---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Corinna Genschel <corinna.genschel@...>
Date: 20 July 2014 11:54
Subject: [fse-esf] WG: Blockupy International: Invitation to Brussels
26-27 September
To: "fse-esf@..." <fse-esf@...>




Call for building together a transnational space of initiative for a
Europe from below,

through, against and beyond current Europe.


Invitation from Blockupy International to all movements, networks and
organizations

to an open assembly in Brussels on September 26th / 27th

We, as Blockupy international coordinating group, met in Berlin on
June 21st, to discuss the outcomes of the May of Solidarity and the
future perspectives. During the days of mobilization actions were
various and rich, and we valued positively that many have been
organized from outside the May of Solidarity process. We also agreed
that, though the Blockupy process is focused on mobilizing towards the
opening of the new ECB building in Frankfurt (now scheduled for early
2015), an autonomous political initiative cannot be simply bounded to
the dates established by the institutional agenda: we need a larger
social and political perspective. The postponing of Turin EU summit on
“youth employment”, on the other hand, has left many without a common
space to gather, act and discuss. The message of May of Solidarity
across Europe – “Solidarity beyond borders, building democracy from
below!” – found much resonance, but a strong transnational movement is
still to come and we know that no one, beginning with us, could
consider themselves to be sufficient.

We also know we are not alone in our attempts to link struggles across
borders and to create a transnational resistance. We openly
acknowledge our limits, and we recognize that different networks
across the European space are facing that similar limits and
contradictions. We do think it is time to turn this situation into a
political opportunity. We therefore propose an open meeting to
collectively examine the current phase and to strategically discuss
our practices and our proposals to build a transnational space of
initiative for a Europe from below, through, against and beyond
current Europe.

The Europe of the ruling classes might be itself in crisis again and
again; it might be in continuous reorganization. However, what were
before more nationally disparate austerity and saving programmes are
being consolidated into the new status quo of the EU. This is the
reality behind the rhetoric of the European governments claiming that
the moment to go beyond austerity has come. Of course,
“post-austerity” does not mean “benefits for all” or real changes for
the better! Moreover, as a governing logic it is not “new”: austerity
and privatization have been reality in Eastern Europe for
twenty-something years now. Rather, we are facing a new phase
characterized by the attempt to stabilize the social effects of
austerity policies with transnational policy based on creating and
exploiting different spaces. This is the logic of new processes of
precarization and re-organization of exploitation taking place on a
transnational scale, exemplified not least in the “Youth Guarantee”
programme of labour governance, which are linked to the positioning of
the EU within global value chains and to financial flows that go
beyond the institutional borders of the European Union.

In this way, Europe is becoming a space of transit and accumulation
crisscrossed by differences, unbalances, regional and zonal dynamics.
Mobility inside and across these spaces is thus becoming a crucial
element, as the governments of Europe are managing welfare policies
and the Schengen regime in order to exploit those movements practiced
by people both with and without European passports who together make
up the living labour force.

These novelties are the political problem we have to face together in
order to understand what to do next, how, and especially with whom to
make Europe a space for transnational politics of radical change, also
in so far as today the national space is more than ever too narrow. As
the outcomes of the recent European elections show, it is not only
that the national space is functional to racist and right wing
solutions to the crisis, it is also that within the national space it
is impossible to counter the power of global capitalism.

In every respect a strong transnational movement is still to come. Of
course the development of such movement will depend on the struggles
taking place in daily life rooted in the social dimension, but they
also depend on our ways to develop a common space – for strategizing
and for finding common spaces of struggles. While an increase of
networking has taken place in the past years, we still have not found
the practices to translate separate struggles into a transnational
movement. Our proposal to meet comes from a genuine desire to openly
discuss together, in a practical way, how to turn the variety of
networks and present agendas into a political opportunity for social
movements to fight together and to build counter narratives,
cooperation and lively shared practices of struggle.

As Blockupy International coalition, we will mobilize towards the
opening of the new ECB building – symbolically experiencing a common
transnational space of struggle in the streets and in a very real way
blocking production and circulation in Frankfurt, the financial
capital of continental Europe. However, we have to ask ourselves
whether we are able to re-organize and diffusely tackle the heart of
the new regime of exploitation, which was built on the austerity
policies in the last years.

Therefore we propose to take that new phase of European post-austerity
policy seriously. To fight against it, we have much to learn from each
other. We know the current social relationships are based on debt and
competitiveness on the one hand; precarity and working poor as the
general condition of labour, institutional racism and a
re-nationalization of citizenship on the other hand. It is also
characterized by the attack on wages and incomes, on commons and
welfare systems and the consequent restriction of the spaces for
democracy. We know we must learn from experiences in places where
austerity has long been the way of life, and thus we especially extend
this invitation to our friends in Eastern and Southeastern Europe.

Starting from here, we propose to meet up and discuss about what we
can do in order to produce an autonomous initiative at the
transnational level, which tackles this relevant issue of
post-austerity Europe posing few questions:

How can we frame our heterogeneous struggles within and against the
newly consolidated governmental regime based on the status quo of
austerity and its enforcing institutions?

Starting from the conditions of precarity of living and working, the
issue of mobility, of Europe as space of transit and accumulation, how
we can set our own agenda of mobilization for the upcoming months?
How can we think of powerful, transnational social and political
practices to address the new conditions of labour and life, building
the possibilities to powerfully organize inside of them and to
effectively strike against them?
In which ways we can connect the different activities, practices,
meeting points in and as a common process that could become an
orienting shared “road map”?

We believe it’s time to develop a powerful practical perspective, time
to think about how to act together and how to build the strength we
need to overturn the table. We also think that we must approach
together the political problem of a transnational, Europe-wide strike
around these different issues, how to organize it and how to really
hurt the new exploitation regime.

For these reasons, we invite all groups interested in a radical change
perspective to meet in the evening of the 26th and have meeting all
day on 27th September in Brussels for an open discussion which,
starting from these inputs, can lead us to one or more days of common
action and to build together a larger moment of analysis, exchange and
political proposals towards a transnational space of movement, towards
an autumn of struggles and some shared medium-term perspectives – in
solidarity beyond borders.

Feel free to forward this invitation to other networks, groups,
organisations. Technical details will follow, please write to
international@... for info and if you interested in
coming to Brussels.




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Corinna Genschel

Mitarbeiterin Neue Soziale Bewegung Kontaktstelle



Fraktion DIE LINKE. im Bundestag

Platz der Republik 1, 11011 Berlin

Telefon +4930/227-52097

Telefax +4930/227-56183

Mobil +49176/62890775

corinna.genschel@...

www.linksfraktion.de

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