The Balkans have been the focus of extensive public attention for a long time yet not many people can honestly claim to have a firm understanding of the region, its history or the complexity of the problems. The same one can say about Caucasus. I would like to claim that one factor has its share 1st creating problems and 2nd making difficult to manage them. This factor is lack of dialogue, which in both regions has created one-sided picture in western mainstream media and peoples mind.

In dialogue, one listens to the other side in order to understand, find meaning, and find agreement. In debate, one listens to the other side in order to find flaws and to counter its arguments. Dialogue assumes that many people have pieces of the answer and that together they can put them into a workable solution. Debate assumes that there is a right answer and that someone has it. Debate can have maybe better headlines in news but it is not for sustainable solutions.

Few days ago the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, outlined his country's national interests in a set of five key principles and I think one of them fits to this topic. Quote: "The world should be multi-polar. Unipolarity is unacceptable, domination is impermissible. We cannot accept a world order in which all decisions are taken by one country, even such a serious and authoritative country as the United States of America. This kind of world is unstable and fraught with conflict."

From my point of view West has been living last years in past, today world is coming more and more multi-polar. To copy present situation we need dialogue - EU could facilitate e.g. US/Russia dialogue but then it should avoid to take firm sides.

More Balkan/Caucasus conflicts in my BalkanBlog, address https://arirusila.wordpress.com 

If you are interested in attending the event in order to have an overview of the different electoral systems and voting patterns across the EU, as well as explore particularities of specific electorates such as expatriates and ethnic minorities, younger and older voters, or women, you just have to fill in the online registration form available here.

The conference will take place @ the Headquarters of the Committee of the Regions (Room 52, rue Belliard 101, B-1040 Brussels) on 10 September 2008 (09h30-13h30).
The program and further information are available on the PES Group – Committee of the Regions website.

Yesterday, PD Leader Walter Veltroni wrote to the President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies proposing to extend the right to vote in administrative and local elections to all those who have been legally residents in Italy for some time, whether or not they are Italian or EU citizens.

And the PD has gone further. Two million Italians have already signed an initiative “Salva l’Italia” – ‘Save Italy’ : calling for action to tackle the economic crisis including protecting salaries and pensions, and the defence of democratic rules against misguided laws passed by Berlusconi (such as one third stronger punishments for crimes committed by illegal immigrates). The PD hopes to get 5 million signatures by October 25.

The PD is clearly rejecting the right’s attempt to scapegoat migrants – and particularly illegal immigrants – for the problems facing Italy. The local public opinion is very sensitive to this issue and such a proposal is to be considered one of the most innovative concerning debate on the integration of immigrants into Italian society.

We have to acknowledge that a large part of the electorate are not interested in reading about politics on the internet. Pornography and shopping are the real generators of internet traffic and revenue, and this is not likely to change, despite online video continuing to gain in popularity. Blogs have mushroomed in numbers, but despite the vibrancy of some, a US study recently revealed that only 56% of American internet users actually read political blogs. Of these, only 17% were under 21 years old - and all of these users tended to stick with the same one or two blogs on a regular basis.

It appears that blogs are often literally preaching to the converted, but this is not always the case. In the UK the most popular blogs have tended to be written by conservatives from a center-right perspective. It's certainly true that the readership of these is not necessarily right-wing - showing how wider popularity can be gained amongst the public through quality writing and coverage of interesting topics.

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 showing how activists prepared the whole thing!

At the Vienna Forum, several PES Activists expressed their interest in twinnings projects between party federations and branches. We asked Frédéric Engelmann, a PES Activist from Paris, to tell us about the twinning between the PES Activists Groups of the XIIth arrondissement of Paris and of Berlin Mitte.

Frédéric, how did the idea of a twinning come about and how did this whole project start?

To start with, our Paris PS federation had already signed a similar agreement 5 or 6 years ago with the Berlin SPD. Both parties support the fact that the branches of our federations should twin with one another. So far, the branches of XIth and XVIIIth arrondissements (or districts) have twinnings, if my memory serves me right, and more recently the Ist, IInd, IIIrd and IVth together joined a third twinning project between branches. On this occasion, I met the activist in charge of twinnings from Berlin as his branch in Berlin Mitte was looking for a twinning project. I then suggested to organize myself the project from the French side (I am bilingual in French and German) and once we set up a team from both sides, the branches agreed to go along. The first contact took place in April 2006 and the twinning agreement was officially signed during the first visit of a dozen activists in November 2007. We set ourselves as an objective to visit each other once a year in Paris and Berlin.

What are in your opinion the necessary elements for a successful twinning?

I think the following elements are important:

- have a first contact between two people from both branches to see if there is an interest in such a twinning project from both sides;
- gather a small group of half a dozen people so as to show that there is an interest in the project and above all that the resources are there to maintain the project in the medium and long term; try to get local representatives to commit to the project by showing them that there could be opportunities to meet and exchange ideas related to local policy - and also involve some people who are bilingual.
- define realistic and desirable objectives but also allow for the necessary time to reach them.

