The European Union and its 27 member states are faced with unprecedented new challenges. Political parties on the national and EU level are tasked with finding new political and economic responses to the rise of climate change, war, worldwide movements of refugees, technological upheaval, and the ongoing erosion of democracy. Left parties in Europe, with their very different organisational structures and political influence at the national and EU level, are even more beset by these challenges. The rightward drift of political orientation and strategy across the EU is evident not only in the capitals of the 27 member states, but just as seriously, it is also evidenced within the EU institutions — the EU Council and the EU Parliament, and consequently also the EU Commission. The two most striking signs of this rightward trajectory are, first, the growing emphasis on military solutions for the foreign, security, and defence strategy of the EU and its member states in view of the ongoing Russian aggression in Ukraine since 2022, and other wars and conflicts worldwide. At the same time, on the economic level, there is a clear commitment to maintaining and readjusting the neoliberal paradigm to suit the changed global competitive conditions. Yet these developments have also shifted the balance of power shaping the ongoing process of European integration, which makes it all the more important that left-wing political parties in Europe reposition themselves politically and strategically to face these new challenges. We must formulate peace and security policy from the left, develop transformative strategies, and fight for real change oriented towards people’s everyday lives.
In 2004, the European Left Party (EL) was founded with the aim of developing a common EU-wide strategy for the left. Yet now, over twenty years later, unity is anything but certain. Following the 2024 elections to the European Parliament, another European left-wing party has been formed: the European Left Alliance for the People and the Planet (ELA). It, too, intends to intervene in the discourse on strategy among European political parties.
This will make the structures for cooperation on European policy among the left in Europe even more pluralistic and varied, a diversity already clearly demonstrated by the confederal structure of The Left group in the European Parliament. The Left group comprises 46 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), who, together with the 53 MEPs from the Greens and the 136 MEPs from the Social Democrats/Socialists, represent just under a third of all MEPs to the left of centre. The strongest group in the European Parliament, the European People’s Party (EPP), is open to cooperation with parts of the far right, in particular the representatives of European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) led by Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia (Fd’I), in order to push through its political and (free market) economic positions. It is using this as a means of exerting political pressure on the social-democratic group in the European Parliament to establish a more competition driven neoliberal European policy course by pushing back social policy demands, programmes, and instruments (e.g. the European Pillar of Social Rights). Meanwhile, the three far-right factions now comprise a quarter of all MEPs and are represented in the Council of the European Union and the European Commission.
So, how can the European left intervene effectively under these conditions? How can it provide answers adequate to the current challenges? How can it incorporate common European policy objectives into everyday struggles at the national level? How can the European left promote social change together with other progressive and democratic forces, and how can it draw on these forces for joint policies and interventions at the European level?
Where do the two European left-wing parties stand?
Both parties meet the minimum legal requirements to be recognised as European parties, i.e. they have at least seven member parties represented in parliament. With 18 MEPs, the ELA currently has stronger representation in the European Parliament than the EL, which has 10 MEPs. At the same time, it should be noted that in 2025, in addition to these 10 EL MEPs, seven other members of The Left group who do not belong to the EL’s member or observer parties expressed their support for the EL. These parties include Ireland’s Sinn Féin (SF), Cyprus’s AKEL, Sinistra Italiana, and Germany’s Animal Welfare Party.
Comparing the parliamentary presence of the EL and ELA at the national level, the EL parties hold 144 parliamentary seats, including the 64 seats held by Germany’s Die LINKE alone. Meanwhile, ELA parties hold 126 seats in national parliaments, with La France Insoumise (LFI) accounting for half of the MEPs and half of the seats held by ELA parties in their own domestic legislatures. The EL’s 26 member parties and 11 observer parties include Die LINKE, the Belgian Workers’ Party (PTB), and the Greek and Spanish left parties, all of which are important both within and outside parliament. The French Communist Party (PCF) still provides the mayors in over 600 town halls, in addition to the PCF’s approximately 6,000 municipal-level elected officials. The EL’s current participation in national governments is also significant, particularly with regard to the EU Council: Spain’s Sumar and the Slovenia’s Levica are part of centre-left governments.
