New Austrian government will implement right-wing programme

Markus Salzmann

Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen with the representatives of the new government Christian Stocker (ÖVP), Andreas Babler (SPÖ) and Beate Meinl-Riesinger (NEOS) [Photo by Peter Lechner/HBF]

Five months after the parliamentary elections in Austria, for the first time, a three-party coalition will be sworn in consisting of the conservative Austrian Peoples Party (ÖVP), the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) and the New Austria and Liberal Forum (NEOS). Christian Stocker (ÖVP) will be the head of government, with SPÖ leader Andreas Babler taking over the post of vice-chancellor.

In November, President Alexander Van der Bellen had already tasked the conservative ÖVP with forming a government. However, these initial negotiations with the Social Democrats and NEOS failed because the latter withdrew due to disagreements on financial issues. The ÖVP then also ended talks with the SPÖ; together, these two have only a wafer-thin majority of one vote in parliament.

Van der Bellen then asked Herbert Kickl, leader of the far-right Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ), to form a government. The ÖVP was immediately willing to negotiate with the right-wing extremists and agreement was reached very quickly in almost all areas.

Ultimately, the formation of this coalition failed because of the Freedom Party’s demand to take over the Interior Ministry. This would have given them control over the security apparatus and the secret services, which met with resistance from the ÖVP and, above all, from European governments due to the FPÖ’s close ties to Moscow.

In hastily convened crisis talks, Van der Bellen and the leaders of the ÖVP, SPÖ and NEOS then agreed to renewed coalition negotiations. At the same time, the Greens, who were also available as coalition partners, declared that they would support the government from the opposition and would not vote together with the FPÖ in the event of a vote of no confidence.

Even though the FPÖ is not part of the administration, the new government programme clearly bears its hallmark. Large parts of it were already found in the agreements between the FPÖ and the ÖVP and were penned by the right-wing extremists around Kickl. The new Austrian government will be the most right-wing since the end of the Second World War. Its programme provides for comprehensive cuts, extensive rearmament spending, the curtailment of democratic rights and attacks on refugees and migrants.

The three parties have agreed on massive budget cuts. This year, €6.4 billion will be slashed and at least another €2 billion set to be cut next year. The cuts will primarily affect pensions, health, social services and education.

A frontal assault on pensions is planned. The retirement age is to be increased through a “mix of measures.” Pension cuts and an increase in the retirement age are simply being hidden behind various buzzwords such as “partial pension” and “partial retirement.” This is made clear by the so-called “sustainability mechanism”: If pension expenditure is higher than budgeted, there will be further “mandatory” measures.

Furthermore, the health insurance contribution for pensioners will rise from 5.1 to 6 percent as of June 1. In addition, pension increases will be slowed down. In the first year of retirement, only half of the inflation rate will be considered.

There are also to be fundamental changes to the health service. Following the latest “reforms” in Germany, which have led to an unprecedented number of hospital closures, the coalition parties in Austria say they want to promote care outside of hospital. In order to plan drastic cuts, there are to be “expert groups to develop new forms of financing.”

The cuts to the poorest sections of society, on which the FPÖ and ÖVP had agreed, can now also be found in the incoming government programme.

Social assistance is to be significantly reduced for a large number of people. Instead of the current €1,209, a single recipient is to receive only €950 per month. Those affected by this are mainly asylum seekers and those entitled to subsidiary protection, who, for example, make up around 44 percent of all social assistance recipients in Vienna. They are to receive only reduced support during an “integration phase” of up to three years.

Recipients of state support are also to be obliged to work or do community service. At the same time, family allowance is to be offset against social assistance in the future, which in effect means a reduction in benefits for poor families.

All measures, no matter how small, that could mitigate climate change are falling victim to the cuts. For example, the climate bonus, a special payment made to all Austrian residents to help with the cost of climate change, is being abolished without replacement. So-called eco-subsidies are also being cancelled or radically reduced.

One of those responsible for these social attacks is Social Affairs Minister Korinna Schumann. The fact that the leader of the Austrian Trade Union Federation (ÖGB) has accepted this post indicates that the new government will be closely involving the trade unions in order to push through the cuts.

While broad sections of the population will be affected by the massive cuts, the rich, corporations and banks are being spared. Regarding the much-discussed bank levy, the governing parties agreed on a contribution of €500 million over the next two years. To speak of this being a symbolic amount would be a gross exaggeration. In 2023 alone, Austrian banks made a profit of €12.6 billion.

On the issues of domestic security, asylum and migration, the government programme is almost identical to that of the FPÖ. For example, family reunification for migrants is to be suspended with immediate effect and a “quota system” developed. The official goal is to “reduce the number of asylum applications in the country to zero.” The outgoing and now incoming interior minister, Gerhard Karner (ÖVP), said his motto was: “Lock up and deport.”

Detention pending deportation in repatriation centres, which has been criticised by human rights organisations, is to be used more frequently and for longer periods. The rules for basic welfare support are to be standardised, i.e., adjusted downwards. Even minor violations are to lead to severe penalties and deportation.

Girls up to the age of 14 will no longer be allowed to wear headscarves in Austria. A corresponding ban is being drafted to protect girls “from segregation and oppression,” representatives of the future government cynically explained.

Furthermore, it is planned that migrants and refugees must sign a declaration against antisemitism. This is particularly noteworthy considering that antisemitism is virtually the foundational politics of the FPÖ, with which the party of the new head of government had sought a coalition. The current president of the National Council (federal parliament), Walter Rosenkranz (FPÖ), who was also elected with votes from the current governing parties, has compiled a list of “high achievers” from the 1930s, which includes several avowed antisemites and members of the then illegal Nazi Party.

While radical cuts are being made in all areas, funding for the police and secret service apparatus will be massively increased. This will be accompanied by drastic attacks on fundamental democratic rights.

