Here Joe Higgins MEP talks about his first day in the european parliament, and how all the establishment parties in Ireland were part of a ´grand coalition´ to elect Jerzy Buzek as president of the parliament.

Former Polish Prime Minister, Jerzy Buzek, was elected as the President of the European Parliament today. He was the candidate of the European People’s Party (EPP), which includes Fine Gael in its membership. He was supported by the so-called Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (PASD), of which the Irish Labour Party is a part. The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) which includes Fianna Fail also voted for Buzek. This amounts to a cynical back room deal between the major parties.

The EPP is leading the neo-liberal charge inside the European Union – the privatisation of public services and attacks on workers’ living standards and rights as they put the burden for the capitalist crisis in Europe on the shoulders of the working class.

After only one day in the Parliament, it is already clear to me that the differences between the major political parties in Europe amount only in many cases to differences in letters. This horse trading between the establishment parties reached its peak with the vote for the President.

The only group to present an opposition to the candidate of the EPP, Jerzy Buzek, was the Group of the United European Left (GUE/NGL) which I am a member of. All of the rest heaped praise on a candidate who implemented neo-liberal right-wing policies as Prime Minister of Poland between 1997 and 2001. His counter-reforms in health, education and pensions and privatisation of industry proved so horrific that his party lost all of its seats in the subsequent election!

The reality is exposed very clearly here when Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Labour MEPs all vote for the same right-wing candidate for President of the European Parliament. They are all committed to a common vision of the EU where big business and militarism dominates. The urgent need to build new mass parties to represent workers and unemployed people in Ireland and across Europe is clear.

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