17 IMCWP, Contribution of CP of Luxembourg [En]

Communist Party of Luxembourg, KPL

Contribution to the 17^th International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties

As in all member states of the European Union, the social problems in Luxembourg are sharpening. More and more working people, unemployed and pensioners are falling through the »social net« and find themselves in growing debts. The lack of apartments is permanently increasing – as well as the number of unemployed people. According to official data of the statistic office, which is working under the guidance of the Ministry of Economy, unemployment in Luxembourg has reached 7per cent. In reality, the quota of unemployment has already reached around 10per cent. In working class areas in the south of the country, youth unemployment has reached about 20per cent and more. Almost every fifth citizen has a monthly income under or around the official poverty limit.

In 2014 the government – consisting of Liberals, Social Democrats and Greens – and their parliamentary majority have adopted an austerity program containing higher taxes as well as social cuts for the years to come, which puts higher burdens on the shoulders of the working people and the pensioners, resulting in serious losses of their spending capacities.

At the same time, the government has increased the military budget, which is now higher than in times of the so called Cold War, and Luxembourg soldiers are participating in military actions and manoeuvres of NATO.

Despite of the austerity policy, the trade unions are not in the position to seriously confront the course of the government. The Communist Party of Luxembourg supports all trade union initiatives leading to strengthen the resistance against the governmental austerity policy. We are utilizing our modest means of propaganda, mainly our daily newspaper »Zeitung vum Lëtzebuerger Vollek« to inform the people about the whole scale of the planned social destructions, to call for resistance and to explain the alternative positions and proposals of KPL in the fields of policy, economy and social security.

This is what our party has defined as its main political task for the years to come, knowing very well that the conditions for our activities and struggles are complicated. Our regular political activities are concentrated on the southern and the central part of the country, where slightly more than one third of the 550,000 citizens of Luxembourg are living and working. Additionally, our daily work becomes more difficult with a view to the fact that we are facing a problem of different languages, since about 45per cent of the people in our country are foreigners, among them around 90,000 migrants from Portugal. Most of them do not speak or understand Luxembourgish or German language.

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The international situation has become more difficult than ever in the last 25 years. Tensions have sharpened, we are confronted with more wars and military conflicts. They lead not only to an increasing number of victims, but also to a situation of growing insecurity, mainly in the Middle East region. As a consequence of military interference by NATO and reactionary forces from the region, hundreds of thousands of people are leaving their homes and are on the way to find shelter and asylum in Europe.

In most of the European countries, mainly in member states of the European Union, we see growing signs of xenophobia, racism and even fascism. Right-wing parties, many of them with significant fascist tendencies, are gaining influence in societies, in local, regional and national parliaments – including the Parliament of the European Union. Racist and fascist forces are marching day by day on the streets in European cities. The policy of the European Union as well of most of the governments of the EU member states is directly or indirectly supporting these developments, accompanied by a massive propaganda wave in bourgeois media.

The leadership of the European Union, which is acting in the interest of the big banks and monopolies, is utilizing the ongoing capitalist crisis as well as the growing number of refugees to destroy step by step the still existing remains of social systems in all the member states. The most remarkable example we can see today in Greece, where the so-called Troika, consisting of EU Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund, in close co-operation with the SYRIZA government exercises an austerity policy which has never before been put in practice since the end of the Second World War.

At the same time, NATO is strengthening its policy of military confrontation in and outside Europe by enlarging military presence in Eastern Europe, by an increasing number of military exercises, but also by participation in military confrontations like in Syria, in Iraq and in Afghanistan as well as in several countries on the African continent.

The Communist Party of Luxembourg would like to use this opportunity to express its firm solidarity with the communists and with all progressive forces who are actively fighting against the aggressive economic and military policy of EU and NATO.

What we need today is not only the expression of solidarity. It is absolutely indispensable to search for and to find new ways and methods of co-operation with progressive forces on national as well as on regional and on international level to strengthen our ranks. We have to think over our strategy and tactics and our policy of alliances – in the election campaigns as well as in our future day-by-day activities. When we want to increase the support of the broad masses for our policy and for our aims, we have to develop and to improve our co-operation with trade unions, youth and women’s associations, peace and solidarity groups, and other mass organisations.

In different meetings and conferences over the last decade, representatives of KPL have expressed our opinion that the international and regional co-operation of communist and workers’ parties has to be improved. All other political forces – conservatives, social democrats, liberals, greens, the so-called left and even the pirates – have created their international organisations or at least networks. Communists are the only political force that has no international structure.

We have already succeeded to develop a very fruitful co-operation among four parties in our region: the Workers Party of Belgium, the German Communist Party, the New Communist Party of the Netherlands and the Communist Party of Luxembourg. Delegations of the four parties meet frequently to discuss in seminars and in working groups about our policy, to work out and publish common statements and to exchange information and experiences. PTB, DKP, NCPN and KPL do not at all have the same opinion on each and every issue. But we succeeded to develop an atmosphere to speak openly about all questions, to recognise even differences and to share different opinions. The basic principle of our co-operation is that we have the same opinion on all basic political questions, that we base our co-operation on the points that unite us, and that we are not searching for divergences. In our opinion, this could be a good example for a broader co-operation of communist and workers’ parties.

With regard to the sharpening international situation, to the growing danger of war, to the growing influence of xenophobia, racism and fascism in national and international policy, with regard to the sharpening attacks of the imperialist forces on social rights, with regard to still growing unemployment, poverty, hunger in the world – the Communist Party of Luxembourg is of the opinion that the common struggle against capitalism is the main task of communist and workers’ parties all over the world. All of us have one common political basis: Marxism-Leninism. We may have diverging points of view in separate issues, we may have different opinions on tactical questions, but we have the same strategy: to overcome exploitation of men by men, to lay the basis for the construction of a socialist society.

We think that there is no reason for communists not to be organised on international level – with regard to the fact that the class enemy is organised very well. The communists of Luxembourg are ready to make their contribution.