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.
Order by: Highest rated, Most commented, Most read, Most recent
Published Wednesday, July 9, 2008 at 17:35
by
Editor
(757 views and 1 comments)
Some of our
activists are already started spreading the voice about the
Vienna Forum! Here are some of their reactions:
- More than 10 posts have already been published by activists on YourSpace.
- Nils, from the PES secretariat, created a Facebook group.
- Aleksander, from Paris, posted photos on Flickr. And so did Francisco and the PES Secretariat
. You can also find photos on Emilio's Picasa web albums.
- Paula, from Brussels, posted photos on Facebook. And so did » read more ...
Tags: blogosphere, forum, manifesto, PES
Published Wednesday, July 9, 2008 at 14:41
by
Editor
(502 views and 0 comments)
Video presented in Vienna during the first PES activists Forum. Read other posts on the Forum submited by participants here and leave us your contribution!
Tags: blogosphere, forum, manifesto
Published Tuesday, July 8, 2008 at 16:47
by
Editor
(480 views and 0 comments)
The PES manifesto consultation has ended – after over 300,000 visits to Yourspace and more than 600 contributions posted! But our dialogue on ‘Yourspace’ goes on! We will continue to debate the hot issues that will shape the European elections – migration, climate change, rising food and energy prices, jobs, equality, the EU treaty – as well as getting ready for the elections: presenting PES candidates from different countries, discussing campaign activities, hearing about your events, exposing opposition parties and candidates, drawing the dividing lines between the PES and the other European parties, and keeping you informed about the preparation of the PES manifesto.
We will kick off the post-consultation dialogue with a debate on migration – kicked off by Portuguese socialist and former European Commissioner Antonio Vitorino – as well as reports from the... » read more ...
Tags: blogosphere, forum, manifesto, PES
Published Tuesday, July 8, 2008 at 12:15
by
Okamoto 
(607 views and 4 comments)
As a Bulgarian, the United States of Europe’s idea seems realistic and I can almost touch it. For the past 8 years life standard has raised, Bulgaria’ economy’s growing (with + 5% GDP), we do not need visas to travel, he have the possibility to travel and to meet people, the possibility to work and live where our heart is… 25,000 students leave Bulgaria every year (out of 80,000), unemployment rates are low. Two thirds of Bulgarians are Euro-optimists.
The biggest problem for Bulgaria is the corruption and control of European funds to reach their purposes.
Now let me present some other ideas for the manifesto...
Women’s rights:
Let me show you two exemples of countries where no one would say that women occupy important posts: in Iran (Islamic Republic) half of the board of directors or financial directors in State-owned companies are women and in Bulgaria (the poorest EU member) women have the same or better salaries.
Women should have more rights especially during their maternity.
» read more ...Published Monday, July 7, 2008 at 15:49
by
carlosmoret
(430 views and 1 comments)
Was the activists
Forum in Vienna an abnormal week-end for abnormal people? Are we
abnormal people to start with as Bo Krovig - a campaign specialist
of the Swedish party - said?
In a way Bo was right, it was a beautiful week-end, nice and sunny in Vienna and there we were, a bunch of some 300 people sitting in a room with no windows, listening to other speakers talk, at times fighting against sleep, raising our hands to get a chance to say a word when instead we should have been pick-nicking in a park with friends or family. And, to make matters worse, we had to put our hands deep into our pockets to get those Euros out that paid for our trip to Vienna. And there was fatigue too. I had a General Assembly of my PS section and got home late on Thursday night, still having to pack, try to get a few hours of sleep before starting off and finding my way to the airport. Helène worked late on Friday, but I convinced her to go to because I was confident that she would love the experience. And she did, in spite of fatigue.
The Vienna forum was really worth it, and sorry Bo, but I wouldn't have traded it for the best pick-nick in the nicest park or field of the Union with the best possible company; company... » read more ...
Published Monday, July 7, 2008 at 14:04
by
Editor
(432 views and 0 comments)
Editor's note:
Aidan OSullivan, PES activists Dublin, sent us a live example of
good practices at European level, presented in Vienna during the
seminar on "Cross-border campaign exchanges".
In May 2007, we invited activists from all over Europe to come
help in the Irish General Election campaign.
The initiative was a fantastic success! We knocked on doors
together, we leafleted target areas together, we shared ideas and
stories and we formed new cross-European political
relationships!
This is how PES Activists works....activist to activist
co-operation, building the New Social Europe from the grassroots
level upward.
