“Support for far-right parties is increasing, and we don’t like it.” Said Haris Golemis.

Haris Golemis, Transform! network, opened his speech at New challenges for a new Parliament conference stressing the importance to find spaces of dialogue for the different political foundations to confront different visions of Europe.

In regard to the 2104 European Parliament elections’ results, he showed mixed feelings: In the one hand, he expresses satisfaction for the GUE-NGL historic result, in the other, a big concern about the new composition of the Parliament which includes now more far-right, racist, and Eurosceptic MEPs. “The extreme right is increasing, and we don’t like it!” He stated.

He views the Spitzenkandidaten election very positive, yet he acknowledges it wasn’t easy, nor obvious at the beginning of the campaign that the member states and Council would propose the winner of the election as Commission President. To him also Aléxis Tsípras, the EC candidate of the Left, did well in supporting Juncker after the elections – despite the distance between their political views – because a reinforced Parliament and thus European Democracy were at stake.

Then, he addressed the complex challenge for the European Parliament to make radical changes of EU policies, especially because it lacks legislative initiative and because “We have to keep in mind that the real power lies with the nation states […] And as we have witnessed […] there are parliaments in southern countries which are merely decorative”, he emphasized.

He acknowledged that the role of the European Parliament shouldn’t go beyond the competences given by the treaties but, it necessarily has to become the institution of and for Democracy, and it needs to be the first barrier against the rule of the financial markets, because bailouts shouldn’t be imposed disregarding the democratic decision making process in each country, he concluded.

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