[Individual-members-EL] reviewing the last 6 months

Fri Jan 19 16:19:20 CET 2007

Dear Uli,

Thank you for your energy and enthusiasm to articulate the individual
members of the EL.

I apologise for not having been active in answering or contributing at
all to the discussion list. Our activities take all our energy and I am
also member of the Brussels section of Izquierda Unida, from where we
have initiated the development of the Brussels circle of the EL. 

 We have already organised several debates together with the local
section of Rifondazione Comunista and we just started to collaborate
with Attac Brussels and other political-cultural organisations like Une
Autre Gauche.We are also attempted to become members of a cultural and
social cooperative, the Garcia Lorca centre (wwww.garcialorca.be)where
we have organised most of our activities. Our next activity is tomorrow
(the information you have it down here) around trade unionism in Europe
following the Volkswagen decision to restructure factories in Barcelona
and Brussels.

We hold a monthly meeting of members and assistance is at most of 10 and
at least of 5, but we have starting to have new members. It is also true
that we have not done a great effort yet but we did not have much
material in French. So great you have a brochure now!

Summarising our 8 monthly debates there are three views ( not
contradictory) about which role such a local section could play in the
Brussels political scene:

1) LOCAL NETWORKING- a place where activists from different sections of
party members and members of social movements meet to discuss about
European issues and inform each other about the situation in their
countries and activities developed by their local sections.

2) DIRECT ACTIVISM- We undersand here to carry campaigns at local level
around issues of European relevance such as the Bolkenstein Directive,
the right to dwelling, participating in demonstrations and organising
debates between activists. I underline that our debates do not aim to be
scholarly conferences but activist debates launched by informed people.
For example we would like to organise a election night around the
Presidential elections in France.

3) EUROPEAN TRANSFER- This is the least explored of all the three and
consists in seeking local contributions of individuals and specialised
social and political movements to the working groups set up by the EL
party. 

I think that this is a fundamental element which could serve to attract
local activists to the EL Party. It would be great if the working group
on trade unionist could develop a subgroup about the automobile industry
as this could serve us to bring together local trade unionists who are
desperately searching for a political space where to meet other European
colleges to prepare European actions against restructuring. 

Being this month the German, and later the Portuguese presidency of the
EU, the VW case could appear as an important step towards showing that
the EL serves for something concrete to trade-unionists. But I guess
that this is a initiative that the German members of the EL has to
launch with a meeting in Berlin attended by trade unionists of VW
factories throughout Europe. What would be a better answer to that
German presidency which aims to justify the re-introduction of the
Constitutional Treaty with some social clauses?... We wait for news from
German individual members about this concrete proposal for
collaboration.

Comradely yours,

Sigfrido

Fermeture d'entreprises et réponse syndicale

Débat autour de Volkswagen

Ce samedi 20 janvier 2007 au 

Garcia Lorca (47-49 rue des Foulons 1000 bxl)

à partir de 16 h

Avec la participation de 

Diosdado Toledano (Espagne - Conseil Politique Federal Izquierda Unida -
Assemblée des Licenciés de SEAT Barcelona)

Nico Cue (Secrétaire National de la Centrale des Métallurgistes de
Belgique -CMB-FGTB)

Sergio Raviccini  (ex-délégué syndical FGTB de VW Forest)

Sandra Goret (déléguée syndicale FGTB de VW Forest)

Silvio Marra (ex-délégué syndical aux Forges de Clabecq)

Guy Van Sinoy (délégué cgsp - militant une autre gauche)

Organisé par : Izquierda Unida Bruselas - Parti de la Gauche Européenne
- Une Autre Gauche

-----Mensaje original-----
De: individual-members-el-bounces at listi.jpberlin.de
[mailto:individual-members-el-bounces at listi.jpberlin.de] En nombre de
Ulrich Deike
Enviado el: viernes, 19 de enero de 2007 14:29
Para: individual-members-el at listi.jpberlin.de
Asunto: [Individual-members-EL] reviewing the last 6 months

Hi all,

I&#8216;ve had a look at our working schedule from July 19, 2006 and
now, 6 months later, it&#8217;s time for a first review. As I&#8216;m
not informed about everything going on in our group, please add and
comment.

A. Things we tried to do self-responsibly:

1. There are a couple of British individual members. They haven&#8217;t
launched their website yet. But they are very close to doing it (have
prepared everything for it).

Unfortunately, Stephen&#8217;s attempt to gather the British members in
London in early January failed as far as I know, but it was good news
hearing of the attempt already. Thank you, Stephen! Maybe it&#8217;s
worth a second trial preceded by a long-term announcement?

2. We have had the link &#8220;Join us&#8221; on the EL homepage for
some months now, a real success. Thank you, Martin and Mike!

3. The passing on of contact data from Brussels to national groups as
soon as a new member subscribes seems to have worked in a couple of
cases in Germany. However, the influx has been very low despite the fact
that we have distributed hundreds of flyers especially in and around
Berlin. Also communication between individual members and the Brussels
and Berlin offices is usually initiated by us. And we don&#8216;t always
get a response.

4.     National groups are still too small to start active political
work beyond advertising ourselves.

        The German network has issued a flyer, printed it and keeps
distributing it around the 2 spots on the map 

        (Leipzig and Berlin) where we got active members.

        A French flyer is ready to be printed (Thank you, Joseph and
Mike!), but &#8211; as far as I know &#8211; we are still 

waiting for some money for it.

        The Brussels group of individual members has run some local
political events, such as topical discussions 

        and film evenings. This is an example of what our political
publicity can look like if we have more than one 

         active member in a town. Thank you Martin, Liberté and
Sigfrido!

5. We haven&#8217;t submitted any articles to the EL website since my
interview with Prof.Mahnkopf in August. This is probably due to our lack
of time in the first place. Mike is trying to sort out our options for
our own website preferably on a supranational level.

6. Trying to fill the white spots on the EL-map:

Lena and I have tried to use our contacts with Danish people, but in
vain. (Anyway, thank you, Lena!) We&#8217;ll have to be present at more
international gatherings of unionists and other left activists in order
to get people involved. Or we could try out flyers completely in English
and distribute them on vacation and other trips anywhere in Europe.

B. Things we had to sort out with the Executive Board: 

1. We didn&#8217;t have an international meeting of individual members,
but there was a meeting of Germans in October. Only 10 people attended
it and too much time was spent on sightseeing, too little time on actual
plans and exchange of information. But we agreed to have another
national meeting in 2007. Thanks to the Berlin office for their support.

2. Congress 2007:

As you can read in one of the web-articles from January 17, the Congress
is scheduled for November. Every national party can send 12 delegates.
Before we could possibly send delegates to a subsequent congress, the
statute will have to be changed, which is what a statute commission has
to discuss. This commission again includes only members of national
parties.

3. There are membership cards now. Those of you who haven&#8217;t got
one yet, please contact the office. 

Thank you Martin!

4. Just for statistics: How many individual members do you know there
are in your country? In order to know where we are going and how
slow/fast, we got to measure our size from time to time. 

That&#8217;s it from my side. So, what&#8217;s next? And how do you
think we can improve our work?

Best wishes to all of you for 2007

Uli

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