Check out the short presentation on our experience!
Tags: citizens, democracy, elections, EU, forum
File:
PESActivistsDublin.pps
Published Monday, July 7, 2008 at 11:28
by
sschublach
(437 views and 1 comments)
Saturday I joined the
workshop on “European dimension in European election” at the PES
Seminar in Vienna. Thanks to PES, ECOSY – Young European Socialists
and their member organisation, I also had the opportunity to
present recent (international) campaigns, as for example the Free
Burma Campaign (JS in de PVDA), Disarmament and Peace (JUSOS
Germany) or a Belgian campaign concerning censorship in Flanders
(Animo Belgium). In addition I had the chance to briefly speak
about the “Netzwerk gegen Rechts” (Network against right wing
extremism), which was set up by the Socialist Youth Austria (SJOE)
in 2004 and still is very successful.
So far, more than 3000 young people joined the Network and are active in the fight against right wing extremism.
We as SJOE offer several things: concerts (rock against racism), seminars, workshops, exhibitions, meetings with contemporary witnesses, excursions and many materials. We consider that it is absolutely necessary to share our experiences with other organizations as many countries face similar problems.
Through this exchange... » read more ...
Tags: blogosphere, forum
Published Saturday, July 5, 2008 at 12:39
by
Editor
(533 views and 6 comments)
300 PES activists
are in Vienna to discuss the proposal for the manifesto2009! PES
President, Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, Alfred Gusenbauer, Federal
Chancellor of Austria, Andreas Schieder, State Secretary within
the Austrian Federal Chancellery, and Ania Skrzypek, Secretary
General of ECOSY, welcomed the participants during the opening
ceremony.
Today four sessions took place on "Campaigning" and on the "Manifesto" issues. The participation was high with very positive outcome!
Drop by our Flickr channel and check some of the photos!
Tags: blogosphere, forum, manifesto, PES
Published Friday, July 4, 2008 at 10:05
by
Editor
(411 views and 0 comments)
Vienna receives this weekend the first PES activists Forum. “Vienna 2008 – a strong voice for European social democracy” gathers together leading politicians from PES member parties, activists and experts to discuss the outcome of the manifesto2009 campaign. They will draw-up their ideas for a strong campaign for the next European elections.
The opening session of the Forum is scheduled for this afternoon. Tomorrow, four parallel sessions will take place on both “Manifesto” and “Campaigning” themes.
During the day, participants will discuss not only the four consultation themes – “Save our World, “New Social Europe”, “Europe in the World” and “European democracy and diversity” – but also other transversal issues such as “Experience in Europe – Cross-border campaign exchanges”, “Strike back on ultraconservative speech”, “Social networking over Internet or “A European dimension in European election campaigns”.
The Forum, organised together with the SPÖ, the Renner Institute and the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS), will close the PES manifesto consultation.
Published Wednesday, July 2, 2008 at 10:01
by
rikkeindenmark
(466 views and 0 comments)
Not long ago I learned
about the PES Group in the Committee of the Regions. To be
honest I didn't know about the group's existence until a year ago
(ignorance is not always bliss), but it's a forum for local and
regional politicians to meet and discuss EU politics. It's an
interesting organization because many EU decisions impact greatly
on the local level - and the PES Group is a chance for local and
regional social democrats to meet and work together to influence EU
policies.
I admit that this was a digression from the topic that I actually wanted to address in this post! The reason why I brought up the PES Group in the Committee of the Regions is that the group has its own PES manifesto consultation - and in this consultation there's a fifth point of discussion, in addition to the four 'traditional' themes - namely the gender dimension.
I agree very much with the view-point of the PES Group - that there's a significant gender aspect to all four manifesto themes - and I hope the 'pervasiveness' of gender issues will be taken into... » read more ...
Tags: blogger of the week, child care, conflict, consumer, diversity, human rights, media, public services, transport, wages, women
Published Tuesday, July 1, 2008 at 11:58
by
aidanosullivan
(514 views and 0 comments)
With attempts to
harmonize corporate tax rates being vetoed by states like the UK
and Ireland, the EU Commission wishes to address the tax obstacles
facing companies operating across the Internal Market by
implementing a Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB).
The CCCTB would mean reducing the cost of working with 27 different national tax systems as they would be able to compute their aggregate profits to a single set of tax rules. The total EU profit would be then apportioned among the countries where the firm is active.
