The PES manifesto consultation has ended but our dialogue on 'Yourspace' goes on! We will continue to debate the hot issues that will shape the 2009 European elections - migration, climate change, rising food and energy prices, jobs, equality, the EU treaty - as well as getting ready for the elections and keeping you informed about the preparation of the PES manifesto.
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Published Friday, August 29, 2008 at 10:46
by
Editor
(45 views and 3 comments)
PES activists
in Hungary are showing their support for Barack Obama by
preparing apricot jam for the Democrat candidate to the US
Presidency.
In fact, "Barack" means apricot in Hungarian so activists meeting in the Hungarian city Tallya decided to produce and sell this jam labelled "Barack for Obama". The funds collected were given to local organizations that fight child poverty.
As Matyas Gati, one of the organizers, put it “This is a fun way of making a serious point. Barack Obama is very popular in Hungary because he is so charismatic and because he offers a real alternative to the Republicans who have made such a mess of things in America and abroad. We also wanted to show that we PES activists share the same democratic values and aspirations as Mr Obama. He embodies the principles and values we want to promote as PES activists. We support his ideas for change and the attitude of his politics.” Check the video with a shorter version of the interview.
And don't miss PES activists video... » read more ...
Tags: campaign, US elections
Published Friday, August 29, 2008 at 00:43
by
rikkeindenmark 
(45 views and 1 comments)
On the back cover of
DSU'eren, the magazine of the Danish Social Democratic Youth (DSU), you can
spot this recruitment poster for PES activists Denmark: 'We want
you!" Do you recognize the person who has taken the place of Mr.
Lincoln? Yes, you're right, it's Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, the PES
President.
Thanks to DSU for their creativity and enthusiasm!
If I caught the attention of any Danes with this post I'll take
the opportunity and spread some other good news: PES activists
Denmark will be present at the upcoming Congress of the Danish party. Meet Danish PES
activists at the PES stand in Aalborg Congress Centre on the 6th
and 7th of September 2008!
Published Thursday, August 28, 2008 at 19:21
by
kim
(62 views and 3 comments)
The 'Female
orgasm...I care!' campaign is the latest campaign on youth and
sexuality brought to you by animo, young Belgian socialists. They
have a long tradition on campaigning on the theme of sexuality,
from safe sex actions to 'cut VAT on condoms' revendications. With
the 'Female orgasm...I care!' campaign they raise attention on
sexual pleasure among young people and provokes a positive
discussion on sex. This campaign focuses on the female sexuality
and the female orgasm in particular. Because it's still very
necessary today.Tags: summer campaign
Published Thursday, August 28, 2008 at 10:47
by
Editor
(105 views and 2 comments)
Frédéric Engelmann (à gauche) avec le président du groupe
parlementaire PSE Martin Schulz (à droite) au Congrès du PSE
2006
Au Forum de Vienne, de nombreux militants du PSE nous ont fait part de leur intérêt pour les jumelages entre sections et entre fédérations. Nous avons donc interrogé Frédéric Engelmann, militant PSE à Paris, sur la manière dont s’est organisé le jumelage de la section du douzième arrondissement de Paris avec la section de Berlin-Mitte.
Frédéric, comment est venue l’idée du jumelage, et
comment l’aventure a-t-elle commencé?
En fait nos fédérations du PS Paris et du SPD Berlin ont signé
un... » read more ...
Published Wednesday, August 27, 2008 at 17:48
by
Ceciliag
(60 views and 0 comments)
Le 7 juillet, à
Cannes, Brice Hortefeux, ministre français « de l’immigration, de
l’intégration, de l’identité nationale et du développement
solidaire » (sic!) a officiellement proposé au Conseil européen
des ministres des affaires intérieures et de la justice un projet
de « Pacte européen sur l’immigration et l’asile». « Son objectif
est clair : organiser l’immigration légale et désorganiser
l’immigration illégale », nous dit son ministère.
Loin de n’être qu’un objectif en soit du gouvernement français, le contrôle de l’immigration (passée, présente et future…) est en fait devenu un outil bien pratique pour s’attaquer à la culture, au mariage mixte, à la famille.
Cet été, après le groupe de musique Konono n° 1, ce fut au tour du groupe Kasai All Stars d’annuler sa tournée en raison des difficultés d’octroi de visas. Alors que la politique du « cas par cas »... » read more ...
