On 10 December, International Human Rights Day is celebrated around the world in order to coincide with the date on which the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948. However, despite the fact that everybody will remember and celebrate this date, today it is necessary to remember that the Human Rights Charter is so far from being respected.
Taking advantage of this anniversary, the European Regional Office of the World Federation of Trade Unions wishes to denounce the unstoppable growth of militarism in Europe, which, under the pretext of a supposed internal enemy, attempts to justify a war economy and the militarisation of society in order to turn the European Union into an increasingly extreme and right-wing entity.
Two examples clearly reflect the hypocrisy regarding the so-called respect for human rights in Europe. On the one hand, today, 10 December, the Venezuelan far-right coup attempt leader Maria Corina Machado will receive the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, despite being responsible for an attempted coup in Venezuela and with close ties to genocidal Zionism and the far-right International of Benjamin Netanyahu, Vox and the Spanish Popular Party, Álvaro Uribe, Bolsonaro, Giorgia Meloni, Javier Milei and many others. On the other hand, the European Union unquestionably supports the genocidal state of Israel, with which it has an Association Agreement, becoming its de facto preferred trading ally.
In this international context, where the hegemony of the United States and its allies is increasingly weakening, Washington’s reaction is simply war, conflict and militarisation. European political elites, in line with the US and NATO, speak openly about the need to rearm Europe. Faced with the evident eco-social crisis of capitalism, the alternative proposed by economic elites is the arms industry as a means of salvation for economic elites.
In the European Union, where working and living conditions for young people are increasingly precarious, more and more young people are being seriosly conditioned by the lack of alternatives. However, although this is true, it is also true that many young people are mobilising against the genocide in Palestine, to denounce warmongering Europe, to reject the desire of many countries to reinstate compulsory military service, to demand a just eco-social transition, and against a patriarchy tailored to the interests of the elites. WFTU wants to work, and it is still doing, side by side with these anti-capitalist, rebel and transformative young people, because our struggle is the struggle to defend the rights of all peoples and every person.
That is why we at the European Regional Office of the World Federation of Trade Unions want to focus on what is happening, because it is by no means a coincidence. The commitment to war and militarisation is a commitment by the economic and political elites that dominate the European Union to make the working and living conditions of the working class extremely precarious, as they want to rearm Europe by cutting back on freedoms and labour and social rights.
It is therefore urgent that class-oriented trade unionism oppose European rearmament and oppose the prevailing warmongering in the European Union with cultures of peace and solidarity. The WFTU was founded 80 years ago opposing wars, rejecting fascism, denouncing all kinds of exploitation and defending the right for self-determination of peoples. We continue on the same front line as always, because what the WFTU defended in Paris on 3 October 1945 and continues to defend in 2025 maintains its full relevance in the current international context.
Europe, 10 December 2025
