This conference, held in Lisbon last October, aimed at debating and tracing possible areas of cooperation between social and political actors amongst the Southern European Left.
Facts
Event: Three days seminar
Organisers: transform! europe, Rosa Luxemburg Foundation – Liaison Office Madrid
Date: 26th-28th October 2018
Venue: A Voz do Operário, Rua da Voz do Operário – 13, Lisboa
Facilitator: Tatiana Moutinho
Project: Cooperation Strategies for Southern Europe
Overview
Southern European countries represent the failure of the existing European integration. Despite their differences, all of them were the subjected to various ‘bail-out packages’ imposed by the Troika and general authoritarian EU policies of austerity, which supposedly were the answer to exit from the recent systemic crisis. The result was the increase in structural weaknesses together with labour precariousness, unemployment, poverty and the loss of labour and social rights.
The current southern European situation was the motto for this conference that gathered researchers and players from parties, trade unions and movements, who shared their knowledge, experiences, perspectives and prospects regarding European integration of Southern countries.
Twenty five speakers from Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, Cyprus, France and Germany participated in seven panels addressing the European integration and the European treaties and institutions, deregulation of labour markets, austerity programmes, tax evasion and precariousness.
The contributions delivered by the speakers, summarised in the report here attached, were instrumental and extremely useful for the vivid and inspiring debates that took place throughout the three days of the conference, and will be, eventually, fully published by transform! europe. Several cooperation possibilities were tackled and issues deserving deeper discussion in the near future emerged.