REPORTS ON THE EPA DECISIONS

These are only the decisions from the EPA meeting

Soon we will send the list of proposals and issues about EPA and ESF from the metting in Frankfurt and also the minutes taken

So you will have 3 documents to discuss in your group/local social forum/... to give ideas and more proposals to the working group

All the best

Mariangela Casalucci

Bellaciao grecia

FLC CGIL Grecia

Decisions from Frankfurt EPA 3, 4, 5 November 2006

*The next EPA meeting will be on Friday, Saturday and Sunday 30,31 and 1^st of April

A “Next EPA preparing working group” was decided.

This group will meet in Brussels on the 12^th of January.

The group is going to work only to prepare the next EPA.

The meetings of the working group are open and the minutes circulated.

Compositions: it was suggested not more than 2 people from each country.

The group is formed by the people from these countries:

*The ones who had already an ESF in:

Italy – Raffaella, Alessandra, Elettra

France – Jean Michel, Annie, Sophie, Cristof;

Greece – will decide,

UK – nobody was at the meeting but they can send the names later

* The ones who suggested their own country as a place for the next ESF:

Denmark - Lars,

Sweden - Lisa,

Austria – Leo, Herman

* The ones who will might host the next EPA:

Portugal – Nuno

* EU and not EU East European countries

Peter Damo and other people to be decided

Fabrice is going to facilitate the co-ordination of the work for the meeting as Brussels is hosting it.

Function and aims: facilitate the next EPA through a transparent preparatory process :

1. Collect in a systematic way all the proposals from the november Frankfurt EPA (they which will be put on the list in few days by the “minutes working group” (Alla, Mariangela, Sven, Merlin, Fabrice) and the new ones coming out on the list after the discussions in different countries, networks, groups, etc

2. Prepare a list of proposals to be discussed in the next EPA which has to be out in the ESF list one month before the meeting in March

3. Prepare a clear and published agenda for the next EPA and circulate it

4. Ensure that in the program of next EPA there will be the space for the meetings of the networks and a slot for the Assembly of Social Movements to discuss political points and actions to be taken

5. Collecting the proposals from the countries who are willing of hosting the next ESFs with clear motivations, supports for doing it, logistic program ( Till now we have 2 proposals : Denmark/Sweden and Austria)

Web-site working group:

It was also decided one more working group for the web-site. What was said is that the site we have now is not clearly accessible and not used, not by networks, not by people who are in the process, not by people who might would like to access the process. The aim of the working group is to decide if we have to change the site completely and start a new one or we can change something in order to use it. It is crucial that in this process we have the right tool to use. This proposal has to be ready for the next EPA and it is important that the people who have been working to prepare the web-site will be in the group along with other who have prepared the Greek and the World Social Forum one

Composition:

Ayse: ayse_lila yahoo.com

Nuno: nunotitopt gmail.com

Tasos: tkoronakis yahho.gr

Tortsen: torsten.trotzki t-online.de

Merlin: waleseuropa yahho.co.uk

Dimitri: the mail will be send by Tasos

Please if you worked on the current Esf website or you would like to be involved in this group and you have some knowledge to share contact the people.

Tasos will facilitate the work of the group, so please send your contact to him.

Languages working group:

it was suggested a working group about all languages to be spoken and understood. There was a suggestion for a working group but we have no names at the moment.

If interested in this matter please contact

Francois (libertepourleslangues gmail.com)

Notice : at the end of the EPA 19 radios for translation were missing and they cost nearly E.200. If you took one of them by mistake and find it in your bag please send it to:

IG METALL

Wilhelm Leuschner Str. 79

60329 Frankfurt

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 ANTIWAR NETWORK MEETING REPORT

Frankfurt 4^th November 2006

At the meeting of antiwar network we had participants from Greece, Italy, Turkey, Germany, France, Austria, Czech Republic and Portugal.

On the week from 23^rd to 30^th September we had, as a decision of the Antiwar Network in Athens during the ESF, a week of action against war. All around Europe and in many cities around the World.
There have been demonstrations against Israel attack to Lebanon; despite we didn’t manage as before to articulate the general feeling against the war.

For the future we planned:

– to support the International Antiwar Beirut Conference from 16^th to 19^th of November.
– to support the Day of Action for Palestine on the 18^th of November with actions all around the World
– to support the Seville anti NATO demonstration on the 4^th February, during the Seville Nato Meeting with the presence of NATO Minister of Defense
– to participate to the anti G8 mobilization in Rostok/Heiligendamm in June 2006
– To call for mobilizations and demonstrations all around Europe, from 17^th to 18^th March - anniversary of the war in Iraq - with the main slogans: End occupation of Iraq /Don’t attack Iran.

In general we decided to support the antimilitaristic campaigns, the campaigns against military basis and against nuclear weapons.

We hope to enlarge the participation to the antiwar network meetings for next EPA. We think that networks are places of analysis, debate and dialogue as well important tools for common actions.

We need to broaden the debate about our positions against the war and we also need the active participation of other people and networks not directly involved in antiwar activities.

For the antiwar network in Frankfurt EPA

Elettra Anghelinas COBAS ( Italy)

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 Report of the Anti-imperialist Network

At the network meeting were present 12 participants from England, Greece, Germany, Turkey and the Basque Country. The first thing that discussed was about the aims of the network. It was agreed that the aims must be two. First, to fill the gap that exists at the ESF about the study of the role of imperialism in the modern world, at all levels and with all its forms, military, economical, and cultural in order to have concrete proposals. Second, to contribute in the better coordination between different organizations, platforms, associations, cultural centers etc that struggle with different ways against imperialism in order to have concrete actions.