Can you tell us more about the objectives you set yourselves in the partnership agreement?

The partnership aims at reaching the following objectives:
- Have an exchange on all issues related to local policy, in particular those topical issues that are interesting to both branches
- Inform and discuss the political positions of both our parties
- Support political campaigns in our respective cities
- Inform each other through our respective websites on current affairs and exchange experiences
- Organize and carry out study visits to Paris and Berlin.

Could you describe the different stages of the twinning?

The contact-taking period for the twinning took about a year and a half. That was the first stage. Then, for about a year, we focused on better getting to know each other: organizing the visit to the city, organize meetings between activists and between those in charge of the branches through the first two trips we organized. Now, we have groups of about 15 people in every branch involved in the twinning. Then in a third stage we want to organize more political debates and exchanges, in addition to the exchange visits, by creating for example a blog or something similar.
At present, we only want to focus on two topics that emerged in our discussions:
- Europe (myself and one of the Berlin Mitte activist are the moderators of working groups focused on European policy in our branches)
- local and regional policy-making (our two districts are both governed by our mother parties - the PS and the SPD respectively - and there are a number of local representatives that are interested in our project)

A big thanks to Frédéric Engelmann for having shared his experience with us. By Cécilia Gondard, communication team.

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 » ignore le principe de l’égalité de droit, le projet de loi Sarkozy s'attaque à la mixité, à la famille.

Côté mariage, le projet de loi Sarkozy sur l’immigration, rend difficile aux français d’épouser des non-européens. Auparavant, on obtenait une carte de séjour suite au mariage et à condition d’être entré légalement sur le territoire français. Si le projet de loi passe, l’obtention de la carte de séjour sera subordonnée à l’obtention d’un visa de 3 mois et sans visa, pas de vie commune! Or pour acquérir la nationalité française(article 59), il faudra avoir vécu sur le territoire français trois ans non –stop… Bref, c’est mission impossible pour les couples mixtes!

Loin de ne s’attaquer qu’aux couples mixtes, la loi met en danger la famille : Le regroupement familial devient quasi-impossible. Le ressortissant qui souhaite faire venir sa famille, devra avoir vécu 18 mois sur le territoire français, et surtout, devra démontrer qu'il peut la faire vivre des revenus de son travail, les minima sociaux et allocations de logement étant exclus du calcul des ressources. Dans un pays où le salaire médian est le SMIC, il faudra être « plus riche que les français » pour avoir le droit de vivre en famille. Quant aux fichiers ADN….no comment.

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 from the Greens by being in favour of cheap and fast public transport, supporting using taxation on airlines to fund public transport and financing fast, cross-European rail transport.

Team 2 on Social Europe made seven recommendations for the PES to include in its manifesto:
1. Taxing financial transactions.
2. The EU should develop more controls over multinational companies.
3. Parents should have 100% paid maternity leave for 18 months, with one third of the time allocated to mothers, one third to fathers, and the remaining third to be shared according to the wishes of the parents.
4. There should be an EU fund for social housing for families with three or more children who are homeless.
5. There should be lower labour taxes on women, older and younger people to encourage their employment.
6. Universities should organize one-year internships in companies for all students and there should be a 6-month ERASMUS programme available to all university students, including incentives for programme take-up.
7. Lifelong learning should be available to all. More work needs to be undertaken on how to implement this in practice.

Team 3 on European democracy and diversity made four recommendations:
1. There should be gender equality in politics, with 50% of the European Parliament made up of female MEPs after the next European elections. The PES should be the first political party to achieve this.
2. Voting cards should feature the age of candidates.
3. We should make clear the differences between the Left and our opponents, for example by increasing conflict with the Right, in order to highlight the relevance of voting in the European elections. There should be less emphasis on compromise in the European Parliament. The PES should go to the press to reveal how the right-wing has been voting in the Parliament.
4. We should be concrete in our proposals for the elections, for example how we intend to lift people out of poverty, ensuring health care, stopping the two European Parliament seats (in Brussels and Strasbourg).

Team 5 on Climate change made four recommendations:
1. There should be an individual approach to the fight against climate change to encourage people to feel more personal responsibility for the environment. For example, the PES could propose for every product to feature how much CO2 was emitted to produce it, or to promote energy-saving light bulbs.
2. There should be free public transport in Europe
3. The transport of goods should be made more expensive in order to dissuade wasteful uses of transport in production processes. For example, there could be higher road tolls for companies. Companies may try to pass on these costs to consumers, but this would probably only happen in the short term as companies would not want to raise costs above those of their competitors. Another possibility would be to reduce tax on locally-produced foods; however, this could conflict with development goals for third world, food exporting countries.
4. Higher taxes on cars in urban centres once there are sufficient, alternative modes of transport.

Do you agree with any of these recommendations? What are your views on how we can win the next European elections?

