• The French organizers of the extraordinary European session in Paris are asked to devise the agenda and the by laws in such a way as to ensure two separate rounds of dialogue for all country delegates, one on the issue of the present state of the ESF process, and the other on future perspectives and needed changes. This should happen before the general debate is started, to enable a general opinion to form on these two issues within the European movement and, at the same time, to prevent country delegations who are stronger in numbers to dominate the rest of the session.
During the general debate it should be ensured to keep to the gender balance and also to enable a balanced participation of speakers from participating countries. In order to prevent social exclusion of specific groups, the organizers have been requested not to limit the interpretation any longer to English, French and Italian. We should really try to set some basic rules for the by laws during the European sessions. In particular these concern: speaker time, order of speakers and the interpretation needs.
• In order to facilitate an easier discussion during the Paris session, we are stating here our points of criticism of the ESF process, the perspectives and the needed changes.
London was a great experience for many thousands people, both politically and personally. With immense desire to be involved in discussions and great combativeness many of them made use of the offer to discuss the political issues raised. The ESF process has gained political amplitude and meaning by the active engagement of unions and many other groups and initiatives. There is a greater chance now for this new social movement to become and important political factor within Europe.
The ESF in London showed up problems and weaknesses of the movement which have existed for a while. Lacking transparency, missing willingness to compromise, insistence on national priorities, dominance of individual groups, and ad-hoc coalitions. Installing a homepage in advance and publishing detailed minutes of the preparatory meetings have been steps towards greater transparency, but these steps have to be collectively expanded.
The main problem seems to be the inability or the unwillingness of the groups of the far end of the political spectrum of the movement to seek consensus. In London, to put it simply, the opponents were unions and autonomous groups. Potential mediators, crudely put, took sides of the opponents, Socialist Workers Party, CP Britain, CND and Tobin Tax Initiative, some NGO's held with the unions. Attac, local Social Forums and other NGO's and Anarchist groups held with the Autonomous groups. A lack of willingness to seek consensus had revealed itself earlier and in different contexts. For example, in Paris it proved very difficult to convince the Italian basic unions to agree to a common European day of mobilisation on the 3 April 2004 together with the Europeans Trade Union Association, demonstrating against the dismantling of the welfare state.
When it came to it they ignored the day. At the preparatory meeting of the social movements in London it was them as well who, together with their French colleagues, prevented a mention of the 60th anniversary of the liberation from Hitler's fascism on 8 May 2005, during the final appeal and a call to participation in antifascist actions, as was demanded in the name of the International Resistance Fighters and their delegates from Germany and Austria. It is however essential to emphasise the antifascist character of the movement.
It is part of the demand for transparency and to prevent a political dominance of any group, to have open access to the preparatory committees of the European assembly. On many important meetings provision is regularly made only for interpretation into Italian, French and English. This fact alone limits the participation to a small elite, and a depressing dominance of the native speakers is programmed. In future it has to be assured to provide interpretation according to attendance.
Of course every country has its own political priorities. This should be regarded as an enrichment of the movement. This results in a certain political dominance of the specific event. The European character of such meetings is not always guarantied. In the future the organizers will have to vouch for this.
Many participants of the latest European meeting in London are in their statements now criticizing the dominance of certain political groups the ESF. At the same time the choice of Athens for the next location for the ESF is being criticised. The decision for Athens was a difficult one. But it confirmed at the same time the agreement which had already been reached in Bobigny to continue the movement of the ESF with the Forum in Greece. The debate in London on this issue expressed the following objection: the preparation of the ESF in Athens could be dominated by a quarrelling political coalition which would exclude the participation of a number of unions and peace- and student organisations. In this way the confirmation for Athens as a location is connected with the request to the Greek groups to find consensus and to broaden the basis of supporting organisations significantly.
The most important problem this movement has to solve is the encouragement to enter into dialogue and the willingness to reach consensus. But how is the movement going to deal with groups on one or the other end of the political spectrum, which don't want to enter into this process or are not able to? Do we exclude them and accept their heckling? Do we forgo their participation and with it forgo their wide political influence in the population? The consequence would be a schism and with it the failure of an idea which could really change the world. Is it possible that it could be a justifiable consequence in the interest of a political success strategy, to part company with such minorities, who do not really want the ESF in the spirit of Port Alegre with its free space of discussion, but seek to use it only for the advancement of their own egotistical group aims (who the fuck needs the ESF?).
There is no alternative to the effort of sensitively developing, with great consideration of others, a new culture of discussion in which the needed skills for our basic political concern are acquired. This will not be possible without the willingness of all participants to compromise. Whoever is not in agreement with this, who might even forcibly suppress other opinions, should go their separate ways.
Hugo Braun (Attac Koordinierungskreis), Christine Buchholz (Initiative für ein Sozialforum in Deutschland), Erhard Crome (Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung), Karen Genn (Marx-Engels-Stiftung), Willy van Ooyen (Friedens- und Zukunftswerkstatt) Christine Karch (Netzwerk Cuba), Stefan Krull (IG Metall), Jutta Ried (Babels-de), Hannelore Tölke (Initiative für ein Sozialforum in Deutschland).