In addition to La France Insoumise, the three Scandinavian parties are among the strong and stable parties in the ELA: the Finnish Left Alliance, the Swedish Left Party and the Danish Red-Green Alliance (RGA). Added to this is the Socialist Left Party in Norway (a non-EU member state) — an observer party, which contributes to the greater weight of the Scandinavian parties in the ELA. Both European left-wing parties face a number of similar development problems that need to be addressed. These include the open strategic question of how left-wing parties that compete at national level or have split for programmatic reasons (in France, Spain, Finland, etc.) can nevertheless work together at the European level in different European parties.
For example, how do the French left-wing parties, i.e. the PCF and LFI, intend to approach the next, possibly early, presidential elections following the provisional end of the Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP), and how do they intend to define France’s role in the EU confederation with transnational legislative power, including the participatory democratic involvement of citizens in EU development?
How do the French left parties in EL and ELA, and Europe’s left parties as a whole, plan to intensify their party programme discussions, including with regard to the EU and its prospects under the onslaught of right-wing extremist forces. How will they develop strategies against attempts to undermine the EU from within through an extensive dedemocratising deconstruction of ‘Europe’? In Greece, the situation since Syriza’s split in 2024 means it is now struggling to realign itself strategically and politically. Syriza is currently trailing the Greek Communists in the polls with 6.5% support, and the newly founded Nea Aristera is at 2%, just behind Yanis Varoufakis’s MeRA25 at 3.4%. Whether or not former prime minister Alexis Tsipras’s new political project will be successful remains to be seen, and for now, all signs indicate that the Greek left will continue to struggle with overcoming its organisational fragmentation.
Added to this is the fact that many of the EL’s member parties have little or no parliamentary representation. This applies, for instance, to Luxembourg’s Déi Lénk, which only has two MPs in the Chamber of Deputies, and Croatia’s Radnička Fronta (a member party of the EL), which failed to enter the Croatian parliament after the 2024 parliamentary elections. A long-standing problem for the EL is that half of its member parties, including almost all member parties from Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries with the exception of
For both parties — the EL and the ELA — the question arises as to how independent their leadership is from the national parties, whether they function as an umbrella organisation for the national parties or as an independent political actor with its own structure and decision-making processes.
the Left in Poland and Slovenia, are not represented in parliament. The same problem also plagues the EL’s founding member parties. Rifondazione Comunista (PRC), under its leader Fausto Bertinotti, played a pivotal role in shaping discourse on the EL’s programme and statutes. Yet complicated divisions and changes at the national level have meant that it has been unable to re-enter the Italian parliament since 2008.
The ELA, with its seven member parties and two observer parties, does not face this same problem. Its statutes stipulate that only parties with a parliamentary presence can become full members of the ELA. Yet this does not mean that the ELA is immune to crises of representation. Razem in Poland is represented in parliament as part of the Nowa Lewica left-wing alliance, but unlike the majority of this alliance, it does not participate in the governing coalition. When Razem representatives took a stand against the 2025 budget bill, they were threatened with expulsion from the Nowa Lewica group. In response, two senators from the upper house (the Senate) and three parliament (Sejm) deputies announced their resignation from Razem in order to continue backing the government. With just under 2,000 paying members, the party currently has little chance of returning to parliament under Polish electoral regulations. Podemos initially joined Sumar in 2023, but left the alliance’s parliamentary group within a year. Its strength in parliament now stands at ‘only’ five MPs. Ultimately Podemos, like Syriza, has now lost significant support in Spanish society and is no longer a party capable of mobilising the masses.
Portugal’s Bloco de Esquerda lost more than half of its electorate in the 2019 national elections and a further 55% in the 2025 parliamentary elections. With 1.9% of the vote, Bloco is now represented by only one delegate in the national parliament. The ELA must now ask itself how it intends to structure and develop itself as a stable European project. At present, the ELA is searching for further member parties in order to maintain and strengthen its status as a European party. To this end, the parties of the ELA are exploiting current political issues at EU level (for example, foreign and security policy), as well as their open organisational profile and their appeal as cooperation partners with public visibility at EU level. Despite their differences, the EL and ELA, like other European parties across the political spectrum, face a number of similar fundamental structural and political problems.
Fundamental structural and political challenges facing EU parties and the unique nature of The Left group
A central problem for all parties at the European level is the dominance of national politics over European politics. In almost all European parties, conflicts arise due to tensions between the primacy of the inevitably national orientation of the member parties and their willingness and ability to formulate binding common strategies for European action. Can the European left-wing parties succeed in uniting their perspectives on Europe, not merely from their own national perspectives, into a lowest common denominator that might be called ‘European’? Or can they indeed succeed in developing common European policy strategies to meet the new challenges by means of European level debates? The EL faces this problem against the backdrop of vastly different national perspectives between north and south and east and west, coupled with the parties’ statuses as governing parties such as Sumar or as small parties with no real socio-political relevance. For the ELA, this question arises against the backdrop of the dominance of the French LFI, which has a strong national orientation.