Tags: Human Rights, migration
Published Wednesday, August 27, 2008 at 17:26
by
Editor
(80 views and 1 comments)
ECOSY camp-goers
come up with new ideas for the European elections!
The PES held a workshop at the ECOSY camp on “PES
Manifesto 2009 and ECOSY Change for Europe” to discuss
with young camp-goers what their ideas would be for how to win
the next European elections. Participants split up into four
groups and led a debate on their own recommendations:
The first team analyzed how we could make the differences clearer
between the Left and our opponents. They recommended that the PES
use clear, popular messages to communicate the differences,
focusing on the general theme of the Left believing in stepping
in when the market fails and standing up for people. The
following are five issues on which the Left could make these
distinctions clear:
1. Right defends economic interests of the elite, while the left
defends the common interest
2. The left defends human security and public services, good
health care and education for all
3. The Left defends minimum social standards, like the minimum
wage
4. The Left is in favour of diversity, as our support for an
anti-discrimination directive shows, while the right neither is
against immigration and gender equality
5. The Left distinguishes itself... » read more ...
Tags: youth
Published Tuesday, August 26, 2008 at 14:53
by
arktika
(101 views and 1 comments)
Federation Council, the upper chamber of the Russian parliament, is backing independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia - Georgia's two rebel provinces. The vote came after a brief war between Russia and Georgia following Georgia's assault on the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali Aug. 7. Both countries won de-facto independence in the 1990s after wars with the government in Tbilisi. The road which started from Kosovo UDI seems to continue long because it is estimated that there is about five thousend ethnic groups on globe.
After Georgia's separatists my bet is that in Europe Transnistria could be the next breakaway province. Let's look this maybe next new state closer:
Pridnestrovie - also known by the unofficial name, Transnistria - is a new and emerging country in South Eastern Europe, sandwiched between Moldova and Ukraine. Although widely seen as part of Moldova, historically, Pridnestrovie and Moldova were always separate. Throughout 2500 years of history, the Dniester River forming the current border has been a traditional border between Slav lands (Scythia, 450 B.C.) to the East and Romanian lands (Dacia) to the West.
The population is some 550.000. The inhabitants of Pridnestrovie are for the most part Slavic. This is in stark contrast to Moldova, on the other side of the Dniester River,... » read more ...
Published Tuesday, August 26, 2008 at 14:40
by
carl0s
(92 views and 4 comments)
Politicians are now expected to use the internet as a matter of
course. This process has been led by the United States, where in
most elections, there is usually a "President of the Internet
Moment." This could refer to a politician who gains fleeting
popularity from using the internet in a possibly innovative
fashion, or enlisting a keen following of bloggers and posters to
evangelise online.
Professional usage of the internet and its capabilities does not
guarantee political success. Arguably, the more slick and managed
the presentation, the less impact is generated. The online world
seems to be attuned to phenomena rather than propaganda. In
Europe, internet traffic sits outside the world of mainstream
political culture, it's hard to find examples where
conventionally formulated political communication strategies have
been successfully translated onto the web.
To read more, click here
Tags: activists, blogging, campign, EU, European elections, internet, voting
Published Monday, August 25, 2008 at 16:14
by
julian_schaerbeek
(123 views and 1 comments)
Now Berlusconi’s coalition partners – the Lega Nord – has proposed a law requiring local referendums before planning permission for mosques can be given, and an outright ban on minarets!
» read more ...Tags: migration
Published Wednesday, August 20, 2008 at 14:53
by
arktika
(261 views and 3 comments)
During last
twenty years war for humanitarian reasons has came quite popular
in political vocabulary e.g. in Balkans and now with Georgia
case. The ideal to use power in the service of ethics is good.
The problem is the low level of ethics when US is using her power
in world. I remember their actions in Chile to establish
dictatorship, their support to killing squads in middle and south
America. In 1983, U.S. troops invaded Grenada because it – a tiny
island with 110,000 inhabitants - represented a military threat
to the USA. In Balkans US made alliances first with Serb leaders
(who later came ICTY wanteds) and after with KLA (which before
was described as terror organization), al Quida (1st
ally then one element in “axis of terror”) etc.
US started to bomb Serbia – without UNSC approval and based purpose-oriented reports from field - supporting separatist movements. Later US repeated the same in Afghanistan and Iraq (again based false reports). Before 9-11, the US was supportive of the Chechen rebels, suddenly after 9-11 radical Islam, was the new enemy. This is regardless of whatever Chechen terrorists were doing to Russia on their own.
