Alliance for the Future, unveiled at Montreal summit and open to other countries, conceived for world ‘shaken by new storms’
Canada and Europe have announced a new alliance of like-minded nations toserve as both a “protective canopy under which our citizens can thrive” and a powerful hedge against the unpredictable nature of geopolitics, while welcoming other countries to join.
Speaking to reporters on Friday from Montreal, the prime minister, Mark Carney, and the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, called the new partnership the Alliance for the Future and said the “deepest possible partnership between Canada and the 27-member bloc had the potential to offer unprecedented stability and opportunity”.
Alliance for the Future, unveiled at Montreal summit and open to other countries, conceived for world ‘shaken by new storms’
Canada and Europe have announced a new alliance of like-minded nations toserve as both a “protective canopy under which our citizens can thrive” and a powerful hedge against the unpredictable nature of geopolitics, while welcoming other countries to join.
Speaking to reporters on Friday from Montreal, the prime minister, Mark Carney, and the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, called the new partnership the Alliance for the Future and said the “deepest possible partnership between Canada and the 27-member bloc had the potential to offer unprecedented stability and opportunity”.
We speak to the influential and long-serving president of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), Koen Lenaerts. The court is the EU's supreme judicial authority, responsible for ensuring that European law is interpreted and applied across all 27 member states.
À l'issue de deux jours de sommet à Montréal, l'Union européenne et le Canada ont scellé vendredi une alliance qui doit permettre aux deux partenaires de "résister ensemble aux chocs", selon les mots du Premier ministre Mark Carney. La série d'accords signés élargit leur coopération à plusieurs secteurs stratégiques, de l'intelligence artificielle aux minerais critiques.
“We no longer want to work for war nor to pay for it,” José Nivoi of the Autonomous Collective of Port Workers (Coordinamento Autonomo Lavoratori Portuali, CALP) in Genoa said as actions kicked off. “Because the conditions we’re experiencing in Italy today, they’re the same conditions being experienced on five different continents.”
Ports must serve life, not destruction
The port workers’ actions are grounded in the Istanbul Declaration adopted earlier this year, which analyzes the impact of the growing arms transports on work in harbors worldwide. In the declaration and the interventions that followed, dockworkers outlined how this trend comes hand in hand with the erosion of working conditions, including the contractualization of work and aggressive austerity cuts.
Friday’s actions are supported by roughly 25 unions from Australia to the United States and Uruguay, and from India to Mexico. A notable cluster of ports is located across the Mediterranean, where the first day of action – held in February this year – was launched.
The dockworkers’ union ENEDEP led the strike call in Greece, receiving support from education workers and school children. Source: PAME International/Flickr
Over the past months, dockworkers from Italy, the Basque Country, Turkey, Greece, and Morocco were joined by others. The expanded list added organizations from Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden.
“Our message is clear: dockworkers don’t work for war,” the Moroccan Democratic Labor Organization (Organisation Démocratique du Travail, ODT) from Tangiers port said at a press conference in late October. “Ports must serve life, transporting food and medicines that sustain our communities. They must be places of cooperation between peoples, never instruments of destruction.”
No harbor for genocide
A notable emphasis throughout the day is dockworkers’ solidarity with Palestine, including expressions of support from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and the Global Sumud Flotilla. “With over 90% of Israeli imports arriving by sea, ports around the world are the chokepoint of Israel’s apartheid economy,” BDS and other organizations wrote on social media. “On October 30, dockworkers will show that, together, we can break the chain supplying Israel’s genocide, apartheid and occupation.”
While the role of Mediterranean ports in fueling the genocide in Gaza has been more publicly exposed, the role of harbors in other regions remains perhaps less visible. That is precisely why the participation of dockworkers from Asia in the second international day of action is so significant.
“In the last year, India’s major ports have been conduits from Indian public and private sector companies exporting to Israel’s Elbit Systems factories in Yokneam and Ramat Hasharon,” BDS and others wrote. “These factories manufacture artillery, munitions and ammunitions that has been documented to have been used in the genocide in Gaza.”
“We firmly believe that support for Palestine should be channeled through our states, because today Israel enjoys a level of international impunity that allows it to carry out a genocide,” Nivoi said on Friday. “Therefore, we emphasize today that people must mobilize – not only in response to the rising cost of living, but above all to definitively liberate Palestine from Zionism.”
Dockworkers’ action converges into general strike in Italy
Italy and Genoa in particular have been a key node for building trade union solidarity with Palestine since 2023. Conscious of the links between growing militarization, imperialist drives around the world, and hardening austerity in Italy, CALP and the grassroots union Unione Sindacale di Base (USB) also called for a convergence of local movements – leading to a new general strike.
According to early estimates, approximately 2 million people in Italy responded to this call, including many students and young people. Over the past weeks, as students in several European countries took to the streets, youth groups across Italy have also been demonstrating against cuts to essential services.
On Friday, these groups promptly responded to the general strike call. “The student-worker alliance is growing ever stronger: across the country, students and young people are mobilizing – through occupations, encampments, assemblies, and demonstrations – against the government, while also promoting the upcoming general strike,” Marta Collot from the left party Potere al Popolo emphasized ahead of the day of action.
“Labor can stop war”
While witnessing the continuity of dockworkers’ actions in one part of the world brings much inspiration, trade unionists involved in preparing the day also emphasized the significance of the initiative expanding. Not all organizations were in a position to launch a strike, but they still recognized the importance of sending an anti-militarist message from their docks.
In a comment for BreakThrough News, trade unionists from the Port of Vukovar, Croatia – mapped alongside unions taking part in the day of action – stressed the importance of dockworkers’ anti-war campaigning. Their point was concrete: wars fought elsewhere reshape livelihoods, shipping routes, and working conditions at home.
Dockworkers in Koper, Slovenia, were among those joining the dockworkers’ second international day of action. Source: SŽPD/Facebook
Yet the struggle is not only for dockworkers to fight, European trade unionists insist. As USB’s Francesco Staccioli pointed out in late October, the struggle against war remains a wider struggle for workers’ rights and social justice. Because of this, he emphasized, October 30 should be taken as a starting point to widen the scope of action further.
“Labor can stop war. It can stop the genocide of the Palestinian people. It can stop imperialist aggression,” he said.
Humanitarian convoy brings food and medicine to Russian-held city where people have suffered severe shortages
People living in the besieged Russian-held city of Oleshky in southern Ukraine were evacuated on Friday as part of a joint relief operation, the first of its kind in four years and eight months of war.
The city, which lies on the Russian-occupied side of the Dnipro River, opposite Kherson, has suffered months of serious food and medical shortages, leading to warnings of starvation for the few thousand people remaining there, including about 50 children.
Roughly 31.7 billion euros ($35 billion) have been allocated to support Ukraine's defense industrial capacity, according to the European Commission's proposal.
Cette semaine, Caroline de Camaret reçoit Koen Lenaerts, président de la Cour de justice de l’Union européenne (CJUE). Cette institution interprète la législation européenne et arbitre les désaccords entre les États membres et les institutions de l’Union européenne. Elle peut aussi intervenir lorsque des particuliers ou des organisations estiment que leurs droits ont été violés par une institution. Il évoque avec nous les mécanismes qui protègent l’Etat de droit en Europe et les attaques contre les institutions judiciaires internationales.
Cette semaine, Caroline de Camaret reçoit Koen Lenaerts, président de la Cour de justice de l’Union européenne (CJUE). Cette institution interprète la législation européenne et arbitre les désaccords entre les États membres et les institutions de l’Union européenne. Elle peut aussi intervenir lorsque des particuliers ou des organisations estiment que leurs droits ont été violés par une institution. Il évoque avec nous les mécanismes qui protègent l’Etat de droit en Europe et les attaques contre les institutions judiciaires internationales.
Humanitarian convoy brings food and medicine to Russian-held city where people have suffered severe shortages
People living in the besieged Russian-held city of Oleshky in southern Ukraine were evacuated on Friday as part of a joint relief operation, the first of its kind in four years and eight months of war.
The city, which lies on the Russian-occupied side of the Dnipro River, opposite Kherson, has suffered months of serious food and medical shortages, leading to warnings of starvation for the few thousand people remaining there, including about 50 children.
L'Union européenne retient son souffle avant le résultat des midterms, les élections de mi-mandat aux États-Unis qui renouvellent le Congrès. Une majorité de dirigeants européens espère une défaite de Donald Trump lors de ce scrutin et un affaiblissement de sa politique qui veut remettre en cause le droit international et le multilatéralisme.
L'Union européenne retient son souffle avant le résultat des midterms, les élections de mi-mandat aux États-Unis qui renouvellent le Congrès. Une majorité de dirigeants européens espère une défaite de Donald Trump lors de ce scrutin et un affaiblissement de sa politique qui veut remettre en cause le droit international et le multilatéralisme.
We speak to the influential and long-serving president of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), Koen Lenaerts. The court is the EU's supreme judicial authority, responsible for ensuring that European law is interpreted and applied across all 27 member states.
Russian made an unprecedented combative move this month as one of its military satellites, the Cosmos-2612, encroached upon the orbit of Ukrainian commercial satellite, Iceye-X36, in behaviour deemed "threatening" by the US State Department. Norbert Pouzin, an orbital analyst at French space tech firm, Aldoria, described the mercenary manoeuvre as the first of its kind.
Russian made an unprecedented combative move this month as one of its military satellites, the Cosmos-2612, encroached upon the orbit of Ukrainian commercial satellite, Iceye-X36, in behaviour deemed "threatening" by the US State Department. Norbert Pouzin, an orbital analyst at French space tech firm, Aldoria, described the mercenary manoeuvre as the first of its kind.
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