On the subject of the approval of the Treaty of Lisbon by the German Bundestag, Sahra Wagenknecht, European deputy and member of the executive of the party THE LEFT, declares:

The approval of the Lisbon Treaty by the Federal parliament is a defeat for democracy and yet an additional sign of the ignorance of a political class that is too remote from the interests of the population. That the preceding Constitutional Treaty had suffered a defeat at the referendums in France and in the Netherlands, that millions of people in Europe oppose the militaristic and neoliberal contents of the EU Treaty and that they would like to participate in the decision on the future constitution of the EU – all this is of precious little interest to the "alleged representatives of the people" from CDU/CSU, SPD, FDP and the Greens.


Yet, he or she who believes that the discussions about the Lisbon Treaty will be finished with the decision taken by the Federal Parliament today is mistaken. A treaty in which the right of capital to unlimited exploitation has more weight than the rights of employees or their trade unions is unacceptable. To what extent it is necessary to change the contractual bases, has become apparent by the most recent decisions of the European Court of Justice (on Laval, Viking Line and Rüffert). In all of these cases, elementary social rights – from the right to strike up to the imposition of minimum salaries – have been attacked and eroded on grounds of infringing the freedom of establishment and the free movement of services anchored in the EU Treaties.


A Europe of the big companies as is foreseen in the Reform Treaty contradicts the interests and the expectations of the majority of the people in Europe. Those who would like a peaceful, social and democratic Europe should therefore call for a revision of the treaty. For example, Article 63 of the Consolidated Version of the Lisbon Treaty that outlaws any control over capital flows and that way makes society the prey to the profit interests of financial capital should be eliminated without replacement. Moreover, the freedom of establishment and the free movement of services set forth in Articles 49 and following should be limited or revised completely. And finally, all the articles that oblige the EU to a build up in arms or permit the deployment of EU troops abroad should be replaced and substituted by an unconditional obligation to peace.