Among other things, the coalition agreement provides for an increase in the budget of the security apparatus, in terms of both finance and personnel. Body cameras and additional weapons such as tasers are to be introduced across the board.

Under the pretext of fighting crime, more video and drone surveillance is to be used at the country’s borders, along with “more comprehensive data analysis.” There are also plans to make it mandatory to search the mobile phones of asylum seekers.

So-called “Bundestrojaner” (federal Trojan programs) are also to be used, which the coalition agreement refers to as the “constitutional surveillance of potential offenders.” This means that virtually anyone can be spied upon.

While the real danger of right-wing terrorism is being ignored, further measures under the pretense of combating Islamic terrorism are planned. For example, there are to be new penal provisions and extended powers for the intelligence services. A reform of the Political Parties Act, intended to make it easier to ban parties, is also a possibility.

The money from the cuts will mainly be used for arms spending. The new coalition is explicitly committed to further rearmament of the Austrian armed forces and to participation in the Sky Shield European air defence initiative.

The new government programme states that the “2032+ development plan,” which provides for around €17 billion in additional investments in the armed forces by 2032, will continue to be pursued. In addition, the government wants to establish a new standby force made up of professional soldiers and parts of the militia. Austria would also be more involved in foreign missions and international peacekeeping operations.

With NEOS leader Beate Meinl-Reisinger entering office, a hardliner is taking over the foreign ministry. The NEOS, along with the Greens, are the most vehement supporters of rearmament and war. They demand an end to Austrian neutrality and advocate an independent, aggressive war policy for the EU.

Most recently, Meinl-Reisinger railed in parliament against President Donald Trump’s negotiations with Russia. She said the EU must now take responsibility for its own security. There had been much talk of wake-up calls and a turning point in history, she said, but now “words must be followed by action.”

Mass protests continue in Serbia

Markus Salzmann

Mass protests against the right-wing government and President Aleksandar Vučić have been taking place in Serbia for months. Initially, while the protests were mainly organised by students, all age and professional groups are now participating. Students and workers have been demonstrating almost daily in over 300 cities since November.

Protest in the city of Čačak in central Serbia on 26 January 2025 [Photo by Dejan Krsmanovic / flickr / CC BY 2.0]

On December 22, around 100,000 protesters gathered at Slavija Square in the capital, Belgrade. It was the largest demonstration in Serbia in 20 years.

Since December, students from 65 of the country’s 80 faculties have been on strike. Schools are also on strike, and at major demonstrations, farmers have blocked main roads with dozens of tractors.

The protests are enjoying widespread support among the population. According to surveys, more than 61 percent support the demonstrations against the government and the president. During demonstrations in freezing temperatures, local residents provide participants with warm drinks and meals. Belgrade taxi drivers travelled to a rally in Novi Sad, Serbia’s second-largest city, and provided students with free rides back.

Rallies and protests by Serbs are also taking place outside Serbia, in Vienna, Berlin and other European cities. On March 1, tens of thousands protested in the southern Serbian city of Niš.

The protests were triggered by the deaths of 15 people, including two children, due to the collapse of a railway station canopy in the northern Serbian city of Novi Sad in November. The collapse was preceded by a renovation of the station, but the dilapidated canopy was not replaced. The general contractor responsible for the renovation was a Chinese company, which has stressed that the roof was not part of the renovation project.

It is reasonable to assume that corruption lies behind the lack of transparency in the construction projects. Shortly after the incident, Construction Minister Goran Vesić resigned. He was arrested weeks later, along with other top officials. Corruption among politicians and authorities is commonplace in Serbia and affects almost every area. Without good connections or sufficient bribes, it is often impossible to get official permits, medical treatment or jobs.

The protests quickly spread beyond the immediate cause and express massive opposition to the right-wing government and the hated President Vučić.

Vučić has been in office since 2017 and has implemented a drastic shift to the right. He comes from the ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party (SRS), of which he was a member from 1993 to 2008 and for which he occasionally held ministerial posts. In the 1990s, the SRS recruited nationalists for the wars in Croatia and Bosnia and formed paramilitary units that were notorious for carrying out atrocities.

Since the civil war in Yugoslavia and NATO’s war against Serbia, the situation facing the population has been precarious. Poverty and unemployment have continued to rise in recent years under Vučić.

The gross domestic product (GDP) per capita is $11,352, placing the country in 10th place among the poorest countries in Europe. Only countries such as Albania, Armenia, Moldova, Kosovo and Ukraine are poorer. One in five Serbs is affected by poverty.

In order to fulfil the criteria for the country’s EU accession aspirations, the last governments have continued to trim the few remaining provisions of the social safety net. At the same time, the wealth of the country’s narrow upper class is growing. Armament spending has also been stepped up in recent years.

Against this background, the protests have a social character and are directed against the entire political system. Since Vučić came to power, there have been repeated spontaneous protests, most recently in 2023 after a school shooting rampage in Belgrade that killed nine students and a security guard.

In addition to the publication of all documents about the tragedy in Novi Sad, the protesters are demanding the prosecution of violent attackers of the students, as well as the release of all detained demonstrators. Furthermore, they are calling for an increase in the education budget by 20 percent.

Vučić responded to the ongoing protests by sacrificing his prime minister, Miloš Vučević, who he forced to resign at the end of January. Vučević led an extreme right-wing government made up of the Progressive Party (SNS) and the Socialist Party (SPS), the nationalist party of former head of state Slobodan Milošević. Vučić ruled out new elections, so the manoeuvre did not stop the protests.

Nor has the brutal crackdown on protesters intimidated them so far. Not only are the official security forces cracking down harshly on the demonstrators, but members of the SNS, who have close ties to fascist groups, are also attacking students. Sometimes they have driven cars into groups of peaceful demonstrators.

Vučić is receiving support from the European Union. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who never hesitates to support any protest that is in any way directed against Russia, did not comment on the protests in Serbia. Gert Jan Koopman, the EU’s director-general for neighbourhood and enlargement negotiations, had merely noted “steady progress” towards the EU during a visit to Belgrade and also ignored the protests.

