Published Friday, February 29, 2008 at 09:38
by
davidshoare 
(874 views and 2 comments)
I went to the debate "Unity or Diversity? What Europe do we want?" in London earlier this week. The topic was the PES manifesto and democracy and diversity and there was a lot of discussion about democracy in Europe and how we can make it much closer to the people, and more relevant to them. I would like to suggest one of the ways we can do this is by giving the people concerned more of a say in how EU initiatives, particularly regional and social ones, are conducted and where the money goes.
We have had particular success in doing this at the South Bristol
Urban 2 Programme, of which I am proud to have been involved in
and also chaired for two years, where the ultimate decision
making committee that decided what projects to support was made
up of local residents, representatives of community organisations
and particularly young people, of which the programme's main aim
was to support. We also structured it's meetings so that young
people could better access it - the meetings certainly are not
boring and if there was any jargon that anyone did not understand
then you could show a red card and shame the person into
explaining it... » read more
...
Tags: democracy, diversity, EU, transparency
Published Wednesday, February 27, 2008 at 10:05
by
negrescuvictor
(960 views and 3 comments)
Tags: blogger of the week, globalization, political parties, public services, wages
Published Tuesday, February 26, 2008 at 13:31
by
negrescuvictor
(1204 views and 7 comments)
These
days Romania is facing a new debate, this
time on religion. More exactly several parties and NGO’s want to
introduce religion as a mandatory course in high school. This means
that all students have to learn about their own religion.Published Monday, February 25, 2008 at 11:33
by
Thomas Lefebvre
(803 views and 1 comments)
The current scandal over alleged misuses of MEP expenses raises key questions for the next PES. The dealing of the scandal has been, so far, a PR disaster for the EP, especially when Pöttering reportedly said: “we want reform but we cannot make this report available to the public if we want people to vote in the European elections next year.” Pöttering is making a big mistake here: it is, on the contrary, the absence of transparency that is fuelling populist and anti-EP commentaries. For instance, the lack of access to the report already lead to cheap eurosceptic articles, on the ‘gravy trains theme’, as highlighted by Jon Worth.
However, there is an opportunity to be taken: the PES could capitalize on the crisis by introducing transparency for MEPs expenses, as it is the case within the House of Commons, in its manifesto. The PES should also pledge to introduce a common status for MEPs assistants who deserve better working rights. Finally, the PES needs to pledge that PES MEPs who misuse their expenses are going to be excluded from the group.
These proposals would put the PES at the forefront of democracy and accountability. It would portray the PES as a modern party which can only help for wining next year elections.
Tags: democracy, elections, EU, transparency
Published Friday, February 22, 2008 at 17:55
by
jonworth
(1071 views and 2 comments)
What is the price of
symbolism, the historic reconciliation of France and Germany in
the post-World War II Europe? Strasbourg, one of the seats of the
European Parliament, is the very embodiment of the values of
peace and reconciliation.
On the other hand the European Parliament's monthly trips to Strasbourg show how wasteful the European Union can be - getting all the MEPs, Assistants, Secretariat staff and documents there each month costs €200 million a year and 20000 tonnes of CO2 emissions (source: OneSeat, T&E). If we're cynical about it, perhaps the Member States want the EP to look like some kind of travelling circus? But as citizens and activists we should demand better than that.
So what are the options? One would be for the European Parliament to be located only in Strasbourg. This would for sure keep the city of Strasbourg content, and would maintain the historical significance of French-German reconciliation. But plenty of MEPs and staff would still have to make the trip on the motorway or train to Brussels to meet... » read more ...
Tags: blogger of the week, citizens, democracy, EU
Published Friday, February 22, 2008 at 15:45
by
jonworth
(962 views and 6 comments)
Twice in my life I've called the
emergency services - 6 months ago, and today. Last autumn I was
in the UK and had to report a break-in, and every Brit knows that
the emergency number for police, ambulance or fire services: 999.
Easy.
Today a nasty incident was developing in the street where I live in Brussels and I was the first person to exit from my flat and do something about it. But hell - what number do I call in Belgium? No idea. Yet thanks to the EU there's one emergency number - 112. Only because I'm a geek for EU policy things did I know it - plenty of European citizens do not.
The slight problem is that when you call 112 in Belgium it takes you to ambulance and fire services, not really what I wanted when I needed to urgently reach the police - they sorted it for me though. For readers living in Belgium here is the full list of emergency numbers. Wikipedia also has a handy page will all the emergency numbers for all countries across the world.
What can be learnt... » read more ...
Tags: blogger of the week, EU, health, public services
Published Tuesday, February 19, 2008 at 14:30
by
jonworth
(1039 views and 5 comments)
In every
European election to date candidates from the PES Member Parties have campaigned under their
national party banners. Apart for the initiated in Brussels, and
the growing band of PES activists and members of ECOSY, few of
the electorate have ever heard of the PES. Yet when the MEPs,
freshly elected, find themselves in Brussels and Strasbourg
freshly elected in 2009, working in a pan-European party
political manner in the Socialist Group in the European Parliament
will become second nature.
So how do we bridge this gap, and is it indeed worth doing so?
