Comrades and Friends,

The Left is here.

United and promising as never before in Slovenia.

We march ahead.

This alliance for hope.

This alliance for the people.

Proves that the Left exists,

To unite – not to divide – people.

And it cannot unite people if it does not unite itself.

We did that in Greece – with SYRIZA.

And our experience shows that when the Left unites,

It does not simply add forces.

It multiplies forces and political impact.

That will also happen in Slovenia.

Because your efforts springs not from party mechanisms, alien to the people.

But from the most energetic sectors of Slovenian society.

It is rooted not in dark offices.

But in the open sea of popular mobilization.

It is the political child of the Slovenian “winter of discontent” – same time last year.

It is society in motion.

This is your response to the neoliberal zombies, who breed corruption, austerity, unemployment and poverty.

This is the response of the social Left to the old political establishment which is withering away.

In Slovenia, in Greece, in Europe.

Next May, in less than ninety days.

It will be in our own hands to throw them into history's wastepaper basket.

Dear Comrades,

Next May, each and every citizen.

In each and every corner of this Continent.

Holds our common future into her hands.

If they vote Left.

Europe will turn Left.

And then the Eurozone crisis could be resolved collectively, fairly and credibly.

And we could pave the way for Europe’s balanced and viable growth.

We could set the basis for the Europe of employment and justice.

We will reject the failed neoliberal recipe for the crisis.

Because the Eurozone crisis is a crisis of the neoliberal paradigm.

It appears with different, but similar faces.

As debt crisis in Greece, and as banking crisis in Slovenia.

A month ago, Olli Rehn made it clear that, at the beginning of the Greek solvency crisis, back in 2010, Europe sacrificed Greece to save German, French and other major European banks.

That the political establishment of Europe did not want to have Greece’s public debt restructured at that time

Because, then, the European banks would need to pay for their excessive risk-taking with Greek bonds.

They chose to cause an unprecedented, in peacetime, humanitarian crisis in Greece, just to save casino capitalism in Europe.

And, in that way, they forced taxpayers in the South to pay for bank profits in the North.

What is happening four years later?

Now, they reject direct European Stability Mechanism (ESM) recapitalization of banks.

They prefer to lend governments to rescue bankrupted banks at home – at least for the moment.

And, in that way, they force taxpayers in the South to finance bank profits in the South

So, one way or another, they force the South to pay for the banking system of the entire Europe.

This cannot go on.

Enforcing «bail-out» and «bail-in» solutions, or a combination of both, is a recipe for crisis contagion and overall destabilization.

And Greece, which is systemically important to the Eurozone, cannot be the testing ground for a combination of this kind.

Nor could Slovenia be that.

Looking at Slovenia as Greek, I’m afraid that I’m watching a film whose ending I know.

And the ending is the troika and a Memorandum.

Slovenia is on the slippery downhill of Greece.

And privatizing fifteen key enterprises will only deprive the country from future income.

It won’t end the banking crisis.

Which, slowly but steadily, will evolve into a public-debt problem.

And unless Europe takes a decisive turn in May.

Unless people vote Left.

And the United left and the European Left come out of the election as strong as never before.

The troika will step in.

But this is not the story of Greece and Slovenia alone.

This is the story of the entire European periphery.

And if we don’t work together.

If we don’t establish networks of cooperation.

If each of us acts alone.

We will all lose.

Ms Merkel will win.

The neoliberal hegemony will endure.

But peoples of Europe will lose.

The Združena Levica (United Left), SYRIZA, the Party of the European Left,

All the democratic and progressive social and political forces,

We all have a common task:

To pull Europe out of the deep darkness of neoliberalism.

Never before since the end of the Cold War had Europe been so divided and undemocratic.

Never before since the end of the Cold War had Europeans been so suspicious of each other.

Never before since the end of the Cold War had Europeans been so Eurosceptic.

This is exactly what motivated my candidacy for the Presidency of the European Commission on behalf of the European Left:

• To end austerity to regain Democracy.

• To hold back the social processes that revive nationalist tendencies and xenophobia, and inflame right-wing populism and extremism.

• To reunite peoples and countries that neoliberalism divides.

• To forge the widest possible social and political alliance against austerity.

• To put forward the solidarity of young women and men, of the working people, of the pensioners and the unemployed in a Europe against the solidarity of the capital.

  It is the only solidarity that could break through the dichotomy North-South; that could demolish the new «wall of money» between creditors and debtors that further divides Europe.

So, our candidacy is not a typical one.

It is a mandate for hope and change in Europe.

Because the Europe we live in, is not our Europe.

This is the Europe of the neoliberal consensus.

Of the conservatives, the liberals, and the leadership of social-democracy.

And I am wondering:

The opposite political pole of Mr Jean-Claude Juncker and MrMartin Schulz.