The reason for this is the interests of the leading European powers in the Balkans, where Serbia is a major player. Belgrade is supposed to ensure stability there and continue to be harnessed for the EU’s war policy against Russia. Vučić has not only condemned Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine but has also recently been moving ever closer to the EU in military terms. As early as 2023, Belgrade abandoned plans to purchase a new batch of Russian fighter jets in favour of a €2.7 billion contract to supply 12 French fighter jets.

Serbian military officials also declared that they would no longer purchase Russian weapons produced under licence in third countries. Instead, Serbia has since supplied Ukraine with ammunition worth around €800 million via third countries, thereby supporting the policy of waging war against Russia.

Serbia also plays a central role in the EU’s policy of sealing Europe’s borders off from refugees. The country is located on the so-called Balkan route and regularly uses force against migrants trying to reach Europe via the route.

Last year, Belgrade signed an agreement with the EU allowing the stationing of the EU border protection agency Frontex along Serbia’s borders with Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia.

Furthermore, Serbia has mineral resources that are of great interest to the European automotive industry. In June last year, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz accompanied the signing of a “Memorandum on Critical Raw Materials” in Belgrade, which provides for the resumption of lithium mining in western Serbia.

PKK accepts Öcalan’s call to end armed struggle

Ulaş Ateşçi & Barış Demir

Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), made a statement last Thursday through a visiting delegation of the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party). Calling on the PKK, which has been engaged in an intermittent civil war with the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) since 1984, to lay down its arms and dissolve, Öcalan proposed “integration with the state” by declaring his party historically and politically bankrupt.

The DEM Party delegation meeting with PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan makes a statement. February 27, 2025 [Photo: DEMGenelMerkezi/X]

The PKK leadership, based in the Qandil Mountains in northern Iraq, has welcomed the call and declared a ceasefire. “We agree with the content of the call as it is, and we say that we will follow and implement it from our own side,” the PKK Executive Committee said in a statement Saturday.

The PKK wrote, “It is clear that a new historical process has begun in Kurdistan and the Middle East with this [Öcalan’s] call. This will also have a great impact on the development of free life and democratic governance worldwide.”

The PKK leadership stated that “a suitable democratic political and legal foundation must also be established” for the success of the call, and suggested that Öcalan himself should lead the congress. This would require Öcalan to attend the congress from the prison on İmralı Island, where he has been held since 1999, or to be released.

“As of yesterday, we have entered a new phase. We have the opportunity to take an important step towards the goal of demolishing the wall of terrorism that has been built between our millennia-old brotherhood,” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on February 28, claiming, “When the pressure of weapons and terrorism is removed, the democratic space of politics will naturally expand further.”

This statement comes amid an intense wave of repression and arrests targeting broad swathes of political and social opposition, under conditions where the PKK has largely ceased its activities in the country for a long time. The abolition of remaining democratic rights in Turkey is not based on the “pressure of arms and terror”, but mainly on the deepening war in the Middle East and the growing class tensions at home.

Erdoğan threatened that if the PKK fails to fulfil its promises, “We will continue our ongoing operations, if necessary, leveling with the ground and leaving no head upon shoulder.”

After previous negotiations collapsed in 2015 over fears of a Kurdish state in Syria and Turkey, the civil war inside the country escalated bloodily and the Turkish army launched several military operations against Kurdish militias in Syria. Turkey now controls many areas of north-western Syria, while the north-east of the country is controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and US forces.

Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the fascist ally of Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party, welcomed Öcalan’s call, saying that “in the chaotic environment the world is in, a historic opportunity for Turkey has been opened”.

Bahçeli said the call was “valuable from the beginning to the end” and that the PKK’s statement was “supportive and complementary” to it. The Erdoğan government’s negotiation process with Öcalan and the PKK began in October with Bahçeli’s own call.

Selahattin Demirtaş, the imprisoned former co-chairman of the Peoples’ Democracy Party (HDP), the predecessor of the DEM Party, wrote an article praising the role of Erdoğan, Bahçeli and Öcalan in the process, saying, “May God grant them all a long and healthy life, but I will do my best to ensure the success of these three leaders who have taken the initiative for peace in the Middle East and for the historic Kurdish-Turkish peace at the last stage of their lives.”

Demirtaş, whose immunity was lifted with the support of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), has been unlawfully imprisoned since November 2016.

Sırrı Süreyya Önder, a DEM Party deputy and member of the delegation that met with Öcalan, joined the chorus of praise for Bahçeli, the leader of a party with a history of massacring working-class militants, leftists and minority Alevis, and of supporting the oppression of the Kurdish people. “Mr. Devlet [Bahçeli] is one of the most elegant people I have seen in my political life in terms of one-to-one human relations,” said Önder in a Habertürk live broadcast on Monday.

Workers will not oppose the end of an armed conflict which has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Kurdish and Turkish youth since 1984 and has been exploited to divide the working class. But the glorification of the reactionary representatives of the Turkish bourgeoisie must be rejected. These political leaderships are organically incapable of building a democratic regime because of their bourgeois class nature, tied to imperialism and hostile to the working class.

Throughout the history of the Republic, the Erdoğan government has continued the state policy of suppressing the democratic demands of the Kurdish people. Even during the negotiations with Öcalan, the government’s repression against Kurdish politicians and people has escalated. Since last year’s local elections, 12 mayors from the DEM Party--elected by hundreds of thousands of Kurdish voters--have been dismissed, hundreds of Kurdish politicians arrested, and the legal political organisation the Peoples’ Democratic Congress (HDK) criminalised as an “extension of a terrorist organisation”.

The government’s wave of repression and arrests is not only directed against the Kurdish political movement, but against all political opposition, and is mainly aimed at suppressing a mass movement of the working class.

