Reinout Bosch from Enhedslisten / Red-Green Alliance

Our reporter, Pratik Hariharan has interviewed Reinout Bosch from Enhedlisten. 

The podcast is made by AMIS (an NGO that has over 30 years of history of making projects aimed at developing better opportunities and inclusion in Denmark and Europe), Nyt Europa (an NGO that works for a sustainable and democratic EU) and Last Week in Denmark (a weekly newsletter about Danish latest news with over 100 000 monthly readers, available in 8 languages). 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_03 0:00

Perfect. Uh thank you. If you can introduce yourselves and which party you represent and uh yeah uh we can we can maybe we can start there.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

So uh my name is Reinhard Bos. I'm uh born in Leiden in the Netherlands. Uh I moved here to Denmark when I was five. So you're international as well.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

I'm an international as well. And I'm running for uh the Edelslisten, the the Unity list, the Red Green Alliance in English. Um and I'm running on a strong platform of um I think maybe two things, uh both uh to withdraw the um trade agreements with Israel, uh as long as the genocide is ongoing. Um and uh the other part is looking at the trade agreements with um with Africa and other parts of uh the world which are not as uh as wealthy as Europe is uh to see what are we actually doing that causes immigration to Europe. Because I think a lot of the economic policies that we're having in relation to the world outside of the EU is actually forcing people to move to the EU because they can't make a living. Like when European ships, Danish, Dutch ships, uh travel to Morocco and fish outside of the coast of Morocco, Moroccan fishermen don't have any fish to fish, and then they're forced to do something else with their lives, and one of the chances is well, maybe I should go to Europe and try to build up a life there. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:33

Yeah, I was like let me ask you the second question then. Um so you guys are moving from uh a stance of wanting to leave the EU. Uh to so why is that happening this year? Uh is there something which you are noticing in uh in terms of what is changing in Denmark?

SPEAKER_01 1:49

I think the the main thing is that the European Union is changing as well. Um our stance has always been that the problem with the European Union is that it's uh built on free trade and the free movement of people, which of course, also being an international, is a great advantage uh for people to be able to move to other countries, fall in love somewhere else. Uh, but it also has a backside, which means that you get import of uh very cheap labor, uh which um undermines the working conditions of working class people in Denmark, uh, if they're not unionized, if we don't do anything. And the integration with the European Union has come so far that we now see that the best way to fight against these policies is not by trying to pull Denmark out of the European Union, um, but actually to work inside of the European Union together with other left-wing parties to try to make a change there.

unknown 2:46

Perfect.

SPEAKER_03 2:46

Okay, thank you. Um so do you have a message for internationals who will be voting this year, especially young people, because majority of our uh readers are between the age group of 25 to 30, and many of them are non you know internationals in Denmark who pretty much are coming from Eastern Europe or from southern Europe. Um do you have a message for them?

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Yeah, I would say that well, we're we're standing in a in a place right now in the world where there is a lot of fear and a lot of uh fighting between democratic forces and non-democratic forces. Think about uh Putin's invasion of Ukraine or uh the election of Donald Trump in the US. Uh, and also with this election, there's a lot of talk about right-wing parties, fascist parties growing in support. And I think it's very important to participate in the election because the most effective fight against anti-democratic forces is actually to take part in democracy and to have the discussions and to get out the vote.

SPEAKER_03 3:41

Cool, thank you. And uh yeah, last question regarding recognition of Palestine as a state. Do you have any uh statement on that? And because you know you do have right-wing forces in Denmark who are really not interested because you also have Toma and the trade deals between them. Um, so yeah, do you have a stunt uh a statement for that?

SPEAKER_01 3:59

Yeah, I think the most important thing to recognize is that the European Union is the strongest trade partner of Israel. So a complete boycott by the European Union of all uh Israeli goods as long as the genocide is ongoing would be a very effective uh economic way of making them change their ways. And that will, of course, also have diplomatic um effects uh because the rest of the world will have to take a stance. Uh, if Europe is not importing Israeli goods, who will import Israeli goods? Uh and that will put an immense pressure on the regime in uh um in Jerusalem and hopefully also force a new vote uh for the Israeli parliament, which will hopefully also be able to be contributing to ending the war. Okay, thank you so much.