For both parties — the EL and the ELA — the question arises as to how independent their leadership is from the national parties, whether they function as an umbrella organisation for the national parties or as an independent political actor with its own structure and decision-making processes.
The left-wing group in the European Parliament, The Left, explicitly sees itself as a confederal faction of elected MEPs from left-wing parties who have agreed on joint political action in the European Parliament on the basis of programmatic points and rules of procedure. The Left was never simply the parliamentary group of the EL, and it certainly cannot be now that it contains two parties. Until its renaming in 2024, its status as a confederation was also clearly reflected in its name, the European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/ NGL). This approach was necessary and served as both a condition and an instrument for cooperation in view of the very different self-perceptions of the parties brought together in the group. On many issues, MEPs vote differently, depending on whether they belong to national communist or socialist parties, the Nordic Green Left, animal welfare parties, etc. Ultimately, only proposals supported by party leaders at national level can be put forward as joint parliamentary initiatives by the group. This makes it difficult for the group to raise its profile both within and outside the European Parliament, to act in a predictable and reliable manner across party lines, and to cooperate with trade unions and NGOs in EU institutions such as the Committee of the Regions (CoR) or the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC). Added to these challenges are tensions between left parties at national level, which are then reflected at European level in party political and parliamentary decision-making processes.
The structural problem of European parties
European parties are associations of parties formed on the basis of the Maastricht Treaty and subsequent amendments and developments. They are intended to foster the development of a democratic sphere within the EU as a whole and to promote the acceptance of EU policy among the wider populations of the EU member states. In accordance with the provisions of the Treaty of Lisbon, they receive direct funding from the EU budget and are required to formulate their own programmatic positions. They decide on their own composition and organisation. In practice, the formation of European parties is the result of negotiations and decisions taken by the executive committees of their member parties, which may then be confirmed at their party conferences. This is the case for the EL and the ELA. The decision to leave the EL and join the ELA was taken by the respective party executive committees of the Finnish Left Alliance, the Danish Red-Green Alliance and the Bloco, without any prior discussion among their membership.
Twenty years ago, the process that led to the founding of the EL was shaped by protests against neoliberal globalisation, the emergence of the European and World Social Forums, and the recent development of movement oriented left-wing parties. In this early phase, the EL focused on developing itself as an open, inclusive political entity at EU level and on developing its capacity for political intervention. In light of the complex challenges of EU development, it was no longer sufficient to rely on the loose forms of information and opinion exchange that the Forum of the New European Left (NELF) had used up to that point. Izquierda Unida in Spain and the former Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) in Germany in particular, but also Greece’s Synaspismos and others, pushed for closer cooperation. The process of EU enlargement also led to increased communication with left-wing parties in Scandinavia on the prospects for European integration on the one hand and the integration of left parties and political projects from Central and Eastern European countries on the other. One of the cornerstones of the EL therefore involved bringing together parties with histories in both the western and eastern European left — including the need to address the failure of state socialism as a defeat for the pan-European left. Consequently, the founding consensus of the EL also included a break with Stalinism as a system, a challenge for the Czech Communists, who are therefore still only observer parties in the EL.
In its early years, the EL worked towards establishing an independent European left party project that consciously addressed new aspects of transnational organisational development, the rights and obligations of party membership, and national and international policy approaches. It took care not to ignore its history and heed the lessons learned and experiences gained from past cooperation between left-wing and workers’ parties. This created the possibility of individual party membership, horizontally and transnationally operating network structures and working groups, e.g., a Parliamentary Conference (ParlaCon) as a permanent branch of the EL, the women’s network, and a youth network.
However, the widened range of conditions faced by the parties in the EL in their national political contexts as a result of the financial and social crisis of 2009–10 increasingly led to the EL operating as an umbrella organisation, i.e. with a ‘limited’ autonomy, remaining dependent on the participation and co decision-making of the national executive committees of the EL member parties. The EL could, therefore, only become as strong as the national parties allowed it to be. This umbrella structure also meant that transnational structures within the EL varied in depth and extent based on when and which parties were prepared to foster their development. For example, the orientation
New party projects that arose in the fight against austerity and EU memorandum policies were formed at the national level: most significantly: La France Insoumise and Podemos. At the same time, there was no strategic and organisational renewal from the EL in response to the rise of these new party formations, especially from EL parties in these countries.
and intensity of some of the EL working groups reflected the interests of the participating national EL member parties.
