Statement to Florence 10+10 from the League for the Fifth International Read more...

The ESF in Istanbul failed to provide a lead in the coming struggles against the crisis, report Martin Suchanek and Dave Stockton

Photos of the event are online here Read more...

Draft call proposed to the European Preparatory Assembly/Assembly of Social Movements by the League for the Fifth International Read more...

We do not want to pay for their crisis Read more...

League for the Fifth International 20-11-08, Read more...

The fifth meeting of the European Social Forum was held in Malmo, Sweden in September. Participants from various social movements, a number of left wing groups and NGOs all gathered together in around 280 seminars and workshops, along with a large number of cultural activities. Alongside these meetings, there was a demonstration with 10-15,000 participants on Saturday, and a number of smaller demonstrations and protests. Read more...

As the programme for a bosses' Europe  the European Constitution  is defeated yet again in another referendum, the movement for another Europe is building its forces to meet at the European Social Forum in Malmo is September. Read more...

The European anti-neoliberal left, which formed at the European Social Forum in November 2002, has, over the past year, entered into a real crisis. The reasons for this lie in the political trajectory of its major component - the parties which compose the European Left Party (ELP), the former or reformed Communist Parties. Read more...

The largest delegations in Frankfurt came from Greece, France, Germany, Italy and Turkey. The attendance from Eastern Europe including Russia has also markedly increased. There were smaller, but active delegations from Austria, the Basque Country, Belgium, Denmark, Portugal and Sweden, plus a representative from Palestine. The biggest “absence” was the British, including a complete “no show” from the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Read more...

The EPA takes place in the midst of an important period of sharpening class struggle. The forces of resistance to the coalition waging the “war on terror” have inflicted significant defeats on it. The effectiveness of resistance in Lebanon forced withdrawal of the Israeli invaders, the occupation in Iraq has entered its final stage – where withdrawal is being openly debated and the Afghan occupation has become a major war. Read more...

Around 30,000 people attended the fourth European Social Forum in Athens on 4-7th May, a figure larger than the London ESF (25,000) in a much smaller country (Greece has a population of 10.7 million, not the 60 million or so of the other venues. Another factor which might have made it smaller was the very late postponement of the event by a month, forced on the organisers by the Italian elections. Read more...

The League for the Fifth Internationals alternative declaration to the ESF and the ASM that was proposed in the organising committees and from the conference floor of the forum /n/nWe, the Assembly of Social Movements, meeting at the Fourth European Social Forum in Athens in May 2005, declare our total opposition to the global order of neoliberalism, imperialist wars, poverty and exploitation - in short, global capitalism. Without the overthrow and complete uprooting of this system, all ideas of another world based on human rights, equality, economic and social development for all, will remain an empty utopia. Read more...

We, the Assembly of Social Movements, meeting at the Fourth European Social Forum in Athens in May 2006, declare our total opposition to the global order of neoliberalism, imperialist wars, poverty and exploitation - in short, global capitalism. Without the overthrow and complete uprooting of this system, all ideas of another world based on human rights, equality, economic and social development for all, will remain an empty utopia. Read more...

Resistance to the negative effects of globalisation, particularly through the conscious anti-capitalist movement, has shown that we can unify against a common enemy. While much of the process of globalisation has been to unify the process of exploitation around the globe, there is no doubt that some sections of society are more acutely affected than others. In particular, the rural and urban poor of the least developed countries, the migrants and refugees from poverty and war, and the masses of newly unemployed in the countries of the former Soviet Union. Across all the areas, and in the rich countries, it is women whose lives have changed the most, who suffer the greatest hardship, and who are absolutely key to resisting global capitalism. Read more...

We, the Assembly of Social Movements, meeting at the Fourth European Social Forum in Athens in May 2005, declare our total opposition to the global order of neoliberalism, imperialist wars, poverty and exploitation - in short, global capitalism. Without the overthrow and complete uprooting of this system, all ideas of another world based on human rights, equality, economic and social development for all, will remain an empty utopia. Read more...