The candidates who are supported by the European establishment.

If any of those two candidates is elected.

What exactly will he do to immediately end austerity and the failed policies of the so-called «internal devaluation» in Europe?

What exactly will he do to finance from European sources balanced and viable growth in Europe?

What in particular will he do to hold back the humanitarian crisis in Greece?

The people of Europe need commitments and action – not wishes.

They don’t want politics as usual – they want a break with policies and politics as usual.

That’s why they are skeptical about Europe and European integration.

And the Europe of Mr Juncker nad Mr Schulz, is exactly the Europe we want to change.

In place of a Europe of the fear of unemployment and poverty;

In the place of the current Europe that redistributes income to the few and fear to the many;

In place of a Europe in the service of bankers’ needs,

We want a Europe in the service of human needs.

Comrades and Friends,

The European establishment has managed the crisis, not in order to resolve it, but in order to rewrite Europe’s postwar political economy.

In order to trigger the avalanche of capital against labour.

That’s why Chancellor Merkel in Germany, along with the neoliberal bureaucratic elite in Brussels, treats social solidarity and human dignity as economic distortions.

And national sovereignty as a nuisance.

That’s why they are forcing Europe to wear the straightjacket of austerity, discipline and deregulation.

Our own response is straightforward:

The European Union will either be democratic or will not exist.

And these days, it is proven once again, that the greatest threat to democracy is the rise of fascism.

Political developments in Ukraine should alarm each and every citizen in Europe.

It is unacceptable and dangerous that the European political establishment tolerates the neonazi «Right Sector» in positions of power.

It is unacceptable and dangerous that the European political establishment tolerates a Prime Minister giving nazi-style salute.

There are powerful countries in Europe with the historic responsibility not to let persecution of Jews, minorities and communists happen again.

What we immediately need is a peaceful settlement of the crisis.

The only one who has the right to decide for its future is the Ukrainian people itself, in a democratic way.

Comrades and Friends,

I want to make clear once again, that my candidacy, is not a candidacy on behalf of Europe’s South.

It is a candidacy of all European citizens, and especially for the people who suffer from austerity, regardless of their address.

Whether they live in the South of Europe or in the North or in the East or the West.

Whether they live in Slovenia or in Grecce.

We particularly address young men and women.

Because for the first time in postwar Europe, a generation of young people expects to be worse-off than their parents.

The young see their expectations entrapped into long-term unemployment and the prospects of low-wage and jobless growth.

Four million jobless under-25s, in the Euro-zone cannot be tolerated!

One in four young women and men unemployed in Slovenia cannot be tolerated!

A lost generation cannot be tolerated!

We have to act not for them but with them!

And we have to act now!

Comrades and Friends,

We are fighting for a democratic, social and ecological Europe.

1. For the democratic reorganization of the European Union.

2. To set in motion the ecological transformation of production.

3. To reform the European immigration framework.

• We support the immediate repeal of the Memoranda and the coordinated reflation of all European economies.

• We want a genuine European Central Bank, acting as lender of last resort, not only for banks but also for states.

• We believe that Europe needs its own Glass-Steagall Act, in order to separate commercial and investment banking activities and prevent such a dangerous merger of risks into one uncontrolled entity.

• We want effective European legislation which taxes offshore economic and entrepreneurial activities.

• We support the collective, credible and definite resolution of the Eurozone debt crisis through a European Debt Conference, predicated on the 1953 London Conference for Germany’s debt.

  
  

Comrades and Friends,

In the May election, the European establishment will hear our loud voice:

«Gotofsi» (You are finished).

This is a word that Mr Samaras and Mr Venizelos should learn as quickly as possible.

The Memorandum has failed in Greece.

The Samaras-Venizelos coalition government already is at the emergency exit.

The entire old world that let the country collapse is at the emergency exit.

In the next few months, SYRIZA will no longer be government-in-waiting.

It will be the first government of the Left in the history of Greece.

And it will be a government of all Greeks.

Regardless of their vote.

Regardless of their ideology or their political convictions.

Our electoral victory will signify a radical break with the past of Greece.

The people and the SYRIZA government will march together into the long, difficult, but full of hope and positive expectations road of reconstruction and development.

But at the same time, the SYRIZA victory would create, on its own, the conditions for policy change and a new political balance in the entire European Union.

It will be the beginning of the end of austerity in Europe.

Comrades and Friends,

Neoliberalism is neither a natural phenomenon nor is it invincible.

We are confident that the European Left will be the positive surprise of the May election.

We are confident that you – the United Left in Slovenia – will be the positive surprise of next May.

The European Left counts on you.

SYRIZA counts on you.

We all wish you good and victorious struggles.

The future of Europe is on the Left.

This will be the May of the European Left.

This will be the May of hope and change in Europe.

Thank you all.