Meeting the Left :: Interview with Catarina Martins (Coordinator of Bloco de Esquerda, Portugal)

The first of a series of interviews of European Left leaders "Meeting the Left".
Walter Baier and Hugo Monteiro interview Catarina Martins. At the end of the interview questions from the audience were taken.
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Catarina Martins is the Coordinator of Bloco de Esquerda’s (Portugal).
During Catarina Martins leadership, Bloco de Esquerda has increased its parliamentary representation and political relevance being, from 2015, the third political force in Portugal and one of the main subjects in the European socialist left.
Walter Baier, an economist in Vienna, was National Chairman of the Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ) from 1994 to 2006 and, since 2007, has been Coordinator of the network transform! europe.
Hugo Monteiro is a Philosophy researcher and professor based in Porto, Portugal. He is member of the board of transform! europe and of the cooperative CULTRA.
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The Corona-virus has hit the EU unprepared, but in different ways and with different effects depending on the countries. Most tragic were the effects on those countries whose healthcare and social systems have been emaciated by decades of austerity policies. Thus, the pandemic has increased inequalities not only inside the states but also between the Member States of the EU. This presents the parties of the radical left with a challenge and calls for a re-examination of their strategies.
We have seen that the EU’s failure to address the health crisis and provide support to the most affected states has changed the way the Union is perceived in parts of Europe. To what extent and with what consequences does this apply to the countries whose parties our interviewees represent? How can the left cope with the economic and social crisis and the recession that is very likely to come in its wake? How do the left parties connect their national strategies to global problems, in particular the influx of refugees and the answers urgently required by the global environmental crisis.
The focus of these interviews is the impact of the pandemic on the economic, social, political, and cultural life of particular countries.
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