In the last months, there have been operations against CHP municipalities, the leadership of the Istanbul Bar Association has been charged with “terrorism”, opposition journalists, trade union leaders and left-wing party members have been arrested or are under investigation and strikes and demonstrations have been banned. These steps are taken under an authoritarian presidential regime, built with the support of the bourgeois opposition parties in one way or another.

The US and European powers welcome the negotiations between Ankara and Öcalan/the PKK because they further their predatory aims in the Middle East. They believe that an agreement between their ally Ankara and the Kurdish nationalist movement will serve their aggressive plans, especially against Iran and its allies.

On Sunday, the pro- Erdoğan government daily Türkiye Gazetesi accused Iran of planning to undermine the negotiations in a report citing AKP and senior security sources.

Without proof, the newspaper wrote, “Iran knows that if the PKK disintegrates, it will have no more organisations to use in the region. For this reason, Iran may want to undermine the process in the coming period by using the leaders of the organisation close to it.”

“The marginal left wing within the DEM [party] will oppose it because it does not suit their calculations... There may be those who want to infect the process. Marxist remnants inside could infect it,” the paper added. This comment comes in the wake of the arrest of 30 people from parties, which are members of the HDK, in the midst of an investigation into the HDK involving thousands of people.

One of the critical points in the debate on the PKK’s laying down its arms and dissolving itself was whether Öcalan’s call included its sister organisations in other countries, in particular the YPG (People’s Defence Units) in Syria.

Ankara advocates that the YPG should dissolve itself and be subordinated to the new Damascus regime. “The terrorist organisation PKK, PYD, YPG, SDF, by whatever name, with all its extensions in Iraq and Syria, must lay down arms and dissolve itself,” AKP spokesman Ömer Çelik said.

Last month, it was announced that during talks with the HTS in Syria, an agreement was reached on the integration of the SDF and its autonomous administration into the Damascus regime. According to SDF representative Abu Omar Al-Idlibi, speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat, “the SDF would be integrated into Syria’s Ministry of Defence as a single unit, potentially within a corps or as part of the ministry’s eastern command.” Meanwhile, tensions continue to rise between Israel and Turkey, which has expanded its occupation of Syria following the regime change in Damascus and declared the Kurds a “natural ally”.

Öcalan calls on Kurdish PKK to lay down arms and dissolve itself

Ulaş Ateşçi

A delegation from the Kurdish nationalist People’s Equality and Democracy Party (DEM) visited imprisoned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan for the third time on Thursday. As expected, he delivered a letter to the delegation, calling on the PKK to lay down its arms and dissolve itself. Tens of thousands of mostly Kurdish people have been killed and millions displaced in the ongoing conflict between Ankara and the PKK since 1984.

PKK's imprisoned leader Abdullah Öcalan (middle) and DEM Party delegation on İmralı Island, Thursday, February 27, 2025. [Photo: DEMGenelMerkezi on X/Twitter]

Öcalan’s “Call for Peace and Democratic Society”, read in Kurdish and then in Turkish at a press conference in an Istanbul hotel, was broadcast live on many national channels and watched by millions of people in Turkey and around the world.

“The inevitable outcome of the extreme nationalist deviations—such as a separate nation-state, federation, administrative autonomy, or culturalist solutions—fails to answer the historical sociology of the society,” he declared in his call, claiming that the Kurdish question could be solved by “democratizing” the existing state.

“In presenting this perspective, there is no doubt that the laying down of arms and the PKK’s self-dissolution in practice require the recognition of democratic politics and its legal dimension,” Öcalan said in an additional note read separately. At the time of writing, there was no reaction from the PKK leadership or President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to the call.

Erdoğan’s adviser Mehmet Uçum welcomed Öcalan’s words, stating: “The call basically said that there is no more [Kurdish] identity problem, that the denial [of Kurds] is over, that there are no two nations, no two official languages, no two citizenships, no demand for autonomy, no demand for federation. The unitary state has been defended.”

Uçum added, “Öcalan emphasized that the internal Kurdish problem in Turkey, which is based on denial and rejection, has been solved. Now the issue is democracy, integration with the state and society and the development of democracy.”

The Erdoğan government’s recent negotiations with Öcalan began last October with a call from Devlet Bahçeli, the leader of Erdoğan’s fascist ally, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). Bahçeli said that Öcalan could be released if he declared that the PKK had been dissolved and that he would be allowed to speak “at the meeting of the DEM Party group in the Turkish Parliament.” Subsequently, with Erdoğan’s approval, the DEM Party started talks with Öcalan, who has been held in a high-security prison on İmralı Island in the Sea of Marmara since 1999.

As the World Socialist Web Site explained, Öcalan, as the leader of a nationalist political movement with mass support, had been handed over to Ankara with the help of the CIA while the European powers had denied him political asylum.

Öcalan’s call on Thursday was in line with his and the PKK’s political evolution after the Stalinist bureaucracy dissolved the Soviet Union in 1991.

He said, “The PKK was born in the 20th century, in the most violent epoch of the history of humanity, amid the two World wars, under the shadow of the experience of real socialism and the cold war around the world. The outright denial of Kurdish reality, restrictions on basic rights and freedoms—especially freedom of expression—played a significant role in its emergence and development,” before adding: “In terms of theory, program, strategy, and tactics, it was heavily influenced by the reality of the real-socialist system of the century.”

He then states: “The collapse of real socialism in the 1990s due to internal reasons, the erosion of identity denial in the country, and advancements in freedom of expression led to a lack of meaning and excessive repetition within the PKK. Consequently, like its counterparts, it reached the end of its lifespan, making its dissolution necessary.”

In reality, despite some official steps to recognize the existence of the Kurdish people and the Kurdish language, which have been denied for decades, the existence and democratic rights of the Kurdish people are still not constitutionally recognized and Kurdish is still considered as an “unknown language” in the Turkish Parliament. Basic democratic rights, especially freedom of expression, are still being systematically violated by the government.

