Notes from Prague
I’m an outsider attending the 1500 plus PES Congress in Prague (this is the European Union Party that collects progressives, labor, social democrats, and socialists from the various national parties throughout Europe). At yesterday’s preliminary session, I heard several familiar arguments, and some surprising ones.
First, Poul Nyrop Rasmussen, the President of the PES (roughly “Party of European Socialists” in several languages) talked with distain about the last election, not because the PES lost the election for the EU Parliament, but because “the sofa party” won. Turns out the “sofa party” was not a political acronym, but literally a sofa. Some 56% of the electorate did not vote. Sounds like America. One reason, it turns out, is that the social democrats and the more labor-oriented socialists in various countries split their votes between 2 candidates and thus muddied the message and lost the EU election.
While out of power, though, the PES seems to be borrowing from the US experience, circa 2004, in assembling a broad array of interests to create a clear political program built around three enets: creating green jobs through substantial public spending on Climate Change, a reinvestment in education and re-education of the workforce, and, in a fashion far more aggressive than current American proposals, reform of the financial markets. They are decidedly not anti-market, but want to manage markets with and through effective regulation – an idea far more acceptable on this side of the pond. Much of their thinking is embodied in a new book, shared with many at the conference, called The Next Left. Not exactly a quick read for the next plane trip, but effective and discursive as an intellectual framework worth examining.
Just now, Poul Nyrup Rasmussen was re-elected to the Presidency of the PES for another term. 320 some odd versus 6 votes. On the stage, he joked that it seemed like a “soviet era” election and then seriously took pains to see the election as a statement of trust in the program they are trying to build. He is part promoter, part cheerleader, and part strategic advisor. Watching the well-orchestrated Congress, and just beginning to understand the implications for Europe that a revitalized PES might mean, I come away impressed with the prospects they have to shift leftward the political winds in Europe. What I’m curious about is just how they will build a relationship to the work of the Green Parties – a smaller, but effective pan-European party that concentrates its efforts on environmental issues.