Dear comrades,

I am delighted that we gathered here today to form a front against war looming over the entire continent.

I come from Serbia, a country with anti-NATO public opinion, but a country that is a very loyal Western ally. The Serbian government exports arms to Israel and Ukraine and recently made a nuclear deal with France. We have a NATO office in the Ministry of Defence. In recent visits of Olaf Scholz and Ursula von der Leyen, Serbia agreed to extract lithium for a European “green transition” and German car industry, that is crumbling and firing 100.000 workers as we sit here. Currently, the government is trying to pass changes to the criminal law that pay special attention to “protecting the financial interests of the European Union.

All along, this country is accused of being pro-Russian, of being “a Russian governorate” because it did not go into full-scale war-mongering, and did not sanction Russia.

We live in a world where black is white, a world of the reverse. Comrade Hunko earlier mentioned Julian Assange. One of the prominent “independent journalists” in Serbia – independent meaning funded by the National Endowment for Democracy and receiving accolades from the State Department of the USA – sneered repeatedly that Julian Assange is not a journalist. I do not know if the truth can end wars, but I do know that Assange was one of the most important voices that exposed the imperialist war machinery that is now bringing the entire world to the brink of war.

War and peace issue is now the main political divide in Europe and the world. We see that on the left now all over Europe. We see the traditional, new left parties splitting between anti-war and pro-imperialist wings. In Serbia, the Party of the Radical Left went through such a split in 2021. It is paramount that all the progressive anti-war forces work together to stop the imperialist bourgeoisie that needs another war to survive. We see that in the European war economy. In the new NATO bases in Norway and Sweden. In the long-range missiles that the US wants to deploy in Germany. In the war-mongering election campaign of the current European Commission. That is why these kinds of gatherings are important, I just hope that we are not too late.

In the end, I have to add that, if this is to be achieved, the European left has to abandon its arrogance and work with – and listen to – the Global South. That is where a true anti-imperialist struggle is born – from Palestine to Africa, from China to Latin America.