Austerity and militarisation

International Anti-War Conference

Attracting almost 3,000 people from Europe, North America and the Middle East, the second international anti-war conference in Europe was held on Saturday within just nine months of the first. On 5 October 2025, more than 4,000 activists had already gathered in Paris for an international meeting to protest against war preparations and the unprecedented surge in militarisation across Europe. In addition to the individuals participating, the follow-up event in London drew delegations from around twenty countries. Trade unions were particularly well represented, including the UK’s public services union Unison – the country’s largest union with over 1.4 million members, along with the militant British railway workers’ union, the RMT. From France came delegates of the major trade unions CGT and Force ouvrière, and from Italy’s CGIL. Other trade unions from a number of other countries also came along to this international show of solidarity in Westminster Central Hall. The conference was organised by the Stop the War Coalition, an organisation founded September 2001 to campaign against the then imminent war in Afghanistan. Back then, it was one of the forces behind the massive demonstration against the impending Iraq War on 15 February 2003. As many as one million people – perhaps even far more – flooded the streets of London to protest against the war.

Two sides of the same coin

The contributions to conference discussion were directed, on the one hand, against current wars, most of which are being waged by the United States, with Israel playing a central role in some cases – such as the bombing of Iran and Lebanon, not to mention the genocidal onslaught in the Gaza Strip. Speakers also shone a light on the US assault on Venezuela and the abduction of its president, Nicolás Maduro. The conference condemned the Trump administration’s Cuba blockade and military threats to “own” the country. Speakers also discussed ongoing wars in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Sahel. The conference denounced the arms build-up by the EU, as seen in the Commission’s 800-billion-euro ‘ReArm Europe Plan/Readiness 2030’. “We do not want US imperialism, and we do not want European imperialism,” said Lindsey German, a founding member and, to this day, a leading figure in the Stop the War campaign. Many speakers highlighted the inextricable link between militarisation and the radical dismantling of social security systems currently taking place across Europe. “Austerity and militarisation” are merely “two sides of the same coin”, noted Ian Hodson, President of the UK’s food workers union, the BFAWU, illustrating the point with the austerity measures imposed by the government of outgoing Prime Minister Keir Starmer: amongst others, he cut funding for wheelchair users in order to finance armaments. In other words, “People with disabilities are paying for war!”[1]

Europe-wide protests

The London Anti-War Conference was preceded by a growing number of national and international protests against militarisation. In Germany, school pupils have seized the initiative and staged so far three school strikes in protest against the reintroduction of compulsory military service.[2] In Belgium, fifteen country-wide demonstrations have taken place over the past year and a half, some attracting up to one hundred thousand participants. They are demanding an end to the Belgian government’s harsh austerity policies – and to the military expansion that makes the scale of these austerity measures “necessary” in the first place.[3] On 14 June, the first major Europe-wide demonstration against the militarisation of the EU was held in Brussels. Around 12,000 people responded to the call by the ‘Stop ReArm Europe’ alliance and the Belgian Stop Militarisation campaign, whose message is ‘Welfare, not Warfare’. In the winter, tens of thousands took part in protests by dockworkers in over twenty ports, mainly around the Mediterranean. The coordinated strike action on 6 February was directed against the militarisation of the EU in general, and against the use of ports for war logistics, in particular, especially the weapon shipments for Israel’s genocidal war.[4] Another round of protests is planned for the autumn. There will be a day of action by dockworkers in October and a weekend protest against militarisation in November.

The alleged ‘fifth column’

The growing criticism of war preparations by European governments is already being met with escalating repression. At the London Anti-War Conference attention was drawn to the return by governments to the historically recurring tactic of denouncing domestic opponents of war as members of a ‘fifth column’, not only smearing them but in some cases severely sanctioning them as alleged sympathisers of the enemy. Last year, with the approval of the German government amongst others, the EU began imposing targeted sanctions on individual European citizens. Those who have been singled out for treatment find their bank accounts are frozen and they are not allowed to earn a living. No one in the EU is permitted to conduct business of any kind with them or give them any aid. One of the targets is the German journalist Hüseyin Doğru, who, together with his wife and three young children, is now unable to work and receives just 506 euros a month as a ‘humanitarian concession’. Having written articles articulating the Palestinian viewpoint in the Gaza war, he has effectively had all his fundamental rights removed. A unit of the Council of the European Union accused Doğru, without providing any evidence, of spreading Russian propaganda.[5] The authorities have now frozen not only Doğru’s own bank account but also that of his mother. The EU has also imposed equally draconian sanctions on Swiss analyst Jacques Baud, who was for some time prohibited from travel and stranded in Brussels, and on the Swiss-Cameroonian activist Nathalie Yamb, who lives in Africa and cannot return to Switzerland, being banned from crossing EU territory. What these cases have in common is that, while committing no criminal offence, these targeted individuals have written critically about EU aggression against Russia.[6]

Beyond the rule of law

With these sanctions, the EU has effectively created an extra-legal punitive system that helps it to eliminate undesirable voices at will. It can be applied precisely in cases where the targeted individual has committed no offence and cannot be otherwise lawfully repressed. A petition has recently been launched against the imposition of sanctions on Doğru. The measure “can only be seen as an attempt to intimidate independent journalists and as an attack on freedom of opinion.” The petition text adds, “Any solidarity ... financial or in kind can be prosecuted. We are witnessing the return of political justice.”[7] An expert opinion drafted by Professor Ninon Colneric, a former judge at the European Court of Justice, and Professor Alina Miron, a legal scholar at the University of Angers, concludes “that the EU’s sanction regulations violate applicable EU law.” The EU is “using sanctions specifically to silence critics – and is sliding into lawlessness.” And this lawlessness will worsen in parallel with Europe’s drive to militarise and dismantle welfare systems.

[1] Ein Mitschnitt der Konferenz findet sich auf youtube.com/live/YOVqOJ1iU58 .

[2] See: „Rechtzeitig Widerstand leisten“.

[3] See: “Footing the bill for both”.

[4] Jörg Kronauer: Kriegshäfen unter Beobachtung. junge Welt 09.02.2026.

[5] Matthias Monroy: Hüseyin Doğru: Bank sperrt auch Konten seiner Mutter. nd-aktuell.de 28.05.2026.

[6] See: Meinung wird gemacht and Der Krieg im Innern.

[7] #freedogru. free-dogru.com.