During the second phase of the EL’s development, new party projects that arose in the fight against austerity and EU memorandum policies were formed at the national level: most significantly: La France Insoumise and Podemos. At the same time, there was no strategic and organisational renewal in response to the rise of these new party formations, especially from EL parties in these countries. It was thus not possible to integrate the two new, electorally strong parties as full members of the EL. LFI took on observer status in the EL, and Podemos remained at a distance. From 2019 onwards, both parties began to search for alternative transnational forms of organisation and to build a European political project beyond the EL, involving the Scandinavian parties. Ecological issues took on particular importance in this context, even though they are found in almost identical wording in the documents of the EL and the ELA. The third phase of the EL’s development has begun with the parallel existence of two European left parties, the EL and the ELA. The split in the European left could not be prevented, even though 95% of the demands of both parties are nearly identical. Areas of overlap include the taxation of wealth as a means to alleviate the social crisis, e.g. the demand for taxes on excess profits, the right to a fair and green future, the issue of the minimum wage and the strengthening of trade unions, social clauses in public contracts and the fight for higher wages and better working conditions. It also includes the struggle against the privatisation of public infrastructure and services, the right to housing, and the demand for direct investment in public housing and in cooperative housing construction, as well as lowering rents and interest rates for housing loans. Both EL and ELA reject the EU’s inhumane migration policy and the EU border regime. They oppose the reform of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) and the expansion of Frontex. For both parties, feminism is seen a driving force for positive change. They are committed to the rights of minorities. They also consistently affirm the defence and strengthening of international law.
So why the split?
There are substantive reasons for the split from the EL and the creation of the ELA. Some of the basis for the split arose from the initial failure of the EL to renew itself: It has been hesitant to implement reforms of its decision-making and participation structures, and its political projects and campaigns can lack vigour. This has coincided with the declining attractiveness of many EL member parties, and the continuing parliamentary weakness of EL member parties in Central and Eastern European and other countries within and outside the EU.
On substantive differences
There are countless programmatic similarities and common goals shared between the EL and the ELA. These areas of unity have repeatedly led to joint votes in the European Parliament on all manner of issues from EU-wide measures on wealth taxation, combating austerity, promoting social housing, or rejecting harsh EU migration policy. At the same time, however, there are considerable differences between the two with regard to foreign and security policy. The significance of these differences cannot be overstated. No other policy area is so closely linked to the analysis and interpretation of current global developments, the self-image and identity of left-wing parties, their role in the political system, and their understanding of what interventions are necessary. Questions of peace and security policy are of central importance for the strategic positioning of left parties.
In Germany, the debates around foreign and security policy are directly tied to the self-conception of Die LINKE and its role in the German political system. Is the German left’s practical value as a third antagonistic pole of hope, or as a left-wing constituent of a red-red-green alliance against the possible formation of a conservative government that would possibly ally with the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD)? This question will be faced directly in the upcoming 2026 elections in the federal state of Saxony-Anhalt: should Die LINKE tolerate a coalition that includes the conservatives, or should it remain in opposition, even if this means that the AfD will be in government with the conservatives at the state level for the first time? In current polls, the AfD stands at 37%, the ruling CDU at 27% and the red-red-green parties together at 23%, with the Greens currently below the threshold needed to enter the state parliament.
At the European level, the EL sees itself as an anti-militarist party that clearly opposes further NATO expansion and the militarisation of the EU. Unlike some of its member parties, the ELA portrays itself primarily as a party committed to international law and human rights.
Both parties strongly condemn Russia’s war of aggression. Nevertheless, there are differences regarding the immediate question of a ceasefire and the conditions for ending the war in view of Russia’s use of drones and missiles to attack infrastructure and residential areas. The Scandinavian ELA parties and also particularly Razem emphasise Ukraine’s right to self-defence and military support from the EU, the US and elsewhere. There are no concrete debates on what a concept of security in Europe should be based on in the long term and how the principles of the Helsinki Process can be applied in concrete terms under today’s conditions.
