, April 2016 – January 2017 in Brussels, organised by transform! europe and the economic governance working group based in Brussels. The project intends to collect the diverse left and progressive analyses of the EU’s economic governance with a view to producing a fruitful synthesis. At the same time, the main political goal is to develop ideas and concrete proposals from a radical left perspective in opposition to economic governance. The project, developed through an interdisciplinary team, has two main stages. Firstly, a two-day workshop took place in Brussels in the European Parliament on 13-14 October in which 20 participants presented their contributions. The workshop was co-organised by the delegation of Izquierda Unida in the GUE/NGL. Secondly, a joint written report will be published in January 2017. The report will comprise the outcome of the workshop as well as a comprehensive introduction and a conclusion that will bring together the various aspects.

5) ‘Analysing European Social Democracy: The Stance of the Left’ workshop, November 14-15 in Helsinki, co-organised by transform! europe, RLF, the Left Forum, and the editors of Sozialismus. European social democracy is currently undergoing the most serious crisis of the postwar era, which is acknowledged by both politicians and political scientists. In this particular context, the radical left appears in many European countries to be the only credible candidate to possibly replace the social democrats and attract their traditional social allies. The significant electoral growth of the radical left in different countries has sparked the debate about the relations between the radical left and social democracy. With a view to inaugurating this dialogue, the event brought together 22 participants who analysed the phenomenon of social democracy, also in the context of the radical left, in order to determine the degree of rivalry or proximity of the two political actors (or trends). In 2017 research on the question of social democracy will continue to be a major component, and a publication is also planned on this topic.

6) Survey of delegates of the Party of the European Left: In the framework of the Third EL Congress, held in December 2010 in Paris, the first extensive survey was conducted of the demographic makeup and political profile of the EL’s Congress delegates. The survey was repeated in December 2013 in Madrid, which made it possible to draw comparisons and highlight possible shifts such as the degree of renewal of the Congress’s components as well as the level and type of impact the economic and financial crisis has had on the parties. The survey was repeated in the last EL Congress of 16-18 December 2016 in Berlin. It was conducted by transform! europe in cooperation with the Nicos Poulantzas Institute, which were the organisations responsible for the implementation and reporting of both previous surveys.²

Europe’s Productive Transformation – Towards a New Model of Development

Maxime Benatouil

Genuine cooperation between progressive social and political forces in Europe is more needed than ever to efficiently meet the challenges we are confronted with. To name but a few: opposing precarious forms of employment, growing social insecurity that puts too many lives at risk, and social dumping between and within EU countries; tackling climate change and making sure that the inevitable energy transition will be socially just vis- à-vis workers; not leaving the field to right-wing populists capitalising on the persistence of the crisis and the legitimate anxiety caused by its management; and giving Europe a chance to overcome for everyone’s sake the so-called core/periphery asymmetries undermining the EU from within.

We need to find global solutions for a better, fairer Europe. And to do so, an EU-wide industrial strategy, as well as a re-definition of labour rights standards, matter. The very concept of productive transformation not only implies the reconstruction of European productive capacities but also the establishment of a new model of development that meets social needs and ecological imperatives, with economic democracy as a compass.

This is quite ambitious, but we have no choice but to attempt it. We firmly believe that the work we have undertaken on the alternatives that can be opposed to austerity policies must be deepened and made widely known. It is to be seen as a modest contribution to the struggle against growing right-wing populism, prospering on the ashes of the crisis. transform! europe has underscored its commitment by making the programme on Productive Transformation one of its two pillars. The programme is made up of three autonomous working groups bringing together unionists, academics, movement activists, and political actors from across Europe in order to tackle the following three specific issues: (1) a progressive industrial strategy for Europe; (2) a socially fair energy transition for Europe; and (3) labour and social rights under attack.

transform! europe Working Group on Industrial Policy

We initiated the 2016 programme with a workshop in close cooperation with the Nicos Poulantzas Institute in Athens on 17 March. It was the occasion to kick off our work for bringing political and economic solutions to the growing division between the so-called core and periphery of the EU. The key question that framed the discussion was: how can we take advantage of the potentials and complementarities of national and regional productive structures – avoiding, in particular, the imbalances related to the terms of trade and the effects of polarisation – through a left industrial policy? It has raised the question of the very nature of the planning of an EU-wide European industrial strategy, which from a progressive perspective can only be inclusive (multi-level political actors and institutions, trade unions, consumers’ associations).

The issues of the digitisation of the economy and of Industry 4.0 from a labour perspective were then tackled in Milan on 24 June in a workshop co-organised with Punto Rosso and the Brussels office of the RLF. It allowed for a comprehensive overview of the transformations resulting from digitisation in the Italian productive fabric. Numerous trade union voices shared their experience from the workplaces affected by these processes, warned of the risks for the working classes, and proposed solutions – such as a public investment plan for education and continuous training – to prevent further polarisation between highly skilled and low-skilled workers who always are the first victims of technological changes of such a scope.