Öcalan’s call comes amid an intense wave of repression and arrests targeting large sections of the political and social opposition, with thousands of Kurdish political prisoners in jail, elected mayors of the DEM party dismissed, and the right of millions of Kurdish voters to vote and be elected violated.

The PKK’s “lack of meaning” is not due to the dissolution of the Soviet Union or the supposed solution of the Kurdish question, but to the bankruptcy of national programs in the era of global integration of capitalist production. Ultimately, this is what underlay the end of the USSR, which was the culmination of the Stalinist betrayal of the October Revolution of 1917.

Like many bourgeois and petty-bourgeois nationalist organizations that falsely call themselves “socialist” or “revolutionary,” the PKK responded to these major developments with a rapid shift to the right. Founded in 1978 as a Stalinist guerrilla organization that rejected the unified struggle of Turkish and Kurdish workers against the ruling class, the PKK, which gained strength in an environment of violent state repression against the Kurdish people, quickly declared the “failure of socialism” in the post-Soviet period, abandoned its program of national independence and sought reconciliation with Ankara and the imperialist powers. In fact, it was Stalinism, falsely identified with socialism, and its reactionary program of “socialism in one country”, that failed.

The critical issue completely omitted in Öcalan’s “call for peace” is that this call is made under the conditions of an emerging global imperialist war of for the redivision of the world that could overshadow the two world wars of the twentieth century.

In the past three years, the US-NATO war against Russia over Ukraine has brought the world to the brink of a nuclear conflict, while the new Trump administration has now declared a program of global conquest and hegemony, targeting not only China but also Washington’s nominal allies. The US-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza is deepening with ongoing aggression in the West Bank and plans for the deportation of more than two million Palestinians. The Islamist-led regime change in Syria could turn into a new conflict pitting the occupying allies, Turkey and Israel, against each other and various other forces in the country. The US-Israeli aggression against Iran and the preparations for a war that would engulf the entire region are in full swing.

This explains why the Erdoğan government has re-opened negotiations with Öcalan. Erdoğan himself expressed it as follows: “While the maps are being redrawn in blood, while the war that Israel has waged from Gaza to Lebanon is approaching our borders, we are trying to strengthen our internal front.”

A comment in The Middle East Eye on Öcalan’s call stated, “Many insiders in Ankara believe the government’s motivation for engaging in talks with Öcalan is linked to escalating regional tensions between Israel and Iran.”

Ankara and the Kurdish nationalist movement, both allies of the US-NATO and both oriented towards the imperialist powers, are not opponents but parts of the deepening war in the Middle East. The US and European powers believe that a settlement between the Turkish and Kurdish elites will contribute to their plans for imperialist domination in the region, especially targeting Iran and its allies.

That is why the United States and Germany welcomed the call. Berlin has announced that it will do everything in its power to support the “process.”

“It’s a significant development and we hope that it will help assuage our Turkish allies about U.S. counter-ISIS partners in northeast Syria,” said Brian Hughes, spokesman for the White House National Security Council. He was referring to the PKK’s sister organization, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), and its armed wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which together with US forces control northeastern Syria.

Mazlum Abdi, the leader of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), of which the YPG is the backbone, declared that Öcalan’s call was directed against the PKK, not them. Referring to Ankara’s military operations against them in Syria, Abdi said, “The relationship and peace between the PKK and Turkey will have an impact on our region. If this process is successful, it will have a positive impact on us and Turkey will have no excuse to attack our region.”

Salih Muslim, a leading member of the PYD, welcomed Öcalan’s call, he told the Al-Arabiya, “There would be no need for weapons if we were allowed to work politically. If the reasons for carrying weapons disappear, we will lay them down.”

The last negotiations between Ankara and the PKK, which began in 2009 and continued with interruptions until 2015, collapsed as the US-NATO war for regime change in Syria intensified. Fearing that a Kurdish enclave in Syria led by the YPG could encourage a move toward independence in Turkey’s Kurdish provinces, where some declarations of “democratic autonomy” have been made, Ankara has launched a fierce offensive both at home and in Syria.

Thousands of people were killed and hundreds of thousands of Kurdish civilians were displaced. This bitterly demonstrated the organic inability of the bourgeoisie to solve basic democratic questions in a country with late capitalist development in the epoch of imperialism, as Leon Trotsky explained in his Theory of Permanent Revolution.

Closure of Australian retail chain Rivers points to a deepening economic crisis

Vicki Mylonas

Longstanding Australian clothing and footwear brand Rivers is set to close all 136 of its stores, making more than 600 staff redundant. Amid a cost-of-living crisis and continuing inflation, this follows a horror year for many Australian retailers.

Rivers store at Canberra Outlet during its closing down sale January 2025 [Photo by Nick-D via Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0]

Rivers was owned by Mosaic Brands Limited, which collapsed in October, owing creditors $249 million. The demise of Australia’s largest fashion retailer group, which also included Rockmans, Crossroads, W. Lane and Katies, among others, will see some 700 retail shops close and destroy almost 3,000 jobs throughout the country.

Many of the Mosaic workers who have already been let go have not been paid since October, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

Last month, Wesfarmers announced it was shutting down online outlet Catch, slashing around 190 jobs, with a further 100 employees to be moved to the Kmart Group. The company’s managing director attributed Catch’s failure to “the entry and expansion of international competitors.”

This is expressed particularly in the rise of Chinese-owned online retailers Shein and Temu, which together are expected to record sales of more than $2 billion in Australia this financial year, according to a Roy Morgan report. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs anticipates a 40 percent year-over-year rise in Amazon’s Australian sales to $6.5 billion in 2025. In an era of globalisation, Australian retail faces competition that transcends national borders.

The collapse of these major retailers is part of a broader trend of business failures and job cuts across multiple industry sectors, including construction and hospitality.

