Declaration

One hundred years after the beginning of World War I and forty years after the end of World War II, Europe is at a crossroads. If the current neoliberal and authoritarian policies are not reversed catastrophe awaits Europe and the world: further decline of democracy, increase in poverty and inequality, destruction of the environment, the inexorable rise of extreme right-wing and fascist forces which grow in the soil of despair created by unemployment and deprivation. The European Union must rediscover its original principles of peace, democracy and social justice. More generally Europe needs and deserves a new deal that places on a new basis the principles of liberty, equality and solidarity recently betrayed by liberals and social democrats.

The candidacy of Alexis Tsipras, the President of SYRIZA the Greek Radical Left party, for the presidency of the European Commission carries a strong symbolism. Greece has been the guinea pig in a huge neoliberal experiment which has led to a well-documented humanitarian crisis.  The nomination of Tsipras as the candidate of the European Left party offers a ray of hope that neoliberalism and authoritarianism can be stopped and reversed.

Etienne Balibar, Distinguished Professor, Comparative Literature School of Humanities University of California, Irvine

Costas Douzinas, Professor of Law, Pro-Vice Master for International Links and Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities

Chantal Mouffe, Professor of Political Theory at the University of Westminster

Drucilla Cornell, Professor of law, women's studies and political science at Rutgers University

Tariq Ali, Writer, journalist, and filmmaker. Member of the editorial committee of the New Left Review and Sin Permiso, and contributor to The Guardian, CounterPunch, and the London Review of Books

Lynne Segal, Anniversary Professor of Psychology and Gender Studies at Birkbeck College, London

Slavoj Zizek, Senior researcher at the Institute of Sociology, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, and visiting professor at a number of American Universities (Columbia, Princeton, New School for Social Research, New York University, University of Michigan)

Hilary Wainwright, Co-editor of Red Pepper and research director of the New Politics Project of the Transnational Institute, Amsterdam

Athena Athanasiou, Professor, Department of Social Anthropology at Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, in Athens, Greece

Jacqueline Rose, Professor of English at Queen Mary, University of London

Judith Butler, Maxine Elliot Professor in the Departments of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley & Hannah Arendt Professor of Philosophy at the European Graduate School

Joanna Bourke, Professor of History in the School of History, Classics and Archaeology at Birkbeck College

Wendy Brown, Senior Invited Fellow of the Center for Humanities at Cornell University; visiting professor at Columbia University

Jodi Dean, Professor of Political and Media Theory in Geneva, New York

Doreen Massey, Professor Emeritus, Geography, The Open University UK

Sandro Mezzadra, Associate Professor of Political Theory at the University of Bologna

Bruce Robbins, Old Dominion Foundation Professor of the Humanities, Department of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University

Leo Panitch, Distinguished Research Professor of Political Science at York University

Adolphe Reed, Professor, University of Pennsylvania

Doug Henwood, Journalist, economic analyst, and financial trader who writes frequently about economic affairs for the Left Business Observer

Johann Kresnik, Austrian dancer, choreographer and director

Martijn Konings, Lecturer in the Department of Political Economy, University of Sydney

Frances Fox Piven, Professor of Political Science and Sociology at The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Enzo Traver, Professor of Political Science at the University of Picardie-Jules Verne, Amiens, and visiting lecturer at the Free University of Berlin

May 8, 2014