KPL candidates clockwise from top left: Esther Reuland, Alain Herman, Ali Ruckert, Rejhan Agovic, Marceline Waringo, and Elise Nunes. KPL

KPL candidates clockwise from top left: Esther Reuland, Alain Herman, Ali Ruckert, Rejhan Agovic, Marceline Waringo, and Elise Nunes. KPL

When was your party established and who founded it?

The Communist Party of Luxembourg, KPL, was founded on 2 January, 1921, in the southern working class town Differdange. The founders were militants of the Socialist Party who stood for the ideas of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who supported the policy of Lenin and the Great Socialist October Revolution in Russia and were in favour of joining the 3rd Communist International. After they had learned that this was impossible inside the Socialist Party, they left the ongoing congress of the party and decided to found the Communist Party of Luxembourg.

What, if any, are your links to the European blocs?

KPL has no links with the so-called European blocs. KPL is part of the European and international movement of communist and workers’ parties and has close links with Marxist-Leninist parties in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, Greece, Cuba, Venezuela and other countries. We have also relations with parties of GUE/NGL in the EU Parliament.

What do you consider the most important issues facing voters in Luxembourg?

The most important issues facing voters in Luxembourg are in our view social problems like unemployment, mainly youth unemployment, growing poverty – about 17% of the population living below the official poverty line –, insufficient public health services.

Name one thing you hope to accomplish if any of your candidates are successful?

Because of the “democratic” regulations in the European Union, in Luxembourg about 16% of the votes is needed for one mandate in the EU Parliament--a clear disadvantage for smaller parties. (In Germany for example a party can obtain a mandate with only 1%). In our electoral campaign, we are criticising the undemocratic character of the EU, which was constructed to serve the interests of the big companies and big finance, and not at all the interests of the working people. We are at the same time criticising the enforced military policy of the EU and its leading member states, mainly the growing military budget of the EU, as well as the hostile stance of the EU towards capitalist Russia.

We are strongly against the EU policy concerning migration--in our point of view the EU policy towards African, Latin American and Asian countries is one of the reasons for growing migration. The Communist Party of Luxembourg is, like other parties in the EU countries, of the opinion that the European Union cannot be changed by reforms, but has to be dissolved and to be replaced by a democratic structure that gives a place on equal right for all 48 countries of the European continent.

Please name the candidates representing your party in the European elections.

Ali Ruckert, 64, journalist, member of the Differdingen city council, president of KPL, Elise Nunes, 21, student, singer of the group “Stelise”, Rejhan Agovic, 31, bus driver, Esther Reuland, 43, administrative clerk, Alain Herman, 38, teacher, and Marceline Waringo, 54, shop assistant.