The EL documents focus on the question of peace. It opposes the arms race, calls for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine, an end to the war against Gaza and, in this context, calls for a two-state solution. The EL stands for an end to the militarisation of the EU, the withdrawal of US and Russian nuclear weapons, a treaty banning nuclear weapons, and a reduction in military spending in relation to GDP.In the long term, the principles of the Helsinki Process should be followed, i.e., collective security with the involvement of all parties, including Russia.
The ELA emphasises the right to self-determination and compliance with international law: it says support for peoples affected by war and occupation must be strengthened. Like the EL, it condemns the genocide in Gaza and supports sanctions that further this aim. Yet there is no clear idea of what the required political and diplomatic solution could look like, and thus what a lasting, resilient, and just peace based on recognition of state sovereignty might entail. Whether this will include the idea of a European army in the future is completely open, especially given the strong national orientation of its member
Whether this will include the idea of a European army in the future is completely open, especially given the strong national orientation of the ELA’s member parties and their fundamentally divergent attitudes toward the militarisation of the EU.
parties and their fundamentally divergent attitudes toward the militarisation of the EU. This matter, like other issues on which a common position cannot be reached, will continue to be dealt with at the national level. The ELA’s position remains undetermined, i.e. flexible in the interests of individual countries’ ability to act. The Scandinavian parties, for example, support arms deliveries to Ukraine and the right to self-defence, and are calling for greater EU involvement in response to the war, which has now been going on for almost three years. Portugal’s Bloco de Esquerda avoided taking a clear position, while Podemos and La France Insoumise are opposed. Representatives of LFI in the European Parliament, together with the Scandinavian parties and Razem, supported the EU resolutions on military support for Ukraine until its victory. However, they are in the minority within The Left group.
The structural problems of the European Left Party
Unlike the ELA, the EL sees itself as an open, inclusive party project in which the principle of ‘one party — one vote’ applies to all parties, regardless of their social significance in their countries, regardless of whether they are represented in parliament or not, and regardless of their size or number of members. Under the principle of ‘one party — one vote’, all parties have equal rights to participate, propose initiatives, intervene or block important decisions, as these can only be taken by consensus.
The EL has thereby drawn lessons from the history of the left, with all its varying views and experiences of the forms and structures of international alliances, and enshrined these in its statutes. However, doing so has paved the way for a cooperative party project that is more akin to an umbrella organisation than an independent party project at the EU level.
In light of the political differences within the left-wing party family, this made it harder to develop common strategic approaches, projects, and campaigns, and the consensus principle became the final decision-making principle since it came to function as a veto. In the past, this not only prevented changes in the EL’s organisation and working methods, but also limited its ability to act decisively, assuming this wasn’t already restricted by national perspectives and ‘power games’. Ultimately, the appointment of EL lead candidates for the 2024 European elections also blocked a solution that was legitimate for all EL parties and could perhaps have been found by means of qualified majorities.
Another acute problem is the unwillingness of many member parties in the EL to cooperate and to consistently and stringently apply and implement decisions made there to their domestic work. The activities of the EL are largely a matter for the national party leaderships and their respective staff. Whether the EL and ELA differ on this issue is currently unclear.
The direct individual link between each member and the EL established by Die LINKE in Germany — through the payment of a membership fee — has opened up the possibility of directly linking party work at the local and European levels. However, the majority of members are unaware of the activities of the EL, as well as the dynamics of The Left group at the European level. Unfortunately, the European campaign on housing launched by the EL in 2024 was not linked to the national campaigns of important EL parties, which would have helped to better highlight the European dimension of social issues.
However, the EL can only develop its profile and its capacity for effective intervention and campaigning across Europe if it creates binding, nationally and European-wide linked working methods that are not only imagined and voted on by its member parties at EU level, but also really implemented. In order to secure this, the leadership bodies of the national parties are also called upon to give the EL’s reform process the significance it demands and to contribute to a genuine interlocking of national and European policy approaches. The goal must be to further develop the EL’s working and decision-making structures and democratic and participatory processes in order to advance organisational development as a necessary structural development for the implementation of political goals. The crises of various left-wing parties at national level, including Syriza, are examples of what happens when the battle over the political orientation of a party can no longer rely on its stable democratic constitution. Clear and transparent decision-making processes and functioning structures are needed, as well as transnational working groups that can also draw on the resources of national parties. Above all, the party needs places where controversies can be debated, and it needs a systematic analysis and strategically oriented assessments of the current situation. Without the development of independent new formats and decision-making structures, it will be virtually impossible to formulate strategic approaches to European policy, and left-wing parties will not be able to intervene seriously at European level. Disregarding or blocking transnational organisational development will ultimately lead to the dominance of individual larger parties at the expense of smaller ones.