Credit reporting agency CreditorWatch warned in its Business Risk Index that a fall in monthly business collapses in January was “likely to be short lived.” In the year to November 2024, insolvencies were up 57 percent year-over-year, and business closures were at the highest rate since August 2020. Across all sectors, an average of 5.1 percent of businesses failed, with the rate expected to climb to 5.6 percent this year.

Liquidator Jarvis Archer told the Australian that, after a record high in 2023–24 of 11,053, “total insolvencies for the 2025 financial year could reach as high as 16,000… almost double the pre-pandemic average of around 8,000 per year.”

CreditorWatch noted that, like consumers, businesses have been hit by soaring electricity, insurance and property rental costs.

For the working class, the rising cost of living, coupled with high mortgage stress and falling real wages, has forced many to cut back on discretionary spending, including retail shopping and dining out, exacerbating business shutdowns and unemployment rates.

CreditorWatch noted that the food and beverage sector in particular is “bearing the brunt of cost-of-living pressures.” A record-high 9.2 percent of businesses in the sector became insolvent in the 12 months to January 31.

Spending at cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services has remained flat since early 2023, while operating costs, including for utilities and ingredients, have soared. Restaurant and Catering Australia (RCA), a hospitality industry peak body, has warned that 1 in 11 businesses in the sector will collapse in 2025.

One of Australia’s biggest casino operators, Star Entertainment, is set to become the largest corporate collapse in Australia since Virgin Australia in 2020. Around 9,000 directly employed workers face the prospect of unemployment, and the collapse would likely have a ripple effect on food and beverage suppliers, as well as nearby hospitality businesses.

The construction industry has the second-highest business failure rate, with the number of new homes built dropping significantly since mid-2021. Around 2,832 construction companies became insolvent during the 2023–2024 financial year. The rising cost of materials, supply chain issues and 13 interest rate hikes have played a role in this.

The collapse of Quasar Constructions last year left major projects in New South Wales unfinished and workers owed tens of thousands of dollars. Already this year, another building company, Clarke Homes, has announced it will enter administration, again leaving workers out of pocket. Veteran builder Scott Challen told Yahoo!Finance the construction industry is “heading into the abyss.”

The crisis confronting so many industries will further push the increase of unemployment rates in the country. The unemployment rate, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), is 4.1 percent. But these official figures are a massive underestimate, excluding those who did not actively look for work in the survey period.

Market research firm Roy Morgan calculates that “real unemployment” is at 10.1 percent, meaning more than 1.6 million Australian workers are unemployed. A further 1.81 million, or 11.3 percent, are under-employed, the analysts said: “In total 3.43 million Australians (21.4 percent of the workforce) were either unemployed or under-employed in January—the highest combined figure since June 2020.”

Among those having the most difficulty finding work are those that are already economically vulnerable. According to the ABS, the official youth unemployment rate is 9 percent, more than double the overall figure and the data also show a striking discrepancy in unemployment figures between socioeconomic regions. Unemployment rates are higher, on average, in working-class areas. In southwest Sydney, for example, official unemployment is at 4.7 percent, compared with 3.8 percent across NSW. Youth unemployment in the region is at 10.7 percent.

Business closures and unemployment are only set to increase in 2025, across a wide array of industries, including steel and mining, as well as tertiary education and the public sector.

The rapidly unfolding collapse of steel magnate Sanjeev Gupta’s GFG Alliance means 6,000 workers across Whyalla Steelworks, Tahmoor Coal and InfraBuild face the prospect that jobs, wages and conditions will be slashed.

Mining corporation Rio Tinto last week flagged the likelihood of further job cuts in Western Australia, on top of 500 destroyed last year, 3 percent of its full-time workforce.

Financial consulting firm EY advised staff on Tuesday of a redundancy round, reportedly targeting the company’s technology and legal divisions. According to the Australian, as many as 100 jobs are set to be cut.

Major supermarket chain Woolworths, the largest private sector employer in the country, announced Wednesday it was aiming to cut costs by $400 million, including the elimination of an unspecified number of office roles.

Liberal opposition leader Peter Dutton has vowed to slash as many as 36,000 public service jobs, which he describes as “waste,” if his party wins the upcoming federal election, which must be held in the next three months.

In fact, the assault on jobs, wages and conditions is already well underway. Labor governments at state and federal level, with the collaboration of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), have overseen drastic cuts to wages, especially in the public sector, resulting in real wages that are lower than they were in 2016.

The Victorian Labor government last week announced plans to eliminate up to 3,000 jobs in the state’s public services, around 5–6 percent of the current workforce.

Data from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reveals that, in the two years to June 2024, disposable incomes in Australia saw among the sharpest falls across OECD countries. In fact, the fall in real incomes has taken household purchasing power back to 2017 levels.

Recent analysis conducted by the University of New South Wales and consulting firm Digital Finance Analytics showed that 82 percent of electorates in the country have a majority of households suffering financial stress. This is more than 10 times the level recorded in 2021.

Europe rearms amid crisis in NATO alliance

Peter Schwarz

German Leopard 2 main battle tanks on their way to Ukraine. [Photo: Bundeswehr]

Since Donald Trump’s return to the White House, the conflict between the US and Europe—and Germany in particular—has intensified day by day. Even the end of NATO, the world’s most powerful imperialist military alliance, which has dominated transatlantic relations since the Second World War, can no longer be ruled out. The European powers are reacting to this with frenetic rearmament.

There were already sharp political and economic conflicts during Trump’s first term in office. In 2017, following a tense G7 summit with Trump, then German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared that the times were over “when we could completely rely on others.” The Europeans would have to take their fate into their own hands, she continued. However, there was no complete break at the time.

Under President Joe Biden, the US and Europe worked closely together again to escalate the war against Russia in Ukraine. Germany, which had initially been reluctant to end its gas supplies from Russia, became Ukraine’s most important donor after the US. Both pursued the goal of defeating Russia militarily.

