- The meetings that took place in Geneva in 2014 and in Madrid in 2015 will be continued in Bilbao at the end of this week in the III International. Through Ecosocialist Encounters. In the face of the current eco-social challenges, with the aim of building alternatives, once in a while, the Bilbao initiative has won 160 accessions, and 300 people have already secured their participation.
It is not a meeting that arises from scratch. It has members of political, trade union and social movements behind it.And some of them pointed out in today's presentation that in the Basque Country "a new generation of entrepreneurs" and "different forms of resistance" are being born. LAB’s Arantzi Sarasola has cited initiatives such as the Charter of Rights of the Basque Country and the People of Alternatives as precedents.
III International, which will begin in the afternoon on September 23. The Ecosocialist Meetings have a wide program of activities that begin on Friday afternoon, continue on Saturday and end on Sunday at noon. Mikel Noval, from the ELA union, highlighted the "diversity" that will be present at the Ecosocialist Meetings.
At this point, about 300 people have registered for the meetings, but the organizers hope that this number will increase, because the possibility of registering is still open.
Some sessions will be held in the plenary and the format of workshops for other sessions has been used. The workshops have been organized according to four axes:
Productive model, care and employment
Food sovereignty
Sovereignty of energy
Social equity and education in the defense of the land
Two themes have been proposed for discussion. The first, "ecosocialist transitions in the face of ecological urgency and social distress" and the second, "The Troika or the peoples of Europe: democracy, sovereignty and social justice".
The debate aims to gain the support of the majority of the population that is focused on the "profound transformation" of the capitalist system, and that this majority "assumes" the profound transformation. To this end, the members of the political, trade union and social movements are aware that the coordination of work and the scheduling of joint mobilizations and work are essential. "Among others, we want to coordinate and integrate ourselves in the agendas of the mobilizations that follow the COP-21 and that derive from the initiatives of the Plan B for Europe," the organizers said.
International and Basque speakers such as Maxime Combes, Elizabeth Peredo, Iñaki Bárcena, Manuel Gari, Daniel Tanuro, Maria Eugenia Rodríguez Palop, Sandra Ezquerra, Luis González Reyes, Gorka Bueno, Yayo Herrero, Isabel Otxoa, Jorge Dominique, Juan Albiena, Alberto Hernández de Campo, Alberto Hernández, Jorge Albiena, Alberto Perez, and many others have been invited to attend the meetings.