Together with the Brussels office of the RLF, we felt the need to explore the possibility of implementing a progressive European industrial strategy within the current institutional framework of the EU. The discussion held in Paris on 6 and 7 June was based on the study ‘What is to be produced? The making of a new industrial policy in Europe’, edited by Mario Pianta, and brought together progressive economists to discuss with him his key findings: What room for manoeuvre is there for a progressive industrial policy in Europe? How can it be funded, bearing in mind the weaknesses of the Juncker Plan? Can we use the Services of General Interests to protect key sectors of the different national industrial fabrics? The two-day workshop made it clear that there is a wish to go further with partners from other sectors of progressive forces, which then materialised in late October in Brussels.

For the very first time, we invited representatives from the European Green Party and its corresponding foundation, from the Party of the European Left, as well as from the European Trade Union Confederation, along with national trade unions and heterodox economists to come together and take action for a better, fairer Europe. The two-day workshop ‘Europe deserves better’ held in Brussels on 25 and 26 October was divided into two sessions of equal strategic importance. Time was first needed to openly discuss issues such as an investment package for Europe, the articulation of an ecological, industrial, and energy transition – in a manner respecting the participants’ different political backgrounds. The second session was more political in the sense that we took time to agree on a common set of demands for a progressive model of development for the EU. This work will serve as a basis for a large European Conference to be held in Spring 2017 in Brussels. The politics of European integration is at stake. And it might very well collapse if progressive political and social forces do not come closer together to promote a progressive EU-wide industrial policy. Given the current state of the balance of power in Europe, we cannot afford not to try.

transform! europe Working Group on Energy

Under the auspices of MEP Cornelia Ernst (GUE/NGL), the transform! europe Working Group on Energy presented its e-Dossier ‘A New Energy to Change Europe’³  to representatives of European progressive civil society and members of the European Parliament Committee on Industry, Research, and Energy (ITRE). Deployment of the energy transition towards a new model of development, energy democracy, citizens’ initiatives, and the crucial role of public research – these issues were at the heart of the discussions held on 14 June.

It should be noted that our cooperation with MEP Cornelia Ernst (GUE/ NGL) and the Brussels office of the RLF has been strengthened over the year. The most significant outcome of this was the European Conference on Just Transition held in Brussels on 5 December through which we created a unique space where trade unionists and representatives of left and green parties from across Europe exchanged their views on an energy transition that is socially fair to workers with elected officials from European regions undertaking a phasing out of coal and/or nuclear energy. This conference is to be seen as the first step of a collective effort to be carried out throughout 2017.

transform! europe Working Group on Labour

The dismantling of labour and social rights within the EU’s political agenda has been intensified ever since the outbreak of the crisis. This phenomenon, if more acute in the so-called EU periphery countries, is nevertheless visible everywhere in Europe – examples of its acceleration are the recent structural reforms in the labour market in France and in Belgium. We therefore felt the need to establish a working group bringing together social researchers and activists from the labour movement in order to undertake an in-depth study of the neoliberal reforms and the challenges trade unions have to deal with.

The group first gathered in Vienna in May, at the peak of the mobilisation against the so-called Labour Law (loi travail) in France. The workshop ‘European Labour Rights at a Crossroads’ brought together a wide range of researchers, trade unionists, and social activists from across Europe to discuss the then growing opposition to EU-inspired reforms of labour markets, trade-union strategies and alternative proposals, cases of transnational cooperation – with the emblematic example of the Amazon workers’ struggle in Poland gaining support from the German trade union Ver.di –, as well as existing convergences between trade unions and social movements. Increasingly more of these social movements, composed of young people whose only horizon has been precariousness, are focusing on labour-oriented issues, especially in Southern Europe. A paper compiling the outcome of the workshop was published at the end of 2016.

Cooperation with the Party of the European Left

Roberto Morea

The increasingly close relationship between investigating the forms through which the multi-level crisis is passing and working out a path for an economic and social alternative remains central to the work being promoted for the near future by transform! europe.

All of this work is fully in sync with the Party of the European Left (EL) and is being carried out in cooperation with it. There have been many forms of collaboration underway for several years now – such as participation in the international social forums, to which this year in Montreal we contributed topics for discussion, or the co-promotion of the Summer University, which attracted many participants and was rich in material for a constructive debate amongst different analyses and positions. In addition, there is now the Forum of Alternatives, which the EL has decided to maintain as a permanent space of dialogue between the continent’s political and social forces and which will certainly see our involvement, strengthening an interactive relationship that has clearly been positive for both entities.

The same can be said of our work in the Alter Summit network, where we are deeply involved in facilitating a structural relationship between the social movements and the trade unions for defining strategies and activism around specific issues, and also in the Blockupy network, which after the battle against the role of the European Central Bank, an action that brought tens of thousands of people from all parts of Europe to protest the inauguration of the ECB’s new headquarters in Frankfurt, is mobilising to bring the voice of protests against neoliberal globalisation back into centre-stage.

The work done by task forces, which we as transform! europe have promoted, such as those around productive transformation, or the commons, as well as the energy and the ‘Change4All’ groups, will involve our interaction with the European Parliament members from the EL around the work of proposing intervention in the EP on issues crucial for European economic and social policies.