Also it was discussed the way that the network can enlarge, both in different countries and in the national level of the different countries. After the discussion proceed to the evaluation of the Athens’s ESF and of other matters that was significant in the last six months. A lot of discussion was made also about the G8 meeting in Germany. An issue that is for discussion for next meetings is our collaboration and coordination with the other networks. The results of the discussions are as follows:

Evaluation of the 4^th ESF

From 4 to 7 May 2006, the 4^th ESF proved to be a pole of debate and struggle with mass participation. It was a space that expressed the radical anti-US, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist and anti-globalization sentiments of the big majority of the participants. Particularly the mass and combative demonstration of Saturday 6 May confirmed, from political point of view, that the Athens 4^th ESF had the most radical character compared to the previous ones except maybe Florence.

We believe that the ESF have to continue working on the idea of thematic
spaces. The experience of Athens shows that such spaces contribute in the enlargement of the ESF by making easier the introduction of groups who were sceptical in the past. At the same time thematic spaces give visibility to movements and struggles that sometimes are marginalized by the mass media.

Also we think that the Anti-imperialist Space played a decisive role in the progressive, radical and militant “color” of the 4thESF and of the demonstration. The Anti-imperialist Space regrouped, on the basis of a militant line of joint action, dozens of progressive mass organizations, liberation movements and revolutionary parties from more than 20 countries. Despite the existing technical problems and the considerable financial constraints - we had the assistance of the Organization Committee to solve many of them - the Anti-imperialist Space has successfully coordinated our joint intervention (for the first time in a Forum) and “colored” the 4^th ESF with its internationalist, anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist presence and political line. Almost all the different movements and organizations that took part in the Anti-imperialist Space have expressed their satisfaction and their will to continue this form of coordination and joint action as an Anti-imperialist Network in the framework of the ESF.

War in Lebanon – Repression – Past Activities

From May until now a lot of serious events take place. The most important of them was the war in Lebanon and the temporary defeat of the imperialists and their collaborators after the heroic resistance of the Lebanese people. We condemn the decisions of the so called international community to send a so-called “peace” force in to Lebanon, legitimize in that way the USA and Israeli imperialist aggression. We call for active solidarity to the Lebanese people and to participation to the Beirut Conference at 16 to 19 of November.

Also once again we want to support the self-determination right of the peoples like a first step for resolutions of conflicts and development of the societies. Also we support the sovereignty of the peoples, having or not having national states and all the open democratic processes as in Basque Country and in Ireland.

Also we condemn the continuous repression of the democratic and progressive voices, organizations and mass media around Europe. Per example, in Turkey, the imprisonment of Ibrahim Cicek, chief editor, and Sedat Senoglu, chief coordinator, and the rest journalists of “Atilim” newspaper, and of the members of other progressive institutes and trade-unions. We want to support the political prisoners in death fast against the F-Type prisons and isolation as Sevgi Saymaz, the lawyer Belic Asci who is making death fast since 215 days in solidarity to the political prisoners, as also Gulcan Goruroglu. In the Basque Country, the Spanish and French states continue the repression, banning demonstrations, exercising macro-trials and continuing the criminal policy against the political prisoners.

In the network meeting also it was reported from all the participants that during the last 6 months the movements and organizations of the Anti-imperialist Network participated to the actions which were decided at the Athens’s ESF (day of solidarity to the Nepalese people, day of action against the war, day of action for the rights of the refugees and the immigrants) and to all the activities against the imperialist intervention in Lebanon that tae place to the different countries.

G8 meeting

About the issue of the G8 meeting, it was decided to make as a network a call to all different platforms and initiatives for one and joint demonstration against the G8 and to take the initiative for calling all the different ant-imperialist and anti-capitalist organizations to coordinate their actions, to organize discussions, seminars and other activities in the counter summit and to form an joint anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist bloc to the demonstration.

Frankfurt EPA, 3/11/2006

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 Report on the meeting of the Charter of principles of another Europe

Frankfurt, November 3 2006

During the EPA in Frankfurt, the network of the Charter of principles of another Europe met for four hours to assess the new draft prepared by our French friends, in particular by Roger Martelli.

46 people attended the meeting and 22 took the floor. All agreed that the new draft was more compact and more readable, but it missed some points already discussed in Athens, and – more important – about which we reached a vast consensus. Therefore, we agreed to introduce some points by recovering the Athens draft or by re-writing them.

I remind you of some significant points:

1. social and workers rights;

2. the self-determination of peoples, the collective rights of minorities which should not prevail over the fundamental rights of the person;

3. the secularism of the public institutions;

4 to insure the participation from below in the administration, in the decision making above all in the public services and on the field of commons;

5. to reformulate the text on the environment, to stress the role of the agriculture and to recover the text on poverty.

All people can take part in the drafting process by sending amendments and proposals, which will be discussed definitively in Paris on January 13-14, 2007.

A European Assembly will be held in Paris on February 10/11 2007, at which a final discussion on the Charter will be held if some points remain outstanding (on Saturday afternoon). On Sunday morning, the Assembly will adopt the project of the Charter.

(ed. by Franco Russo)