Meeting the Left: Maurizio Acerbo, Communist Refoundation Party

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.

Transform! europe is hosting a series of web interviews with leading personalities of parties of the European Left. The ninth interviewee will be Maurizio Acerbo, Communist Refoundation Party (Italy) - Partito della Rifondazione Comunista.

The interview will be in Italian with simultaneous translation to English.

Click here to register ::::
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_KZFHHwA6QvubZ7UnSHK18Q

The event 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.

************
Maurizio Acerbo is the National Secretary of the Communist Refoundation Party (Partito della Rifondazione Comunista, PRC). Since the late 1970s he has been active in various social movements, ranging from student collectives to pacifist and ecological movements. In particular, he was involved in mobilisations against nuclear energy and the installation of nuclear missiles at the Comiso airbase in Sicily. Acerbo was elected to Italy’s Chamber of Deputies in 2006 but left Parliament when it was dissolved in February 2008. In the same year, he was elected to the regional parliament of Abruzzo as the PRC’s most voted candidate.

Interviewed by:
Roberto Morea, one of the founders and current President of transform! italia and member of the Board of transform! europe. He is a long-time Italian activist in the world of the Commons. From 2007 to 2008 he worked as a Councillor for Social Services in the first municipality of Rome. In 2014, he was among the promoters of the European list L‘Altra Europa con Tsipras.

and
Walter Baier, economist in Vienna, he was National Chairman of the Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ) from 1994 to 2006. He was an editor of the Austrian weekly Volksstimme and from 2007 he has been the Coordinator of the network transform! europe.

• Wednesday, 24 June 2020 from 18:00-19:30

• Online event

Transform Europe
https://www.facebook.com/events/635774153955845/