Centre-left parties should reject any dialogue with the far right in the EU countries, said leaders at a Party of European Socialists (PES)
Centre-left parties should reject any dialogue with the far right in the EU countries, said leaders at a Party of European Socialists (PES) congress held at the weekend in Berlin.
PES’s short-term plan is “to win the European elections in 2024”, the party’s leading voices said, underlying the importance of the battle against the rise of far-right parties.
Former Swedish prime minister Stefan Löfven was elected as the new PES President at the gathering, and Löfven played down the prospect of co-operation with the new-right parties that have gained strength in recent months.
“Cooperation? Yes, but you have to also draw a line where cooperation is not possible. We will cooperate with those who at least admit that every human being has the exact same value,” Stefan Löfven told journalists.
“We are confronting autocrats with our EU cohesion,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in a speech at the end of the congress, where he also endorsed the European Commission’s efforts to deal with rule of law violations, which are “unacceptable”, according to Scholz.
The head of the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) group in the European Parliament, Iratxe Garcia Perez, took an even harder line, telling journalists that on issues such as treaty change or Russia sanctions, there is no space for dialogue with them.
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