This material is a report from protests and a seminar i Gothenburg November 16-17, 2017. Activists for peace (In Swedish: Aktivister för fred) was one of the organizations coarranging the seminar.
Why the EU protests in Gothenburg, Sweden 2017 makes a difference
1. Movements from all of Europe came together. From the East and the West, from the South and the North.
2. Popular movements independent from political parties took the leading role in connecting issues building both alliances across established parliamentarian issue sectors as well as going much further criticizing the whole development model and the present world order. With the support of MEPs.
3. Rural and urban movements were equally important, ecological issues as important as social.
4. The coming together of all movements had its roots in growing cooperation between popular movements uniting peasant, environmental and solidarity organizations struggling for food sovereignty; these movements together with trade unions against TTIP and CETA; peace, trade unions and environmentalists against militarization and for climate transition; refugee becoming more EU-critical connecting to other movements and in general movements democratizing society and building for alternatives to EU austerity politics.
5. EU politics was challenged at all levels, from social policy to the EU growth model, the two official summit issues.
6. The follow up possibilities are many at all levels from the local to the international. Especially on transversal issues and in general for all-European cooperation including both non-EU and EU countries, both East and West as well as the next World Social Forum in Brazil, March 2018.
Read the report as a pdf here: The new face of European resistance
Foreword: “Only united can we achieve change”
“The EU bears responsibility on so many levels – from the current economic system that’s devastated our planet to human tragedies due to climate change. What we have also been seeing in the past couple of years is a humanitarian crisis – or better said- a crisis of humanity. We need collective action for social transformation. We need a systemic change in order to achieve climate justice. And this change, this transition, needs to be driven by principles of justice. Because we do not want to replicate the current system that is exploiting people. We need to build a better one, a more human one. What needs to be done to make this happen is movement building. And this movement needs to be inclusive and collaborative. A movement that is not just an environmental one. But which brings together all the injustices created by the system. Which recognises that some are suffering more than others as a result of these injustices. And which says: Refugees welcome. Black lives matter. Gender justice. Social justice. Because only united can we achieve change. Another Europe can and will be possible because people have the power.”
Maruska Mileta from Friends of the Earth Croatia
in a speech at the Alternative Summit manifestation
at Gustav Adolfs Torg in Gothenburg, Sweden, November 17, 2017
Content
p2 Foreword: “Only united can we achieve change”
p3 Op-Ed and content
p4-7 Activities during the Alternative Summit
p8-13 Social rights & fair jobs everywhere!
p14-15 Another Europe is possible
p16-19 EU – The dictatorship of capitalism. EU history and whose interests it serves
– Kajsa Ekis Ekman
– The case of Greece
– Bike action against corporate EU
p20-25 Stop Corporate power!
– Lora Verheecke
– CEO articles
p26-31 Refugees Welcome!
– International Call for PPT
– Emancipation with refugees, not from them! CEESF in Wroclaw
– The rise of the far right
– Closing borders to refugees and migrants is unjust and dangerous!
p32-43 Peace on Earth – Peace with Earth
– Dave Webb
– Militarization of information: NATO and EU propaganda is now called Strategic Communications
– Building peace in Warsaw
– EU loves NATO
– Anti-militarism and socio-ecological transition in unity
– We need a new critical and indepedent peace movement
p44-47 System change – not climate change!
– Maruska Mileta
– Climate transition
– COP23: EU acts as if climate change a distant prospect
– COP23: From the coal mine to the conference
p48-55 The EU and agroindustrial threat to family farmers and society
– Ole Jacob Christensen- Via Campesina Europe articles
p56-65 Alternatives to EU austerity politic
– Basic income workshop
– Matyas Benyik
– Marko Ulvila
– The hidden agenda of the European Union
– Keynes and his critics in the same boat
– Austerity measures in Central and Eastern Europe, especially in Hungary
– The Collapse of the Eastern EU model
p66-69 Just transition & No to EU growth model
– EU-critical economic theory
p70-73 EU a tool for neocolonialism
– EU rewrites history
p74-79 The Future of EU
– Black Swans Queuing in Europe
p80-93 The road to Gothenburg
– Resisting EU in Sweden
– Time to build resistance in Europe
– Internationalism more necessary than ever
– Movements challenging the European Crisis
– Another internationalism is possible
– Left projects in Western Europe
– No Future without peasants!
– Behind the scenes
p94-95 Call for unity
p96-104 The road from Gothenburg
– World Social Forum – Alternative to Capitalism
– A new people’s global initiative
– Another Europe in the Making
– Reflections after the alternative EU summit
Activists for Peace 