PES Manifesto

1. Meme a la Commission, pas de politiques sans politique par amandinecrespy le mercredi 4 février 2009 à 15h47

Contrairement a ce que veut souvent nous faire croire la Commission, il n'existe pas de politiques sans politique. Les situations win-win ou des solutions claires simposeraient d'elles memes et seraient les meilleures, puisqu'elles ont ete recommandees par des experts qui savent, c'est l Union europeenne racontee aux enfants, pas la realite. Au niveau europeen comme dans nos pays, toute solution a un probleme politique implique un choix politique. Les experts ne sont pas des robots: ils preconisent certains arbitrages en fonction de leurs inclinaisons philosophiques ou politiques.

Face a ceux qui nous expliquent que la regression sociale est une fatalite, il est essentiel pour le camp progressiste d'exercer une pression experte et  politique par tous les canaux possibles (think tanks, syndicats, institutions, groupes citoyens) pour la mise en oeuvre des regulations AU NIVEAU EUROPEEN qui peuvent repondre a la crise actuelle. C est la seule politique qui permettra d eviter les tentations de repli national.  

NON MONISIEUR BARROSO, Better Regulation, ca n est pas un programme politique pour l'Europe! Mettez-vous au travail!

2. This is important ... but the horse has already bolted par carl0s le mercredi 4 février 2009 à 21h16

I understand that better regulation of hedge funds and equities is important and see how you have pushed this over the years. But I have further questions about the PES' response to the downturn.

Unemployed people need to be back into jobs as soon as possible or in training to adapt to new skills. It's not clear that the PES has provided a practical way to achieve this, given the restraints of monetary union and the pinched state of public finances throughout member economies. 

In fact, the mistakes of the European Central Bank seem to add to the problems faced by eurozone economies. Most of all, the problems can be seen in terms of multiple market failures - in the over-leveraged banking sector,  the inflated house prices and, we add to this the continued inability of car-makers and other manufacturers to produce goods and run industry in an environmentally sustainable way.

But the European Union expressly forbids member state aid to manufacturers, French car companies not withstanding. The rules act against nationalisation and state control. And much as we'd like to see a co-operatively run car company selling green vehicles, we all know that this would need extensive state backing and investment. Not only this, but the EU is keen to spread markets in all sorts of areas - transport, post, utilities - which have worked as state monopolies for some time. And, it wants to do it at a time when there is no private capital for investing in these utilities.

Can the European project ever be a socialist project? When the PES manifesto talks of deepening trade links with China, we don't know what it means. But sometimes we think it means more manufacturing jobs moving to the East. 

The internal market: what does it mean? Cheap contraband cigarettes, union-busting teams of workers from a struggling Eastern Europe, a form of colonialism where state-funded monopoly utility companies take over those of other countries, or possibly just the chance to drive a lorry from John O'Groats to Cluj... I'm not clear on this, and I'm unusually interested, as I take the time to read PN Rasmussen's comments on the PES forum.

Electors across the EU are having a hard look at the PES member parties and they are thinking: are we for real? Can we deliver what we say - in the context of further deregulation and privatisation? There's more work required after this election to spell out what European Socialism is. In the meantime, should we be surprised if their collective response is :

I doubt it.