Communist Party of Finland
by Terttu Ahokas

Dear Friends and Comrades,

I would like to thank the Communist Party of Greece for the
opportunity to all us meet and have a discussion on very
actual issues.

Finland has been a member of the European Union since
1995. During this short period the policy of the ruling
broad coalition government lead by the Social Democratic
Party and the Conservatives has confirmed the right wing
policy both in the economic and in military areas in
Finland.
Finland's economy continues to grow. The profits of the 50
biggest companies grew about 30% in the year 1999. For the
past seven years the economical growth has been a rate
above EU average. Despite this the government continues to
cut the social and public expenses. Cuts in public spending
affected the social security, health care, housing and
education in particular.
Despite of good economic situation half million people
lost their job. The main part of new jobs are not
permanent. Thousands of peoples, especially the young ones,
are condemned to poverty.

Unemployment, poverty, violence and the other serious and
destructive social problems are derived from the politics
of the neo-liberalism with it's internal executives and
international background like the EU, the IMF, the World
Bank and different kind of secret societies like the Round
table of the European industrialists.

The CPF prepares now for municipal election in October
2000. The Draft program for the elections includes the
Action program for municipal councils based on
redistribution of income and broadening of democracy. We
propose the municipals should be pioneers of shorter
working time without lowering worker's income
(implementing for instance the model of 2 six hours shifts
in suitable services).

On the initiative of The CPF a signature campaign has been
launched demanding the preservation of the post services
network all over the country. The CPF demands that the
privatization of State owned companies and of public
services must be halted. Party underlines the role of
public sector in the development of employment, in opening
the opportunities to develop the information society, as
well as in the promotion of regional development and of
welfare services.

The policy of the neo-liberalism means also, that the
society is to be militarized. Due the EU Amsterdam treaty
big changes has occurred in our country. Step by step
Finland is nearing the NATO structures under different
names like peace keeping or crisis management. Finland has
for instance joined the WEAG, the common European armaments
industries company. Finland has to tell to NATO, which
kind of arms she is buying and certain part of these arms
must be bought from NATO sources. The common proposal of
Swedish and Finnish foreign ministries from the last autumn
about the collective crises management actually led to
support building a Euro-Army in dose co-operation with the
NATO. The NATO soldiers participated training in
non-aligned Finland and Finnish soldiers participated the
NATO trainings abroad.

In the August 2000 Finnish soldiers are expected to
participate in the NATO training with the Hornet
fighters. EU made a decision to compose the operational
crisis management troops and is now planning the
permanent military structures, common planning and other
structures with the NATO and integration the WEU with the
EU, meetings of ministers of defense and commanders of
defense forces of EU countries.
In Finland something new is the public role of army in
society too. You can see the training in operation on the
streets and in the parks of Helsinki or the army
displaying it's tanks for the visitors of farm product
exhibitions in countryside.

All this is happening in a country, where the president
constantly declares, that the NATO membership is not actual
issue and where 62 % of people is against the potential
membership in NATO.

The CPF supports the demand of movement "Alternative to EU"
to have a referendum on changes of the EU treaty. The
inter-governmental meeting of EU is expected to change the
treaty in favor of the federal forces in the EU.
The EU plans to build an army of nearly 200 000 man
including 60 000 man>s group for rapid actions, which is to
be put to operation during 60 days. The operation area is
not at first place the region of EU-countries, but outside
world. This is in line with the decision of the NATO about
the possibility to act anywhere in the world if needed,
made during its 50-yers anniversary.

The CPF demands that Finland's delegation shall not approve
e.g. the integration of the EU with the WEU nor the
integration of the EU with the NATO. We also demand that
the Euro-Army should not be approved and that Finland
should at least stay out of this military integration. The
governmental delegation should instead propose to include
this meeting's agenda shortening of working hours,
confirming the right of trade union to make agreements and
a proposal on applying so called Tobin tax to the
international transfers of the capital, occurring in aim
to speculate.

The wide propaganda in favor of fateful for the humankind
economy and military policy is based on the neo liberalism
in economics and on the American way of thinking, based
on the neo-evolutionism of neo-Darwinism, which convinces
to be natural, that the strong ones are always winning and
the weak ones must loose. This kind of propaganda is used
also in favor of fast technological and social changes,
which under the capitalistic conditions traces to
inequalities and growth of discrimination among the people.

CPF proposes co-operation of forces, which does not submit
to the Right, and offer alternative to the present
politics. CPF has contact and co-operation with movements
like "Alternative to European Union" or Finnish Peace
Committee, which both cover a wide network of
NGO-activists. We organize and participate in campaign and
demonstration of NGO's against the NATO aggressions, the
Chechen war of Russia and against the military development
of the European Union and the Finnish society.
On the international level we have participated and support
the demonstrations, like in Paris, Lisboa, Amsterdam and
Cologne for shortening the working hours. We see the
Seattle-demonstration against the WTO policy as symptom of
the increasing opposition of peoples to the policy of
globalization on terms of the big capital and the
imperialism.

We think that is really time to strengthen the
counteraction against the running development in world
scale. The communist parties and left forces are facing
the world without the support of the real socialism world
system. We must find the way and courage to fight for
progress and socialism in nowadays world.

There is a real possibility to build this kind of
counteraction and co-operation combining the traditional
left, tradeunion's and peace union>s work with the
initiatives of the new movements. In other terms this means
forming alliances when it is possibly and in the same
time in means learning how to do it in new situation in the
society, when the alienation toward politics is broad, the
anticommunist propaganda is aggressive and the information
flood sowes confusion.

The Greek Peace Committee organized in last May here in
Athens an important meeting of World Peace Committee, which
decided to approach the peace movements with an initiative
to build a world-wide movement for an alternative
development, which brings to people the real peace and
security.

Last year and now again we are gathering here to discuss
about the possibilities to promote the co-operation of the
communist parties and progressive movements for building an
alternative to neo-liberalism and militarism.

In different parts of Europe and the world people are
trying to build NGOs and movements, witch together could
resist the policy of the ruling class.
This is a challenge for the communist parties and other
left forces.
We can bring to this action and co-operation of the new
movements our specific skill: we have the real
organization, we have the Marxist theory, which can not
only explain the world, but also change it. We are an
international, world-wide movement. We have many kind of
skills, which are needed in the continuous everyday work
under different circumstances. This might be an important
element to build together strength basis for a vast
movement for better life and future for the peoples of the
world. Split these movements and we are weak and we will
face in a new form all the problems we know by the history
of the left movement, but together we are strong and we
will win!