Neo-liberalism can be defeated! That is the message from the momentous struggle of the French youth, students and workers against the CPE. Bold militant and courageous action that shakes the governments of the rich and powerful is the way forward for our great movement. Chric and De Villepin wanted to legalise precarite – our movement said no! Read more...

Around 30,000 people attended the fourth European Social Forum in Athens on 4-7th May, a figure larger than the London ESF (25,000) in a much smaller country (Greece has a population of 10.7 million, not the 60 million or so of the other venues. Another factor which might have made it smaller was the very late postponement of the event by a month, forced on the organisers by the Italian elections. Read more...

The Florence preparatory meeting for the Athens ESF saw a marked disagreement between the French and the Italian delegates over how to fight back against the EU constitution. Two competing proposals and plans of action were put forward, but neither would be adequate to finally defeat the EU superstate project. Around 180 delegates came together in Florence on 12-13th November to discuss the ‘Charter for Another Europe’. The meeting marked an attempt to develop a statement of principles “for another Europe”. Read more...

Around 180 delegates came together in Florence on 12-13th November to discuss the ‘Charter for Another Europe’. The meeting marked an attempt to develop a statement of principles “for another Europe”. Read more...

From 21.-24. July, the first Social Forum took place in Germany, in Erfurt. Around 3500 participated during four days of discussion in 300 workshops, seminars and plenaries.

Like the European and World Social Forums and the French assemblies for a constitutional alternative, the Forum in Erfurt was marked by a strong bid by left reformists and trade union bureaucrats to impose their policies on the social movements. Read more...

The European Social Forum has passed up an important opportunity to break new ground in Central and Eastern Europe, to focus on the immediate struggles facing the European working class and, indeed, to co-ordinate those struggles. Read more...

The European Social Forum has passed up an important opportunity to break new ground in Central and Eastern Europe, to focus on the immediate struggles facing the European working class and, indeed, to co-ordinate those struggles.

As has happened all too often, a handful of “leading” delegates grabbed control of the agenda and ensured that the 150 participants spent the full three days discussing the themes for the next ESF, 11 months away. Read more...

The Youth Assembly of the 2004 European Social Forum declares opposition to the world of war, racism, poverty, and the system that causes it – global capitalism. Read more...

The third European Social Forum took place in London during 15-17 October. Over the three days 20,000 people from nearly 70 countries took part in over 500 meetings, listening to over 250 speakers. Read more...

At this year’s European Social Forum on the Saturday afternoon of the three day event 200 young activists came together for 2 hours of debate and discussion on the way forward for the movement against war, racism and neo-liberalism. Read more...

The basic arrangements of European Social Forum are now well underway. The main speakers at 30 huge plenary rallies have been decided— all but the British ones. The over seven hundred smaller meetings (seminars) proposed by different organisations, trade unions, campaigns, NGOs and political organisations have been merged into between 150 and 170 sessions, each with simultaneous translation into various European languages. Read more...

The third European Social Forum will take place in London between 14 and 17 October. It could be an enormously important, even historic event, with tens of thousands of international activists attending. But it is also part of a process, a living part of the history of the anticapitalist movement. But a crisis of leadership is gripping the movement. Read more...

The ESF Preparatory Assembly for the London European Social Forum came together in Berlin on the 17-18 June, while the ’Programme Workgroup’, as now seems routine at these meetings, met on the two days prior to the Assembly itself. Read more...

The London European Social Forum is just four months away.

This paper (Workers Power) has long championed the ESF. It is a tremendous opportunity to combine the very best methods of struggle, policies and organisational initiatives from across the continent and the world. In an era of globalisation and imperialist war, this internationalism is of vital importance if we are to win even local struggles against privatisation, racism and cuts. Read more...

The European Social Forum 2004 Preparatory Assembly gathered on 16-18 April in Istanbul. A “programme workgroup” held on the afternoon of Friday 15 April was effectively an assembly session too. Of the several hundred activists present, naturally a far larger proportion came from Turkey, Greece, Hungary and the Balkans. Read more...