EU election: German Left nominates migration activist as lead candidate

Activist Carola Rackete, who rose to prominence as captain of an NGO search and rescue boat, was nominated on Monday (17 July) as one of the two lead candidates for the German Left Party for next year’s EU election.

The 35-year-old activist gained notoriety in 2019 – as a captain for Sea Watch, an NGO that sponsors sea rescue missions in the Mediterranean – when she rescued refugees and brought them to Lampedusa despite a ban by the Italian authorities.

The episode culminated in her arrest and subsequent acquittal, as well as a public stand-off with Matteo Salvini, the leader of the far-right Lega party and then Italy’s interior minister.

“We will only be able to overcome the current ecological crisis if we create a socially just environment – this is an analysis that I share with the Left party,” Rackete told reporters in Berlin.

She said she had repeatedly wondered where her work could have the largest impact on the socio-ecological movement, eventually coming to the conclusion that the European Parliament was a place where the future of millions of people in and outside of Europe was decided.

Rackete’s nomination is a significant move for the ailing Left, which has been tainted by internal infighting over the party’s future direction. An exit from Germany’s national parliament is looming at the next election as the Left is currently polling below the electoral threshold of 5%.

“We want to make it clear today that the Left is opening up for involved people and activists from social movements and civil society and show that the Left is part of a left pole of hope that is greater than the party,” Janine Wissler, the joint leader of the Left, said in Berlin.

However, Rackete noted that she would not formally join the party as she wanted her office to be rooted within the civil movements she is affiliated with. Rackete also warned that she expected more from the party, which has “lost a lot of trust through the [internal] dispute”.

The activist will run in second position on the Left’s national list, together with Martin Schirdewan, the party’s other leader and a current lawmaker in the European Parliament.

Özlem Demirel, another Left MEP, alongside Gerhard Trabert, a doctor, social activist, and the Left’s candidate for German president in 2022, also managed to get among the top spots. The list still needs to be voted through at a party conference later this year.

The Left currently has five MEPs in the European Parliament.

[Edited by Oliver Noyan/Nathalie Weatherald]