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, where 4/5ths of the population are of Romanian descent and where ethnic Russians and ethnic Ukrainians only make up 6 to 8 percent, respectively.

Pridnestrovie meets the requirements for sovereign statehood under international law, as it has a defined territory, a population, effective elected authority, and the capability to enter into international relations. It is currently seeking international recognition of its de facto independence and statehood.

The economy of Pridnestrovie is a mixed market-based economy. Following a large scale privatization process, most of the companies in the country are now privately owned. The economy is export-oriented and based on a mix of heavy industry and manufacturing. According to the latest data from the nation's Customs, Pridnestrovie - which is also known as Transnistria, or Transdniester - now trades with 99 foreign countries.

Source and more info about Transnistria e.g. from http://www.tiraspoltimes.com

More Caucasus conflict: http://arirusila.wordpress.com

To read more, click here

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!

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 of EU - uncritical following of US foreign (cowboy) policy . Some times I ask if it is EU, only UK or ex-Sovjet lapdogs the 51st state of USA. To me it is alarming, that this US policy has been made both during democratic and republican US presidents. Future shows if the change will come with new president, will he change old advisers also. And will US succeed to gain support for these actions either through the use of NATO or by persuading the European Community or the newly emerging states of Central and Eastern Europe to get on side. I hope that change will come and different actors both sides of Atlantic could have debate from more equal base than before.

More about Balkan politics e.g. in BalkanBlog which address is: http://arirusila.wordpress.com

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

• Armenian political expert Stepan Grigoryan says that Yerevan should recognize Serbia’s Kosovo province as a precedent for its recognition of Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh.
• The Silesian Autonomy Movement has sent a petition to Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk asking him to allow all regional communities to gain autonomy status. If he does not agree, the Silesians say they are ready to raise the issue of separation, according to media reports. The movement officially declares its support for the autonomy of Silesia. The association was founded in 1991 and is based mainly in the Polish part of Upper Silesia.
• On May 4, the oil-rich department (province) of Santa Cruz held a vote on autonomy - that is, declaring its independence from the rest of Bolivia. Bolivian government calls the actions of separatist movement as the Kosovo strategy - an American attempt to destabilize a national government it cannot control.
• The potentially destabilizing consequences of this precedent have been much discussed with reference to other unhappy portions of other internationally recognized sovereign states with strong separatist movements practicing precarious but effective self-rule, such as Transniestria, Bosnia’s Republika Srpska, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Kashmir, Tibet and Kurdistan.

Exit strategy

The root of the problem is that the international community cannot agree on rules for the independence of small regions. Russia said that granting independence to Kosovo would set a dangerous precedent. I agree with those who said, that Kosovo status - as well other conflicts - can be determine only by negotiations, not by imposition.

From my point of view the best exit strategy from Pandora box is to return to Kosovo case from where all today’s development started. The steps forward could be following:

1. Starting real negotiations between local stakeholders with support interested Great Powers and without determined outcome (which was not the case with Status Talks lead by Ahtisaari nor Troika).
2. Accepting the deal made by local partners be it anything they can agree.
3. The international community (and donors) should then support implementation of this deal made by negotiations.

Similar steps could be applied other conflicts also. The possible outcome can be based e.g. to Westphalian order (Westphalian sovereignty is the concept of nation state sovereignty based on two principles: territoriality and the exclusion of external actors from domestic authority structures).

Results can vary from case to case. The form of deal can be e.g. independence with or without partition, federation, confederation, some of autonomy models such as Aland (Province of Finland) or Hong Kong model. At its best the solution can be like”velvet divorce” of the Czechs and Slovaks. And also the worst scenario probably is better than situation today.

More about Balkans? You are welcome to visit http://arirusila.wordpress.com

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:

• Define and get to know your target group
• Develop one appealing key message
• Consider your resources
• Identify the right media

It's pretty basic, but sometimes, after a period filled with big and visionary thoughts, 'back to basics' can be useful! Do you agree or am I just babbling here? :-)

In the presentation I also argued that social networking sites - such as Facebook or MySpace - can be very powerful tools for youth organizations. For three main reasons: Social networking tools are - for a large part - free to use, they're powerful means of reaching young people and they're based on dialogue rather than one-way communication. The latter is perhaps the more interesting point. With traditional media such as TV and radio audiences are passive and have no opportunity to respond. Social networking sites are interactive and allow people to answer to messages or to start a conversation with you as sender. Here, I would argue that socialist grassroots are important assets to their own campaigns! You are energetic and sympathetic campaigners - so using a communication tool which will allow people to meet and discuss with you will definetely be an advantage! It's attractive to be part of a network filled with energy and enthusiasm.

For those interested I have attached my hand-outs from Saturday's session at the ECOSY summer camp. Agree? Disagree? Comments are - as always - appreciated!

Portuguese PM José Sócrates                     French PS leader François Hollande

Danish SD leader Helle Thorning-Schmidt Romanian PSD leader Mircea Geona

Flemish SPA deputy leader Caroline Gennez.

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!