Several member and observer parties participate also in the more radical European Anti-Capitalist Left.

Before the PEL was founded, most of its members already held annual meetings together, as part of the New European Left Forum (NELF).

[13] Its fifth congress took place on 16–18 December 2016 in Berlin,[14] and elected German lawyer and politician Gregor Gysi as the new PEL President.

[19][20] In 2024, the Danish member Red-Green Alliance (Enhedlisten) announced the schism of the party and the formation of a socially liberal (green- and pro-Ukraine leaning) European Left Alliance for the People and the Planet, in short ELA.

[29]: 50 It takes a soft Eurosceptic approach towards the European Union,[30] and opposes militarization and foreign interventionism.

[31] In an interview with the political magazine Jacobin, Walter Baier, the president of PEL, described PEL as part of the "socialist left" and criticised the European Union, stating that it is neoliberal and "closer to enlightened absolutism than parliamentary democracy".