Let's start with the socialist MEPs in the Parliament at the moment. The Socialist Group has 215 MEPs from 25 countries - so that's on average 8.6 MEPs per country. With » read more ...
Published Tuesday, February 19, 2008 at 10:35
by
mariope
(1065 views and 3 comments)
Today, economic
globalization is an obviously true. Social globalization is not so
obvious. The reason is that economic liberalism is based in
“laissez fair-laissez passer” so, they don’t need any institution
to make it happen, the
invisible hand of Adam Smith does their work very efficiently.
The capitals move freely everywhere and they go where they get more
profits, normally they go to the countries where social rights are
not so strong because the welfare state requires a lot of money in
taxes. From my point of view, the only way to avoid this situation
is to build a strong European Socialist Party. European Union must
to take enough power to became one of the main international
subjects (USA, IMF, MB, Japan…) with real capacity of influence in
the international scene. Today, decisions must to be taken in a
global way, socialists must to put together all their resources to
push for a change in the institutions, and ways of acting of the
European Union. Socialism must to became global, as global as
liberalism, other way our main institution will disappear.
Published Monday, February 18, 2008 at 15:58
by
jonworth
(1170 views and 6 comments)
Rather than political ideology as such, I would like to
start my posts as 'blogger of the week' here at Yourspace with
some reflections about campaign tactics ahead of the 2009
European elections, for it strikes me that this election offers
more prospect for interesting uses of the internet than any other
election fought anywhere in Europe to date.
First of all, the very existence of Yourspace is the most radical departure from what has happened prior to previous European elections - Web 2.0 technologies (blogs, forums, YouTube etc.) allow centre-left activists from across Europe to participate in policy discussions prior to the elections. We're of course profiting from the achievements of Ségolène Royal's Désirs d'Avenir in the 2007 Presidential Elections - her site demonstrated what's possible - but for EU-wide policy discussion there's simply no way to organise it other than online.
Secondly the Treaty of Lisbon, and its ongoing ratification, give 2009 added significance. Not only will the European Parliament elections take place, but a new Commission team will be chosen, and for the first time there will be a High... » read more ...
Published Thursday, February 14, 2008 at 17:07
by
Editor
(738 views and 0 comments)
When PES President Poul Nyrup Rasmussen visited Barcelona,
Catalonia, recently it became clear that Europe could learn a
thing or two from this region in Spain. With 7,5 million citizens
Catalonia makes up only a small share of Europe’s population, but
still the region has two official languages and a high percentage
of immigrants. This way Catalonia faces some of the same
challenges as Europe.
The video below is from a conference on ‘New Social Europe’ on
the 29th of January 2008:
What do you think – can Europe learn from Catalonia when it comes to diversity and integration?
Tags: diversity, multiculturalisme
File:
Nota_Acte_Rasmussen_EN.pdf
Published Tuesday, February 12, 2008 at 13:24
by
Eric
(1088 views and 2 comments)
Hello again folks,
As your guest blogger this week, I have decided to bring up
serious questions, but I also want to bring personal stories into
it. I hope this will facilitate things and make the posts more
interesting when you follow my train of thoughts. So here goes
again:
In 2002-2003 I had one of the best experiences of my life. I was
working as a ”research fellow” at a Democratic think tank in
Washington DC. The think tank can be traced back to Bill
Clinton’s renewal of the Democratic party, but also his
great interest in policy. Both Clintons are real policy wonks, if
you didn’t know.
Being a ”research fellow” meant that I wrote a few rather serious
papers and articles, but most notably it gave me a chance just to
hang around at a think tank in Washington DC. I had the
opportunity to just be there and learn how the political world
works up on Capitol Hill. Hanging out also included a beer or two
at the classic über-political hangout ”Hawk and
Dove”, as well as a fantastic meeting with senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota (who tragically died in
a plane crash in the autumn of 2002). I was also by far the worst
soft ball-player on... » read more
...
Tags: blogger of the week, PES, USA
Published Monday, February 11, 2008 at 11:54
by
Eric
(1317 views and 4 comments)
Y’all,
As your specially invited blogger this week, I must first say
that I am very honored. And since I try to keep two blogs as it
is (in English here and in Swedish here), I have learnt that
the best blog posts are not too long. But since I have your
attention now, we must be serious to start with.
In the autumn of 1993, I attended my first seminar at university
level. I had registered for a course in economic history at
Stockholm University, a decision I had started to regret right
before the course started. The summer of 1993 had been great. I
was in love with music (rock’n’roll, that is),
literature (Jack Kerouac, that summer) and
politics (social democracy, of course. But with
a more radical socialist twist, in those days).
When autumn arrived, I didn’t want to study economic history. It
sounded too... serious. I tried to swap for literature, but
thanks to the rigid rules at Stockholm University, I had to stick
to the original plan.
At the first seminar in economic history, our very old and
brilliant professor (who taught his last semester that year),
rose from his chair and wrote on word on the chalkboard:
» read
more ...
Tags: activists, blogger of the week, democracy, EU, manifesto, PES
Published Friday, February 8, 2008 at 10:45
by
The3rdColumn
(907 views and 3 comments)
Tags: EU, transparency
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