It has established a Working Group to consider first its technical definition and later details of the profit apportioning mechanism. Commissioner Kovacs had plans to bring forward proposals before the end of 2008, but this is now postponed due to the Lisbon Treaty vote in Ireland. The CCCTB will be optional and the Commission will propose its adoption under the enhanced cooperation mechanism failing unanimous agreement.
The Case for CCCTB
The Commission believes that reform of EU corporate taxation is crucial for achieving the goals of the Lisbon agenda and that an efficient, transparent and simplified tax regime will improve the functioning of the Internal Market. It... » read more ...
Published Saturday, June 28, 2008 at 22:28
by
Sortir de l'Impasse
(337 views and 0 comments)
From a French
perspective, we always believe that Ireland has one of the lowest
taxation systems in Europe, and that one the reasons for the
Irish “no” was the protection of these low taxes.
A couple of days ago (on 26th June), Eurostat published very interesting and useful analysis to draw some comparisons between the different taxations in Europe. Thanks to this survey, we discovered that Ireland had now the highest implicit tax rate on capital amongst the 27 European countries: 42.5% in 2006, compared to 27.1% in 1996. In France for instance, this implicit tax rate on capital is “only” 41.5%... This proved once again that we, French people, should sometimes be more open minded and work at revamping our “idées préconçues”.
The survey also shows large spreads between taxation rates in Europe: on capital, the range of implicit taxation is between 8.4% in Estonia, and 42.5% in Ireland. On labour, it is between 21.5% in Malta and 44.2% in Sweden.
We strongly believe that to be efficient in the world, Europe should be able to speak one voice, whether it is for diplomacy... » read more ...
Published Wednesday, June 25, 2008 at 12:47
by
negrescuvictor
(539 views and 2 comments)
While reading the
contributions submitted by several PES member parties or by
different NGOs I have noticed something that I thought has
disappeared. What is that exactly? The desire to
change the world, to ask ourselves what is wrong and, thus, to
think about improving the current situation.
We are far away from living in a perfect world and sometimes it can be difficult to imagine that thousands or millions of people are starving, getting incurable diseases, people who don’t have access to the basic survival needs, not to talk about the lack of education.
Europe is far from having resolved its own problems but the power of our political (social and economic) Union resides in the value of solidarity. Countries and regions have been reconstructed based on this solidarity, people have known prosperity and wealth, the living conditions have improved and no one can say otherwise. People from countries like Ireland, Greece, Spain, and Portugal know what I’m talking about… Solidarity is difficult when this means giving a bite of your wealth but you always have to remember that this is what EU is all about: mutual help when you are facing a bad economic situation.
... » read more ...Tags: blogger of the week, elections, EU, PES
Published Wednesday, June 25, 2008 at 12:29
by
Editor
(436 views and 0 comments)
The European
Network of Social Democratic Foundations (ENSoF) became very
involved in the PES Manifesto consultation, coordinating research
with their 16 member organizations. They started in January 2008
with a preparatory workshop in Vienna and since then successively
held four further workshops in Sofia, Athens, Paris and Rome – one on each of the
core themes. Debating the draft papers with MEPs and other experts
in Brussels on May 29, ENSoF finally delivered a very comprehensive
booklet as their contribution to the PES
Manifesto consultation.
The scientific yet political approach of the foundations to the most important issues on the European agenda undoubtedly represents a unique enrichment to the consultation process. Having done extensive analytical research, ENSoF also presented a number of concrete proposals on “Europe in the world”, “European Democracy and Diversity”, “Save our Planet” and “New Social Europe”. Here is just a small selection:
Published Monday, June 23, 2008 at 10:50
by
Editor
(317 views and 0 comments)
Meet Rikke, Victor, Aleksander and Francisco during the PES activists BLOGFEST! For the next two weeks and until the 6 July, they will publish articles and comments here on Yourspace on some of the contributions delivered and several other themes they are keen to write about, such as the new social problems in Eastern Europe or gender equality!
Rikke Skovgaard Andersen is a young journalist from Denmark and PES activist. Currently she is working with international higher education in Copenhagen. Rikke is a member of the Danish Social Democratic Party and the Danish Social Democratic Youth.
Victor Negrescu is the National Coordinator of PES activists in Romania and he works on several campaigning issues for PSD Romania. Victor worked as a journalist for important media in the country.
Aleksander Glogowski is in charge for communications at the Fédération du Parti Socialiste... » read more ...
Tags: blogger of the week
loading...