Europe's left and the war against Ukraine

Many left-wing parties in Europe are facing a crucial test: what stance to adopt vis-à-vis Russia, which is waging a war of aggression against Ukraine, but which as the successor state of the Soviet Union helped liberate Europe from fascism? And how do they feel about the US, Nato, arms supplies and rearmament? This dilemma is also reflected in the press.

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Avgi (GR) /

Of good and bad oligarchs

For the left-leaning daily Avgi, all the talk about the good and the evil is hypocritical:

“The Russian capitalists represent the darkness. The multinationals of modern slavery, child labour and environmental destruction are our cosmic light. ... Should we be afraid of Putin? Yes. But should we forget what armed Germany did to Europe and the world? What the US has been doing for decades? Where has brutal globalised capitalism led us? ... We should not accept it when one half of the oligarchs start telling us how we should judge the other half. The good oligarchs, the bad oligarchs and the fools. Meaning us.”

Jornal i (PT) /

On the side of evil

The Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) has rejected the inclusion of a speech by Zelensky on the parliamentary agenda. Jornal i is appalled:

“The most hardboiled communists remember the Soviet Union and believe that Russia, as the successor to that empire, must always be supported. ... How can the communists not understand that in doing so they are siding with evil? ... The most curious thing was the lame excuse they gave: the session with the Ukrainian president would promote 'the escalation of war, confrontation, conflict and an arms race'. So it is not Putin who is promoting the escalation of war, it is not the Russian army that is launching hypersonic missiles and blowing up entire cities. It is the powerful and influential Portuguese parliament.”

Jyllands-Posten (DK) /

They are living in a different world

Asked last week in the Danish parliament whether Russia posed a threat to the world, the red-green Unity List, which supports the Social Democratic minority government, answered "generally speaking, no". The liberal-conservative Jyllands-Posten newspaper says the party can no longer be relied on:

“One can legitimately ask the prime minister how long she will continue to make her government dependent on a party that so obviously lives in a different world. And one must hope that the gaffes of the Unity List will also be taken note of by some of the more than 250,000 Danes who fell for its clever yet irresponsible big-city left-wing populism in the last general election.”