Web Interview

transform! europe Meeting the Left: Enrique Santiago

Join our web interview with Enrique Santiago, MP for Unidas Podemos and General Secretary of the Communist Party of Spain (PCE).

The Corona-virus has hit the EU unprepared, but in different ways and with different effects depending on the countries. Most tragic were the effects on those countries whose healthcare and social systems have been emaciated by decades of austerity policies. Thus, the pandemic has increased inequalities not only inside the states but also between the Member States of the EU. This presents the parties of the radical left with a challenge and calls for a re-examination of their strategies.

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Wednesday, 10 June
18:00-19:30 (CET)

via Zoom
to register, click here.

Interviewee
Enrique Santiago. Lawyer, Deputy in the Spanish Parliament for Unidas Podemos and Secretary General of the Communist Party of Spain (PCE), as well as member of the Federal Board of Izquierda Unida. As a lawyer, he has played a leading role in such important cases as the Pinochet case or the Scilingo and Bárcenas cases on corruption in the Spanish People’s Party. He has recently collaborated as a legal advisor in the Havana Dialogues on the peace process in Colombia. Previously, he was General Secretary of the Spanish Commission for Refugee Aid (CEAR) and later of IEPALA (Instituto de Estudios Politicos para America Latina y Africa). In the course of his work for these organizations, he has played a leading role in the public protests against the treatment of migrants on the Canary Islands and the Strait of Gibraltar during the so-called ‘crisis of the Cayucos’.

Moderators:
Walter Baier, Austrian economist and former National Chairman of the Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ). He was an editor of the Austrian weekly Volksstimme and since 2007 he is the Political Coordinator of transform! europe.

Marga Ferré, Secretary for Political Elaboration of Izquierda Unida, Spain, and member of the transform! europe Board. 

The interview will be simultaneously translated from Spanish to English and vice versa.

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The events will be interactive – after an initial interview the audience will have an opportunity to ask questions of our guest.The main focus of all discussions will be the impact of the pandemic on the economic, social, political, and cultural life of particular countries. We have seen that the EU’s failure to address the health crisis and provide support to the most affected states has changed the way the Union is perceived in parts of Europe. To what extent and with what consequences does this apply to the countries whose parties our interviewees represent? How can the left cope with the economic and social crisis and the recession that is very likely to come in its wake? How do the left parties connect their national strategies to global problems, in particular the influx of refugees and the answers urgently required by the global environmental crisis.