15e anniversaire d ECOSY, les impressions de Claire Edey

My first ECOSY experience took place in Italy. I was in Livorno for the ECOSY Summer Camp in 1999. I was impressed by the richness of the exchanges that we have the chance to have, as young socialist activists, with comrads living under very differents conditions, in so different parts of Europe, and sharing the same ideals. At that specific time, having the opportunity to meet comerads from the Balkans especially meant a lot to me. It still does, and it will always, and that is thanks to ECOSY.

I have been Bureau Member for two years. During that years, my organization, MJS France, has been through a particulary hard national political context. The day after my first bureau meeting in Valence (Spain), on the 22d April 2002, Jean-Marie Le Pen, nationalist leader, collected more votes at the first round of the presidential elections than Lionel Jospin, our candidate. Three months later, during the 8th ECOSY Summer Camp (July, 2002, Weissenbach-Attersee, Austria), a delegation of young european socialists went to Mathausen concentration camp. MJS France delegation was there. To the memory of and to pay tribute to all the victims of nazism.

One year later, the world was facing a particulary harmfull event. George Bush’s decision on attacking Iraq divided European Union leaders. It didn’t divided the Young European Socialists. Even if it wasn’t obvious for some organizations and some comerads to condamn the attack, we manage to be united against this war.

At the 6th ECOSY Congress (March 2003, Bommersvik, Sweden), on behalf of the Bureau, I contributed to the building of our common position in the resolution on Iraq Crisis. Nine months later, the first European Social Forum took place in France. Assuring a place of socialist and social-democrat organizations in the ESF was a hard work that implies the strong commitment of many comrads from the social movements, such as trade unions or non formal education. This is the last ECOSY event that I have attended as a ECOSY Bureau Member and International Secretary of MJS France. ECOSY is one of the organization where I have learned that we are always less far and less foreign to an other than we imagine.

First time I heard about ECOSY, I felt proud to be part of an organization at the european level that was able to gather so many activists and make them debate on, build and defend common positions. We were aware of the responsability of our generation in order to build a united, peaceful and social Europe, a space of democracy and equality. Europe for the people, not for the profit ! I think that this responsibility is even heavier today for young socialists.

Claire Edey

PS - Merci à Claire de m'avoir transmis son texte!