An important task for the EL remains cooperation with trade unions and social movements. It must take up debates from civil society and be prepared to contribute its own European policy proposals in order to strengthen democratic processes in the EU and defend them against the right. This also means developing new forms of cooperation and digital communication, including hybrid meeting formats and opportunities for cross-border dialogue. The new role of the EL’s thematic clusters with nominated participants from EL member parties can contribute to the formation of transnational working groups on the central priorities of the EL’s work and ultimately to honing the EL’s profile. Whether there will be similar goals and structures established in the ELA remains to be seen. In an attempt to extend its influence beyond the radical left, the EL’s annual European Forum, modelled on the Latin American São Paulo Forum, serves as a political forum for the progressive political left, including social democratic/ socialist and green parties and foundations. However, this ambition cannot be realised with the presence of individual representatives of parties and foundations. It is not a jointly conceived space. A workshop organised by the three progressive European foundations (Foundation for European Progressive Studies — FEPS, Green European Foundation — GEF, and Transform! Europe) is not enough; the trade union, youth, and women’s assemblies have no visible impact on the work of the EL. It would make sense to draw on the experiences of EU-wide initiatives such as the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) or the ongoing Democratic Odyssey project and to exploit the potential of individual memberships. Last but not least, cooperation with MEPs at EU/European level must be strengthened and previous projects such as ParlaCon (Conference of Parliamentarians) revived to this end. Especially if the ELA sees itself as a party of the parliamentary left, it is important for the EL to work with the ELA and with the representatives of the political groups in the EP and the groups of MEPs in the Council of Europe to establish genuine cooperation with the corresponding political groups in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
In addition, the EL member parties should involve their representatives in other transnational cooperation structures (Nordic Council or OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, European Cities Day, etc.) more closely than before in the work of the European left-wing parties.
Looking Forward
The long-term development of the EL and ELA cannot be predicted. How these parties fair will depend on how their member parties engage in the processes of future party development, how they combine their European policy orientation with the development of common European policy strategies, and whether their chosen approach further accelerates and deepens the division of the European left. It also remains to be seen whether they might manage to overcome their differences, particularly regarding the nature and functioning of internal party democracy, the party’s political profile on the one hand, and complex issues of content, particularly foreign and security policy, on the other, to develop cooperative working relationships that enable a joint or at least coordinated commitment against the right, against the dismantling of social welfare and democracy, and against the obstruction of actions to address the climate and environmental destruction.
The future development of the EL and ELA will also depend on the extent to which both parties are able to formulate adequate responses to today’s newest challenges, especially in terms of European policy, and to develop strategic projects, campaigns and democratic, participatory forms of organisation and working methods to this end. The EL’s housing campaign indicates the direction European left-wing parties will need to develop. To go beyond their current methods, the EL needs new formats for cooperation— its current working methods and decision-making processes are not sufficient. In this respect, the reform of the EL, which is being called for above all by Germany’s Die LINKE, must be seen as a political challenge to develop the European left in such a way that it is better able to intervene.
The EL cannot be a detached superstructure project; it thrives on the cooperation and participatory involvement of its member parties and individual members. Its reform can only succeed if the member parties themselves get involved in the processes and do not stand to the side and judge the progress, as if they had long since ceased to belong to the EL. Die LINKE is stepping up its commitment and reactivating its participation in the EL’s committees, getting involved in the relevant specialist commissions such as the Statutes and Renewal Commission, and taking on the responsibility of working with the other EL parties to advance the EL’s political programmatic profile in the lead-up to the EL Congress in 2026. Together with representatives of other EL member parties, representatives of Die LINKE are coordinating working groups on issues such as peace and security, ecology and climate, art and culture, and EU enlargement. Working in this spirit, Die LINKE in Germany, as the only party with an east-west German and European history of its own, is assuming its historical responsibility as a bridge-building party in an era of militarisation and the looming threat of war and a simultaneous authoritarian shift to the right in Europe. It would be disastrous if the division within the European left were to deepen, if it were to remain stymied on the subject of peace and remain poitically ineffective, operating at only half strength.