However, after Trump took office it quickly became clear that his “Make America Great Again” policy was not only directed against China and other rivals, but also against his erstwhile European allies. He has announced punitive tariffs of 25 percent against imports from Europe and declared war on the European Union (EU). At a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, he complained, “The European Union was formed in order to screw the United States. That’s the purpose of it, and they’ve done a good job of it.”

At the Munich Security Conference, Vice President JD Vance backed far-right parties that reject the EU in a provocative, incendiary speech. Trump confidant and multi-billionaire Elon Musk openly supported the fascist Alternative for Germany (AfD) during the German election campaign.

When Trump then contacted Russian President Vladimir Putin over the heads of the European and Ukrainian governments and agreed negotiations to settle the Ukraine conflict, panic spread in European capitals that Trump and Putin would come to an agreement at the expense of Europe. There was talk of a new Yalta, where Stalin and President Roosevelt divided Europe up into zones of influence in February 1945.

The probable next German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (Christian Democratic Union, CDU) warned in the “Morgenmagazin” programme on German public television: “We must prepare ourselves for the fact that Donald Trump will no longer accept NATO’s  collective defence obligations without restrictions.” He demanded that Europe must now “pull out all the stops to at least be able to defend the European continent on its own.” Among other things, he proposed a joint nuclear defence shield with France and the UK: “We need to talk about what this could look like.”

Merz already declared on election night that his absolute priority was to strengthen Europe “so that we can achieve independence from the United States step by step.” He added, “I would never have believed that I would have to say something like that in a television programme.”

Merz’s CDU has been the most pro-American of the German parties since the time of Konrad Adenauer, the first post-war German chancellor. Merz himself was chairman of the Atlantik-Brücke think tank and German head of the US investment fund BlackRock. The fact that he is now so clearly opposed to Washington shows how deep the conflict runs.

French President Emmanuel Macron responded to Trump’s unilateral action by inviting government heads to two European crisis summits in Paris and then flying to Washington himself to try to change Trump’s mind. But he returned empty-handed.

Trump and Macron publicly celebrated their man-to-man friendship and showered each other with compliments. But Trump did not give ground on anything of substance. He was not prepared to provide American security guarantees for Ukraine and insisted that this was the task of the Europeans. He also only agreed to European and Ukrainian participation in the negotiations in the most general terms.

Trump will receive Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whom he previously insulted, in Washington Friday, but only to sign a treaty that will make the country economically dependent on the US for decades. Kiev will undertake to pay 50 percent of all future revenues from raw materials and associated logistics into a fund that will be co-administered by the US.

The agreement is very general; the details will be worked out later. Zelensky rejected an original agreement under which Ukraine was to transfer $500 billion in raw material revenues to the US.

The Europeans are extremely angry about this deal because they feel they have been cheated out of their share of the spoils. Berlin has long been organising conferences on the “reconstruction” of Ukraine, from which German companies expect to make huge profits. And France has been negotiating with Ukraine since October 2024 about the use of valuable raw materials for the French defence industry, according to Defence Minister Sébastien Lecornu.

While Trump met with Macron, the US voted in the UN General Assembly together with Russia, Belarus and North Korea against a resolution tabled by Ukraine, which describes Russia as the aggressor in the Ukraine war and calls for the restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity. In the Security Council, the five European members abstained from voting on a resolution on Ukraine, which was supported by the US, Russia and China. It advocated peace in Ukraine without condemning Russia and demanding the restoration of the old borders.

Although such resolutions have no practical significance, their symbolic value is all the greater. Never before has the US joined forces with Russia, China and North Korea against Europe on such important geostrategic issues.

The European powers are reacting to the division in NATO by rearming as never before since the end of the Second World War and endeavouring to continue the war in Ukraine under their own steam. Having already significantly increased military spending in recent years, they are now set to increase it by hundreds of billions of euros in a very short space of time, convert industry to arms production, reintroduce compulsory military service and militarise society as a whole.

This requires massive cuts in spending on social welfare, education and health, and a fierce attack on the working class, which will have to bear the consequences of rearmament and serve as cannon fodder for future wars.  

The transformation of Germany into a major military power will be the central axis of the next German government, a coalition of the CDU/Christian Social Union (CSU) and Social Democrats (SPD), which, if all goes according to plan, will be sworn in by mid-April. There are increasing calls in the media and politics to dispense with lengthy coalition negotiations and a detailed coalition agreement in order to avoid wasting time.

CDU foreign policy expert Norbert Röttgen described the seriousness of the situation as “historic” on Deutschlandfunk radio. According to Röttgen, this shocking reality must be recognised. Only if Germany was able to act quickly would Europe also be able to act. It is now a matter of fate, he continued, stating that if Ukraine disintegrated, the EU and NATO would no longer exist in their current form.

Acting Defence Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD), who is also expected to be a member of the next government, told the Bild newspaper that the military budget would have to be at least doubled to over €100 billion in the coming years: “We are talking about more than three percent of gross domestic product.”

Green Party European affairs politician Anton Hofreiter called for “a major investment offensive to provide Ukraine with even more support and to improve the EU’s defence capabilities quickly and efficiently.” This would require “a 500 billion defence fund to support Ukraine and for joint arms procurement in the EU.”

In mid-February, the CSU, the Bavarian sister party of the CDU, presented a “master plan to strengthen the Bundeswehr [Armed Forces] and Germany’s defence,” which calls for the Bundeswehr to be increased from its current 182,000 uniformed personnel to “500,000 combat-ready soldiers and reservists” as well as the reintroduction of compulsory military service.

In addition, it called for the procurement of 1,000 new Taurus cruise missiles and the development of new cruise missiles with a range of 2,500 kilometres. An “Iron Dome” is to be erected as a protective shield against missile and air attacks. To finance the entire plan, military spending should rise to 3 percent of GDP. 

