[Brussels, 13-14 April 2019] On the weekend of 13 and 14 April, one month ahead of the upcoming European elections, members from all Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) sections in Europe, from East-West-North-South, from EU and non-EU countries, met in Brussels to discuss growing right-wing discourses, splitting societies, fostering exclusion and pushing for anti-democratic developments.
Guided by their feminist analysis of root causes of conflicts, the participants exchanged their mutual understanding to which extend social, economic and democratic crises affect common values, well-being and peace for all (European) citizens, States and institutions.
They formulated requests for (nuclear) disarmament, climate justice, migration and asylum policies and equality. They forwarded that WILPF’s vision remains that sustainable peace can only be reached if equality and justice are at the core of human relationship and if diversity is respected.
It was a rich debate, linking local experiences, academic research, and different strategies for political intervention in the respective environments. The debate was shared with the EWL where WILPF is a full member organisation and the requests were fed into an open letter for candidates and Parliamentarians for the European Parliament,
see declaration addressed to the candidates in the European Parliamentary elections.
“We have continuously raised our voices against militarism that is damaging our societies, violating rights, irreversibly destroying our environment, and diverting money from social welfare. The current neoliberal policies impoverish, alienate and disempower people around the world. This disproportionally affects women (…) The current ongoing militarisation of the EU is in direct contradiction to the goal of a peaceful and democratic Europe”.
To read more about WILPF, please visit the
website.
©Photo by Charlotte Hooij
Attached documents
