Dear comrades, dear friends,

Your congress is being organised in a period of social and political turbulences, as a result of the crisis of capitalism.

The European Union is today at a crossroads. Either the current destructive choices will be maintained and strengthened; the EU will more and more be reduced to an authoritarian directorate, producer of social regressions threatening any notion of European solidarity and justice.
Or a break will be made and a left, socialist alternative for the 21st century, guaranteeing equality for all European citizens, will allow the building of a progressive regional cooperation, respecting sovereign choices of European peoples.

The Party of the European Left wants the second hypothesis to be victorious and acts in order to resist the applied policies and, starting from the struggles, promote a refoundation of Europe, namely a new definition of its objectives, policies and structures, based on a completely different economic, productive and social model of solidarity, justice and democracy.

Being up to this challenge is the meaning we give to the existence of the Party of the European Left, which has made progress in formulating proposals and has worked for the development of actions and areas of convergences around this alternative vision, which is the only European political force that can offer to the peoples of Europe a perspective of exit from the crisis.
In this direction we believe that the organisation of the AlterSummit in Athens in June 2013 is a good opportunity to discuss further on our vision and the orientation of the EU.

With these thoughts we would like to wish you fruitful discussions and results in your founding Congress.

The Secretariat of the Executive Board of the Party of the European Left
Brussels, 5 February 2013