Call of FIR for the European Parliament Electoral Campaign

9. April 2024

The next elections to the European Parliament will take place in June 2024.
The International Federation of Resistance Fighters (FIR) – Association of Anti-fascists remembers that the ideals of a common peaceful Europe based on the resistance fight against the fascist barbarism and the politics of violence and by extermination of Nazism. Our goal also for today’s Europe is embedded in the “oath of Buchenwald”: “Creating a new world of peace and freedom!”

In recent years, the policy and development of the European Union did not correspond to the interests of large parts of the people. In addition, we see the tendencies to foreclosure of the “fortress Europe” and the militarization of the European Union. On the other hand, the Covid pandemic has forced the EU to initiate the most impressive financing program for the revival of the economy and civil progress of the member countries.
Second, we are facing a significant upraise of openly racist, nationalist and far right parties in many European countries. They are represented in national, regional and local assemblies, in addition they influence the government in several states with their anti-democratic and racist policies.
Although we know that inside our ranks (as well as within other democratic movements) there are different perspectives on the role of the European Union, we should react common in this electoral campaign. The anti-fascist, anti-racist and peace-moving organizations, and groups, as well as trade unions, religious groups and social movements must thus join their forces, engaging to successfully counter such a scenario. The basis of this action is not a vote for a party, but a common advocacy for a European Union of the people. That means:
• opposing any form of nationalism, separatist attempts, racial discrimination, or xenophobia, working for the rights of the refugees and minorities,
• promoting better and decent living and working conditions in all countries,
• to qualify the economic and social policy courses, by placing at the center the realization of the full equality of treatment and rights between all genders;
• to make education, schooling and training pathways as the fundamental instruments of integration, social and individual development of European citizens, first and foremost towards the younger generations;
• opposing any form of Holocaust denial, denial of the resistance fight, destruction of memorial sites, falsification of history and rehabilitation of SS criminals,
• advocating a peace policy based not on domination in matter of foreign policy, but on non-military conflict solutions. Therefore to create the conditions to succeed in a new European Security Conference – „Helsinki 2“ as it is often called – to set a new reference framework for international relations and get out of the serious ongoing crisis.
This Europe is possible if the peoples actively and vocally campaign for their rights and leave a mark through the next elections to the European Parliament. Because the trend toward abstentions strengthen the risk that far right forces will prevail in many member states, leading, FIR call for vote against far right parties and will do its best on an international level to connect existing initiatives, social organizations, trade unions and movements in order to become a common political voice in Europe.