In Europe the Kosovo question highlights the core problem... » read more ...
Tags: Balkans, Kosovo, Serbia, US Foreign Policy
Published Wednesday, August 20, 2008 at 13:43
by
panayotis
(176 views and 1 comments)
Since 2004 that Mr. George Papandreou has been elected as the leader of the Greek Socialists Party he has been asking for participative democracy as the bottom line of any democracy! As a president of the International Socialists movement but also as the most proper prime minister according to public opinion in 2002 , we all hopped that the socialist party will win in the elections of 2007...Thu the biggest obstacle for such an evidence seems to come from inside !!!!!!! The party members , wealthy and well connected with those who take all the jobs from E.E financial support for economy development, not only they refuge to obey in their leader's politic but they keep people out of the party's forum because they are afraid to loose their posts!!!!!!!!!!!!Mr Papandreou, seems to be prisoner of it's own people in a well closed politic area that some, thing of their own despite the damage that they have already done ,... » read more ...
Tags: Europe, Papandreou, pasok, politics, socialists
Published Wednesday, August 20, 2008 at 12:19
by
arktika
(186 views and 1 comments)
Georgia launched a major military offensive against South Ossetia on Friday in a bid to regain control of its breakaway province. The attack started few hours after declared ceasefire, just before opening Day of Olympics. The death toll can already be as high as 1400 including some Russian peacekeepers.Kosovo’s unilateral proclamation of independence from Serbia last February played a key role in these developments. There may be endless disputes over whether this has created a legal precedent or not, but realpolitik takes its course regardless. The claim of Great (western) Powers that Kosovo is an absolutely unique case showed be a joke almost immediately when UDI based to their orchestration opened the Pandora box.
Moscow and quite a few other capitals considered the move a serious step toward the degradation of international law and the triumph of arbitrary approaches to the resolution of global problems. Nonetheless, Russia has chosen a course of compromise. Russia’s leaders could not ignore what happened in the Balkans, but they chose not respond by recognizing Abkhazia and South Ossetia, even though they believe that after Kosovo was proclaimed independent they had every right to do so.
Pandora box starts to open
Tags: crisis management
Published Thursday, July 31, 2008 at 09:18
by
rikkeindenmark
(512 views and 2 comments)
How do we turn our
political ideas and visions into great campaigns?
In my view, this is the next big challenge that PES activists are
up for! Since October last year PES activists have discussed the
PES manifesto and what issues and ideas should be in it -
'online' on Yourspace as well as 'offline' at manifesto meetings
all over Europe.
We have lots and lots of amazing ideas and I almost can't wait to
get started on the campaigning! Before long we will have to pick
from our ideas and select the issues which we would like to give
special attention in future international PES activist campaigns.
Are some issues more 'suitable' for cross-border, grassroot
campaigning than others?
A few days ago I gave a presentation at the ECOSY summer camp (ECOSY is the European Young Socialists which gathers socialist youth movements from all over Europe) where I suggested four basic principles which, in my view, should guide the 'transition' from visionary manifesto process to succesful campaigning. Here goes:
Tags: activists, campaign, youth
File:
handouts_ECOSY_26072008.pdf
Published Wednesday, July 30, 2008 at 14:50
by
Editor
(492 views and 0 comments)
The consultation process on the PES manifesto for the European Elections has recently ended and the final manifesto will be presented to the PES Council, in Madrid. It has been a tremendous success and the PES is now in a better position going into the 2009 European elections. Check out PES leaders' evaluations of the manifesto consultation process here on Yourspace,
Portuguese PM José Sócrates French PS leader François... » read more ...
Published Wednesday, July 30, 2008 at 12:43
by
Editor
(603 views and 0 comments)
This year ECOSY Summer Camp is taking place in Carpentras, near the French city of Avignon from 25-31 July, and it has already received over 2000 participants.
During the Camp several workshops themed "Social Europe for
Everyone"were organized; campaigning was not forgotten as the
European elections approach.
Zita Gurmai, President of PES Women, participated in one of the conferences and had a discussion with women representatives from ECOSY member organizations about the working conditions that young women endure in Europe.
PES press and campaign advisor, Julian Scola, spoke at a workshop on media work and campaigns, and at the PES stand 180 young people signed up as PES activists.
So, rendez-vous assured for 2009 at the next ECOSY Summer Camp!
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