In the meantime, Merz is trying to create a fait accompli with the old parliamentary majority before the newly elected Bundestag is constituted, which must take place March 25 at the latest, by making hundreds of billions available for armaments. A further special fund totaling €200 billion is being discussed, for which a two-thirds majority in parliament is required. In the new Bundestag, the CDU/CSU, SPD and Greens together do not have enough votes and would have to rely on support from the Left Party or the far-right AfD.

Merz also flew to Paris on Wednesday for a three-hour confidential meeting with President Macron, although he has not yet been elected chancellor and cannot expect to be until April at the earliest. Afterwards, he thanked Macron on X for his “trust in Franco-German relations” and wrote, “Together, our countries can achieve great things for Europe.” Macron has long pursued the goal of strengthening Europe against the US and building a European army.

However, the conflict with the US will also exacerbate the differences within Europe. Many EU members are not prepared to subordinate themselves to German and French supremacy.

Alarm grows as “mystery illness” in Congo has now killed 60 people and infected over 1,000

Benjamin Mateus

[Photo: World Health Organization African Region]

On Thursday, the World Health Organization (WHO) released their latest report on the worsening outbreak of unknown disease in two separate locations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), noting that 1,096 people have now officially been infected and 60 have died.

The first outbreak occurred in a remote Northwest village of Bikoro in the Bolomba health zone on January 21, 2025, after three children ate a bat and died shortly afterwards, prompting concerns given that bats are well-known to harbor various pathogens capable of causing spillover events. Samples from those affected were sent to Kinshasa, ruling out both Ebola and Marburg, deadly viral hemorrhagic pathogens. 

The next outbreak was first reported on February 9 in Bomate village in the Basankusu health zone, located about 186 kilometers (115 miles) to the Northeast of Bikoro. By February 13, the WHO confirmed at least 419 cases with 45 deaths, placing the initial case fatality rate at over 10 percent. WHO stated that “[the] outbreaks, which have seen cases rise rapidly within days, pose a significant public health threat. The exact cause remains unknown.” In the most recent in-depth report, covering data up until February 23, the WHO estimates that the case fatality rate now stands at roughly 5.5 percent.

In addition to the unidentified pathogen causing the outbreak, health authorities are deeply concerned about the short interval between the onset of symptoms (fever, vomiting and internal bleeding) and ensuing death 48 hours later. Delays in reporting relate to near non-existent infrastructure conditions and poorly resourced facilities.

The WHO Bulletin underscores the concerns raised by these developments, noting:

Key challenges include the rapid progression of the disease, with nearly half of the deaths occurring within 48 hours of symptom onset in one of the affected health zones, and an exceptionally high case fatality rate in another. Urgent action is needed to accelerate laboratory investigations, improve case management and isolation capacities, and strengthen surveillance and risk communication. The remote location and weak healthcare infrastructure increase the risk of further spread, requiring immediate high-level intervention to contain the outbreak.

WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris provided important details in a recent interview with DW News, stating:

[On] February 13, health authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo reported clusters [of infections] in two different villages. Even though both villages are in Équateur province which are both in northwest of Congo, the remoteness and poor infrastructure means they are actually very separated, and it could be completely different things.

Harris added that although the identity of the pathogen remains to be determined, it is most likely something already known rather than being a novel virus. Furthermore, she confirmed that rapid diagnostics of cases in Bomonte were positive for malaria. She speculated that it could be a combination of winter viruses on top of malaria, which gives a mixed picture and may predispose patients to more serious and rapidly fatal infections, especially among people who are malnourished and living in squalid conditions. She added, “At the moment we have a range of differential diagnoses, but the most important thing is to do the full epidemiological investigation and do the testing.”

Although the known hemorrhagic pathogens have seemed to be ruled out, malaria remains a likely contributor as was the case of the outbreak in Kwango Province that erupted in October 2024, several hundred miles south of the current outbreak in the DRC. In that outbreak in the Panzi health zone, WHO estimated there were 406 cases between October 24 and December 5, with a death toll ranging from 67 to 143 individuals.

As health authorities noted at the time, lack of access to healthcare, malnutrition, and poor living conditions contributed greatly to the high case fatality rate in that region. Malaria, a mosquito-borne illness, can lead to severe disease and death in a matter of hours to just a few days. Initial symptoms can include high fevers and chills, vomiting, jaundice, and low blood pressure and high heart rates. Major complications can lead to brain swelling, fluid build-up in the lungs, kidney failure, severe anemia and bleeding complications.

Meanwhile, the growing armed conflict and social crisis on the eastern part of the country has led to mass displacement of the population and violence, creating difficult conditions for the country as a whole and hampering efforts by international organizations whose resources are spread thin. The collapse of the health and public works infrastructure with lack of electricity and potable water in that region is raising the risk of cholera outbreaks, malnutrition, and disease transmission. Children and the elderly are most predisposed to these manifestations.

The WHO noted:

Medical facilities are overwhelmed, having treated over 4,260 injured people, while the Red Cross has buried 2,000 bodies, and morgues remain overcrowded. Urgent actions include securing humanitarian access, restoring critical infrastructure, ensuring the supply of medical and food aid, and enhancing public health surveillance. Without immediate intervention, these crises will further destabilize the region, heighten public health risks, and worsen human suffering.

To date, the US has not provided any financial or material support, or personnel to assist the WHO, due to the Trump administration’s immediate severing of ties upon taking power. Public health officials in the US are barred from communicating with the WHO, while the fascist billionaire Elon Musk has orchestrated the destruction of the limited aid provide by USAID, upon which millions of Africans rely for their very survival.

The sudden disruption of foreign aid to these regions and the stalled work that had been taking place between the US and the WHO underscore the growing threat of future pandemics from numerous pathogens. Last year, the US provided the DRC with almost 70 percent of all aid to the country, including support for the response to Mpox. But now, “[from] one day to another, everything just collapsed,” said Paulin Nkwosseu, chief of field operations for UNICEF in the DRC.