Of particular interest will be the work we are promoting, through our respective working group, on the EU’s role in international conflicts and its relations with neighbouring countries. The discussion about the EU and left strategies for dealing with the profound crisis which this institution’s architecture is going through remains one of the cornerstones of our commitments. For this, transform! europe will continue to keep open for everyone’s benefit all possible spaces for discussion with all the movements that, like us, articulate a radical critique of how a European Union that is continually more removed from the interests and needs of its own citizens could be changed. Through these efforts we hope to contribute to the concretisation of the idea of a re-founded EU, so as not to leave this critique only to the nationalist right organisations.

Commons

Roberto Morea

For many years there has been a redefinition of the battle against the policies of privatisation and dismantling of the public system that ranges from water management, transportation, education and training, as well as energy, and against the attack on the environment with the devastation of the territories. It is a battle that has arisen from the ability to shed light on the depredations of neoliberalism and its capacity to erase all that has been collectively built and defended up to now as part of the public interest in our countries.

Beyond its historical definition and its recognition in pre-modern law, the term ‘commons’ nowadays has a significance which serves to redefine the terrain of political battle that must be considered for a democratic transformation and for the recognition of the subjects, the actors of this transformation. Globalised capitalism goes hand in hand with the dismantling of state control. Democratic control and in fact a defence of some aspects of the collective interest found, in this battle for the common good, a valuable tool for analysis and reconfiguration of these interests.

We as transform! europe have been following this path from its beginnings and have been present in this discussion in which it has been difficult to harmonise certain disparate views within the left.

There are many single-issue movements that have been developed at the national and international levels, but it has proven difficult to interpret them as parts of a unified movement, and their many small and big battles are often tied to their local- or single-issue dimensions.

In this regard we have begun to explore a path that could weave issues and proposals together that can be translated into effective practical activism.

After the first meeting in Paris of the Working Group on Commons in 2014 we tackled, in Rome in 2016, the issue of the worker-appropriated factories and the social re-appropriation process that has also been evolving in the area of labour in countries affected by de-localisation and the dismantling of productive plants.⁴

The proposal for 2017 is to take up this thread that we have laid out in previous seminars and broaden the discussion both geographically and in terms of areas of interest. That is why at the upcoming events in March in Copenhagen and in Barcelona in June, we will collect experiences and specific struggles and will work together so that we can connect with individual strands of analysis that exist in the various networks and together with them develop specific areas of research, which includes strengthening our discussion of the commons with partners such as labour and trade union representatives. We also believe it is necessary to develop and deepen the work in this field with the political representatives as well as to define a strategy involving both the GUE/NGL parliamentary group and the European Parliament Intergroup on the Commons, leading to a meeting in Brussels at the end of 2017.

Feminism-Marxism – A Step Forward

Heidi Ambrosch

‘The Left is feminist or it is not left’ is a slogan of the women’s movement, which caused us to reflect on our own flaws. transform! europe has had too many blind spots in feminist theory and therefore made the preparation of the Second International Conference on Marxism-Feminism in 2016 one of its core activities. It is not only feminist but also Marxist theories – and their combination – that need to be put back on the table of progressive research.

The conference ‘Building Bridges – Shifting and Strengthening Visions – Exploring Alternatives’ was held in October 2016 in Vienna and brought together over 500 participants – left theorists and activists from 29 countries of all continents. In contrast to the first conference, this time it was possible to also have significant participation from Central and Eastern European Countries and also from southern Europe.

The event was jointly planned and hosted by a broad alliance of feminist and progressive organisations together with transform! europe, which assumed most of the responsibility for providing the technical conditions.

The densely packed conference programme was divided into two streams, Marxist-Feminist Theory on the one hand, and organisation on the other. In the streams running parallel to each other, researchers and activists from Europe but also from Argentina, Brazil, the USA, South Africa, and Australia presented their analyses, among them renowned intellectuals such as Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, theorist of post-colonialism and professor at Columbia University in New York, and Nira Yuval-Davis, professor at the University of East London.

The concepts of labour and care-work, questions of intersectionality, new materialism, and ecofeminism were the subjects of debate at the conference as were Marxist-feminist analyses of motherhood, anti-fundamentalism and anti-racism, illegality, education, and sexist Islamophobia. In the stream ‘Feminist Organising Beyond Europe’ in particular, in which activists reported on the feminist struggles in Turkey and women organising in trade unions in Brazil, there was little time to look for cross-national commonalities. Feride Eralp from the Istanbul Feminist Collective, a volunteer in the border town of Suruç during the siege of Kobanê, raised the questions in her talk of how war and masculinities were shaping each other and what women’s resistance could look like in a society marked by an all-pervading ‘cross-border politics of hatred’.

A manifesto, thoroughly discussed at the Vienna conference, is to be the basis of future co-operation and understanding.

transform! europe will also further help strengthen this cooperation and will try to bring the feminist viewpoint to bear in all its areas of work.