A new left turn for Europe

http://www.guardian.co.uk/eu/story/0,7369,1606897,00.html

Fifteen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the legacy of communism in Europe is making a new mark in the political landscape. It's often been a matter of "innovate or die", and innovation has meant new alliances that would have had their forebears turn in their graves.

But in several countries, a hybrid left is developing the capacity to fill the growing vacuum on the left as social democratic parties such as the Labour party in Britain and the Social Democrats in Germany adopt policies of the right. The cautious optimism of Oskar Lafontaine in Germany, one of the first insiders to challenge this trend, is a symbol of this.

Lafontaine and the new Linkspartei he leads are moving on the European stage. The party was one of the organisers of the first congress of a new political animal: the European Left party (ELP). Some 360 people attended its congress in Athens at the weekend. These ranged from significant players on the European scene, such as the Party of Communist Refoundation, Romani Prodi's radical partner in the Union, the coalition that hopes to unseat Silvio Berlusconi in April next year, through to small parties like the Estonian Communist party who were excited "to be part of something big", as its delegate Sirje Kingsepp put it.

What they had in common was a commitment to the renewal of the left and to the idea of a common European strategy. Absent were orthodox and nationalist communist parties, notably the communist parties of Portugal and Greece.

http://www.european-left.org/