"Europe must be refounded on the values of peace, democracy and full respect for social and human rights," said a manifesto winding up the group's first congress.

The document made an impassioned appeal against war, poverty and brutality towards immigrants, and called for withdrawal of US-led forces from Iraq.

"Europe is undergoing a crisis caused by neo-liberal policies decreed in Brussels," read the declaration, in a reference to the European Union's executive commission.

It denounced the Bolkestein Directive, a European Commission initiative aimed at creating a single services market within the EU, and promised proposals for job-creating initiatives.

Recent deaths of immigrants in a fire in an Amsterdam detention centre and in clashes at Spain's north African enclave of Melilla exposed the "brutality and bankruptcy of 'Fortress Europe,'" the document said, urging new policies based on respect for human dignity.

Participants included German former finance minister Oskar Lafontaine, head of Germany's newly-formed Left Party, Fausto Bertinotti of Italy's Rifondazione comunista, and French Communist Party leader Marie-George Buffet.

Parties from Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Luxembourg, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Spain and Switzerland were also represented in the new European formation created last year.

"We leave with the Declaration of Athens...(and) step back into society, (among) the unemployed, refugees, social outcasts and the young, to fight on the side of all those with whom we can change Europe," said congress host Alekos Alavanos, chairman of the Greek Left Coalition party.

Re-elected to chair the new movement, Bertinotti said there is "a need to create a left-wing force in Europe, to create a truly alternative solution for our societies."

"We are building this party as a laboratory for political research, and to organise a new political practice," he said.

The left-wing and communist parties also declared themselves in favour of European disarmament and withdrawal from Iraq, and called for the dismantling of all NATO and United States bases on European soil.

Next April Athens will host the fourth European Social Forum (ESF), an annual conference organised by trade unions, NGOs, refugee groups and other social movements opposed to the negative aspects of globalisation.

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