The party of European socialists and the identity of European social democracy

Résumé du document

The question as to whether there is currently something that can be called the crisis of social-democracy is arguable. Social-democracy and socialist parties are still the counterpart of Conservatives and Christian-democrats, sharing alternatively between government responsibilities at the national level as well as in the European Parliament. Nevertheless, the major transformation of the last 25 years, namely the acceleration of both globalization and Europeanization has upset the core of both the Social Democratic ideology and policies, which happens to be the central role of the Welfare State. Thus, socialist politicians have to face the hegemony of the neo-liberal ideology and the fundamentally liberal nature of the European project based on the single market. Besides, the ideological debate on the political meaning of choices made for the economic governance in Europe tends to be watered down by the genuine weakness of party politics in the EU institutional constellation. In this background, we analyze how the social-democratic movement developed at the European level.

Extraits

[...] Aware of the danger represented by the left-wing of the PS, they took the initiative. Socialist personalities like J. Borell, G. Amato or S. Rasmussen (Vice-President and President of the PES), expressed publicly their solidarity with the French PS campaigning for the Moreover, M. Schulz President of the PES- Group initiated a common declaration signed by several Presidents of Socialist parliamentary groups and organized a meeting in Paris on the 3rd of May to convey to the French public the image of a consensus amongst the European Social-Democrats; French-speaking MEPs then took part in some of the 500 meetings organized by the PS[22]. [...]

[...] All the polls show that a large majority of the French were in favour of a European Constitution a couple of weeks before the referendum and still are[26]. Doubtlessly, it is more the nature of the Constitution especially on economic and social issues - that was problematic for left-oriented electors. The opponents of the Treaty gathered in the movement Non socialiste, whose one of the main figures was Jacques Généreux, an acknowledged French economist professor at Science Po. The website of this movement provides for an assessment of the Treaty on several issues, the first one being: “Constitution: un adieu à l'Europe sociale, une constitutionnalisation du libéralisme économique”. [...]

[...] Wiener European Integration after Amsterdam: Institutional Dynamics and Prospects for Democracy”, Oxford p. 278-289. Press Articles Jacques Chirac a lancé à Bruxelles sa campagne pour le oui Le Monde Les socialistes européens se mobilisent pour le PS français Le Monde, le Privés de référendum, les italiens s'immiscent dans le débat français Le Monde Les six thèmes-clef de la campagne Le Monde, le Documents Priorities for the EU Policy Agenda available at http://www.pes.org/downloads/Proposal%20PES%20priorities%202006%20EN%20FINAL _Vienna_24_06_2005.pd Websites www.pes.org www.nonsocialiste.fr Simon Hix and Christopher Lord, Political Parties in the European Union, Mac Millan Press, Houndmills ans London p. [...]

[...] The prominent role of these high-level summits has had an ambiguous impact on the role of the PES as a catalyst for a common identity of the Socialists. The gathering of mediatic personalities has certainly enhanced the visibility of the PES and has increased its capacity to coordinate the formulation of common policy goals and therefore to influence the decisions made in the European council - even if this influence is really hard to measure and since it is exerted to a large extent “behind the scenes”. [...]

[...] Indeed, the agreement indice of the PES Group - calculated by S. Hix on the basis of the empirical observation of every single call- roll vote in the European parliament since 1979) has been steadily increasing from 0.76 in the First Parliament to 0.90 in the Fifth Parliament, while the maximum is one. The PES' low internal cohesion in the early times of the EP is due to a more pronounced dividing line on the issue of the degree of European integration, with the British Labour, the Danish Social Democratic Party as well as the Greek PASOK having a rather euro sceptic stance. [...]