European Young Socialists Back Coke Boycott

Issued : Tuesday 29 March, 2005

The ECOSY biannual conference concluded on Sunday March 20th in Cascais near Lisbon after 4 days of motions, amendments, resolutions and the usual mix of high drama and controversy. Overall, it was quite successful from the Irish perspective, some of our amendments were accepted and significantly our resolution on the Killer Coke campaign was passed with a large majority.

ECOSY is an umbrella organisation of 33 Socialist, Labour and Social Democratic youth parties in 25 European countries. It also has 8 associate member organisations and 17 observer organisations stretching as far as Russia and Israel. Several of the member organisations have memberships well into the hundreds of thousands making ECSOY one of the largest organisations in the world to back the boycott to date. The resolution that was passed calls on ECOSY to promote and support the call of Sinatrainal to campaign for the boycott of Coca Cola and all its products. For more information see www.killercoke.org and www.indiaresource.org

Also of importance to note, is that Labour Youth was the only organisation to seek a minute silence to commemorate the deaths of those who have died since the War in Iraq commenced this time 2 years ago.

Amendments from Labour Youth Ireland on the Freedom of access to official E.U. records in the European Freedom of Information act and a call for no VAT to be levied on fair trade products were both passed.

A separate declaration on the Constitution was issued and many of our amendments moderating the declaration were approved.

The proposed Bolkenstein Services Directive was clearly the lead topic of the conference and a resolution was passed condemning such an initiative. The Austrians were successful in getting an amendment passed seeking European wide services both in terms of communications services, e.g. railways etc and utilities.

The text of boycott Coke motion passed at ECOSY Congress is as follows:

In recent months Irish Labour Youth has run a campaign highlighting the difficulties faced by Columbian workers in subsidaries of the Coca Cola corporation. This campaign calls for the boycott of Coca Cola products.

Congress notes that the call for the boycott came from the trade union Sinaltrainal, which represents the workers in the Columbian Coca Cola factories.

Congress further notes that since Sinaltrainal began campaigning for workers' rights, its representatives have suffered intimidation and imprisonment and eight of its activists have been assassinated.

Congress calls upon the ECOSY Presidium and Bureau to actively promote and support the call of Sinaltrainal to campaign for the boycott of Coca Cola and all its products

 

For more information about ECOSY see www.ecosy.org