Dear comrades,

The Workers Party of Ireland congratulates the Secretariat on the production of a comprehensive Report to this Plenary Meeting of European Communist Action and recognises the important achievements of the ECA in the past two years, whose unwavering commitment to the principles of Marxism-Leninism, to the encouragement of strong bilateral cooperation between our member parties, to the advancement of class struggle in our countries and to the principled ideological positions adopted and advanced in the face of opportunism in the international movement which has manifested itself in many forms, including the dilution and abandonment of core principles and diverting the communist movement from its mission to oppose imperialism in all its forms and to overthrow the capitalist system and to create a socialist society where the workers are the masters of their own destiny – all have been to the forefront.

The World Anti-Imperialist Platform (WAP) which devotes its efforts to uncritically portray Russia and China as anti-imperialist despite the objective realities, which aligns itself with bourgeois nationalist regimes, which attempts to sow confusion and division within the international communist movement through its attacks on the KKE and the ECA, which distorts the Leninist analysis of imperialism, which prioritises reactionary nationalism under the guise of anti-imperialism over proletarian internationalism and which, in effect, denies the central role of the working class in revolutionary change must be opposed as a corrosive and poisonous deviation which ultimately serves the interests of capital.

In the past year our parties have condemned the continuing attacks on the social and economic conditions of workers and their families, the impoverishment of working people; the increased power of the monopolies; the unrelenting assault on living standards, labour rights, social protection, health, education, public employment and the provision of public services.

Despite the inexorable disinformation of the bourgeois parties and the social democrats, socialism is not an anachronism; it is not outdated. It is as relevant today as when advocated by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Connolly. Socialism remains the only alternative. It offers the only and enduring prospect of challenging a barbarous social system.

In a social system that fosters inequality, ecological destruction, and social decay, that prioritises profit over people, drives imperialist wars and global conflicts, as nations compete for resources and markets, it is only socialism-communism that offers a solution.

After more than three years, the inter-imperialist conflict in Ukraine continues and Russian and Ukrainian forces are in a war of attrition on an active front line of more than 1,000km (629 miles) with immense suffering and slaughter. Competition between competing imperialist blocs has produced a vicious and dangerous war where the working class (Ukrainian and Russian) is bearing the cost. Our parties in the ECA have continually expressed our solidarity with the peoples of Ukraine and Russia, who are paying for the imperialist conflict with their blood. Recent U.S. imperialist plans are not a solution.

Imperialism’s plan for Palestine is not a proposal for peace either; it is a strategy for subjugation. Israel’s systematic colonisation and usurpation of Palestinian land, the eviction of Palestinians, the destruction of their homes and properties and the attempt to erase the name, history and culture of Palestine continues. U.S. support for Israeli policies, its strategic co-operation, the massive economic and military assistance, the promotion of Israel and the collusion in Israel’s expansionism, aggression and crimes against humanity, and persistent attempts to block and prevent any criticism of the murderous actions of the Israeli state, together with the stance of the European Union, NATO and the reactionary Arab states in siding with the aggressors constitutes complicity in these war crimes against the Palestinian people.

Israel has decimated residential neighbourhoods, hospitals, schools, universities, mosques, churches and cultural and historic relics. It has systematically destroyed facilities for electrical generation, hospital equipment, power and water and sanitation installations, causing widespread humanitarian catastrophe, deprived the people of food, water and shelter in a barbaric assault designed to destroy them and eradicate their rights to an independent state.

Despite the false “peace” Israeli aggression continues. Our Party demands an immediate and permanent ceasefire; an end to the blockade of Gaza; an end to aggression against Palestinians in the West Bank; accountability for Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity; recognition of the fundamental rights of the Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; a guarantee of the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolutions; the release of all Palestinian political prisoners held by Israel; the full recognition of an independent sovereign state of Palestine and an end to Israeli attacks on other states in the region.

The vicious anti-communist campaign designed to rewrite history and obliterate the achievements of the socialist project continues and intensifies. We stand in solidarity with socialist Cuba and our comrades in parties across the world resisting attempts to destroy the symbols of struggle and socialist achievement by forces which promote the poison of anti-communism and which seek to deny the revolutionary force of scientific socialism and class struggle.

The European Communist Action offers a vital facility for the exchange of information and opinions, for considered deliberation on issues of mutual concern, for the adoption of principled common positions and coordinated action on the class struggle and against imperialist aggression and the political and ideological offensive of the capitalist class.

Each of our parties is engaged in our countries in the construction and consolidation of a party of and for the working class, capable of creating the conditions for building a society fit for workers, for genuine freedom for the working class, for workers’ power. While national conditions and the relative strengths of our parties vary from country to country our concept of socialist solidarity is rooted in the idea of proletarian internationalism, that workers across borders share common interests.

Those common interests and concerns have been reflected in our joint statements since the last plenary meeting of the ECA and detailed in the Report of the Secretariat: defending wages, collective labour agreements in the workplaces, pensions and social security rights; intensifying the struggle for the disengagement of our countries from war and the imperialist plans of NATO and the EU; advancing the struggle to expand workers’ vacation allowances, make holidays more affordable and raise wages to allow for sufficient recreation; the declaration of full class solidarity with immigrants and refugees; demonstrating solidarity with working-class women against exploitation, inequality, expropriated labour, poverty, discrimination, low wages and precarious and socially devalued work; marking 80 years since the Great Anti-Fascist Victory when Nazi Germany surrendered and the peoples of the world, with the decisive role of the Red Army and the Soviet Union under the leadership of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) as the organizer and inspirer of this struggle, brought fascism to its knees across Europe; saluting the heroic struggles of our class on 1st May; recognising that the imperialist war in Ukraine is not just a conflict between Russia and Ukraine, but an extended conflict between the Ukrainian bourgeoisie, the USA, the EU and NATO on the one side and the Russian bourgeoisie and its allies on the other and saluting the brave Palestinian people and the Palestinian fighters who are resisting the occupation in the face of the criminal Israeli aggression the Lebanese people who continue to struggle utilising their deep-rooted resistance.

As we meet, the U.S. is accelerating plans for a military attack on Venezuela by building a huge military presence in the Caribbean. This is an imperialist threat not only to Venezuela but also to Cuba and to all of Latin America. Our parties oppose this imminent imperialist war.

At all times our parties have emphasised, and this is important, that the peoples’ struggles are a part of the class struggle and cannot be waged in isolation from the need for the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism.