Celebration of Karl Marx's Legacy

1.5.2018

Question for written answer E-002416-18
to the Commission
Rule 130
Ruža Tomašić (ECR)

The German town of Trier, the birthplace of Karl Marx, the creator of communist ideology and author of the Communist Manifesto, announced that the celebration of the 200th anniversary of his birth would be held on the 5 May. Among other things, Marx's 5.5-meter-high statue will be unveiled.

It was also announced that the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, will be a special guest at the celebration and will also give a speech in Marx’s honour.

I am a Member of the European Parliament from Croatia, a Member State of the European Union which, after World War II, suffered under the communist dictatorship motivated by Karl Marx’s doctrine on revolutionary terror and class struggle, and in which troops and civilians of all the nations of the former Yugoslav Republics were killed in mass murders in which the most cruel methods such as collective and individual executions, deaths in concentration camps, starvation, deportation, torture, slavery, forced labour, and other forms of psychological and physical terror, were used; also, following the 2006 Resolution No 1481 of the Council of Europe on the Need for international condemnation of crimes of totalitarian communist regimes and the 2009 Declaration on the European Day of Remembrance of Victims of All Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes, could the President of the European Commission say:

• —Does the president of the European Commission believe that Marx has left a good legacy?