Issue 1 / November 2008

The Balkan Conference of Communist and Labour Parties and Organizations (BCCLPO) was set up in spring 2005 following the initiative of left organizations from Greece and Turkey. Its founding conference took place in Thessalonica with the participation of 10 organizations from eight Balkan states.

What was the need for the setting up of that Conference? Since the beginning of the '90s the Balkans have become a tense field of geopolitical, economical and energy competition among the big powers that have bloodshed the Balkans several times in the past. The advancement of all kinds of nationalisms and chauvinisms, the imperialist military interventions, the dismemberment of states and the redrawing of borders according first and foremost to the interests of those same big powers and not the peoples that they claim to serve, forms the Balkan set in which we have lived for approximately two decades now. And yet there is also the increase of military bases, the participation of countries in NATO and in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan etc. Next to all this, we need to add the roller of neoliberalism that attacks all Balkan people indiscriminately both inside and outside the EU.

There have gone by two decades that all the above is in full deployment and yet there has been no common voice of resistance of the Balkan people. There have been acts of resistance inside some of the countries many of which significant. But there has been no joint effort towards a united voice for those acts in the Balkan states, a uniform voice to promote friendship and solidarity of the peoples against common enemies such as nationalism, neoliberalism and imperialism, anti-people governments and the big powers that dominates the Balkan people. All those years, on the Balkan issues it has been only the voices of the above that have been heard. It is high time the voice of those below was heard; one united voice for the Balkan people, since they have nothing to divide.

The BCCLPO is a conference of democratic operation based on the principle of consensus, not majority. Its aim is the meeting of left, anti-imperialist forces from all over the Balkans. It is to constitute the first motion of coordination, solidarity and complementary information and organization of joint initiatives and acts of resistance in the Balkan states. Despite the existing difference in opinions and approaches on a number of issues, the experience and function of the BCCLPO so far has confirmed that what unites us is much more and more important than what separates us.

The joint intervention in the European Social Forum in Athens, the solidarity that was expressed in the various cases that member organizations of the BCCLPO were attacked by the authorities, the common language and announcements in cases of transnational contrapositions such as in the Greek-Turkish issue, and so forth, have shown that there can be initiatives and actions to promote BCCLPO into a strong voice and point of reference for the acts of resistance and the Left in the Balkans.

Let's build the friendship and solidarity of the Balkan people from the grassroots!
No to nationalism and imperialism! No to neoliberalism!
Let's strengthen the initiative of the Balkan Conference of Communist and Labour Parties and Organizations!

• MLKP: Turkey & N. Kurdistan: The reconstruction of the counter-guerrilla and the Ergenekon operation
• Resistance Movement “23rd September”: News from Bulgaria - Anti-people, Ultra-liberal Policy of the Bourgeoisie and Popular Resistance
• Communist Organization of Greece (KOE): Deep political, economic and social crisis - Actual duties of the Communist Left in Greece