Published Monday, July 7, 2008 at 15:49
by
carlosmoret 
in In the spotlight (762 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 we had, and the best too! And if you, my fellow activist, missed...
read morePublished Monday, July 7, 2008 at 14:04
by
Editor
in In the spotlight (725 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 Thursday, July 3, 2008 at 10:57
by
rikkeindenmark
in European democracy & diversity (1137 views and 6 comments)
This weekend I will
be doing a presentation on social networking tools at the
PES activist
forum in Vienna. I was glad to find out that there’ll be a
workshop dedicated to online campaigning - and now I'm looking
very much forward to debating the topic with other PES activists.
Therefore, I thought it would be appropriate with a few words on
online campaigning and my particular ‘campaigning speciality’,
namely social networking sites.
The US elections usually say a thing or two about upcoming
campaigning tools and methods. In the primaries social networks
turned out to be really hot - as a voter you could connect to
candidates pretty much everywhere: Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn... you
name the network and Clinton and Obama would be
there!
Given the experiences from the primaries social networking sites
are likely to play a...
Tags: blogger of the week, campaigning, elections, forum
File:
social_networks_campaigning.pdf
Published Thursday, June 26, 2008 at 09:39
by
negrescuvictor
in European democracy & diversity (671 views and 2 comments)
Most of European
countries confront themselves with the problem of bringing
youngsters to vote at the different elections. Regarding European
elections the stats are similar to the other elections even knowing
Europe normally speaks more about the future of our societies.
Involving youngsters in the European project and inside the socialist parties is becoming a more and more difficult task even know many of the PES member parties have chosen to promote younger leaders or building special information campaigns. The question is to find a way in interesting youngsters in politics and in the European project.
PES activists Romania has participated at a debate in Bucharest on this issue and came to a general conclusion: the need of appealing and the necessity of offering new solutions to the next generation of social problems. It become clear to us that European themes have to been translated in a language understandable for everyone and this is a task that the PES has to assume.
There are social groups excluded by European politics because of its high level of specialization or simply by the lack of time and this is a task socialists have to complete. On the other hand we have to create new topics for our societies and mainly youngsters and attract the public opinion’s attention on them. We have to stop waiting...
read morePublished Wednesday, June 25, 2008 at 12:47
by
negrescuvictor
in In the spotlight (917 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.
The current economic situation that is getting generally worst is...
read morePublished Monday, April 14, 2008 at 09:47
by
chourka
in European democracy & diversity (999 views and 3 comments)
Les socialistes français, très pris par les élections municipales qui se sont tenues les 9 et 16 mars, se mobilisent pour le Manifeste du PSE.
Dans cette optique, une journée complète de travail à Bruxelles a été organisée sur les changements opérés au sein du PSE depuis 2004 et le Conseil de Bruxelles, la novation introduite avec les militants du PSE et surtout l'élaboration du Manifeste 2009.
La plupart des Secrétaires fédéraux Europe et/ou International ainsi que les Premiers Secrétaires fédéraux d'une trentaine de fédérations présents ont bien saisi l'enjeu que représente le Manifeste. Evidemment, la campagne référendaire de 2005 est encore dans les têtes mais dans l'ensemble c'est pour mieux la dépasser. L'instrument essentiel pour réaliser ce dépassement étant la consultation des adhérents.
Autre enseignement tiré des dernières élections européennes de 2004, réussir la politisation de la campagne sur un plan européen, notamment en mettant en avant 5-6 mesures communes.
read morePublished Friday, April 4, 2008 at 11:58
by
Editor
in In the spotlight (1217 views and 1 comments)
This week
communication experts from Europe’s socialist and social democratic
parties met in Brussels to debate the campaign for the 2009
European elections. 50 dedicated campaigners met to share ideas on
how to campaign together as one political family.Published Thursday, March 20, 2008 at 16:19
by
Poul_Nyrup_Rasmussen
in European democracy & diversity (1351 views and 10 comments)
Thanks to Jon Worth for his proposals to how Europe’s socialist
and social democratic parties can campaign together in the 2009
elections.Published Tuesday, March 18, 2008 at 14:22
by
Editor
in In the spotlight (907 views and 0 comments)
The Swedish social
democrats discussed the future of EU when the Swedish Social
Democratic Party met in the Swedish Parliament on March 7th. The
keynote speakers were Mona Sahlin, party leader and chair of the
PES group Save our planet, Margot Wallström, Vice-president of
the EU Commission, Jan Eliasson, former Minister for foreign
affairs, and Wanja Lundby-Wedin, President of the Swedish LO and ETUC. Around 250 persons
attended the conference.Published Monday, March 3, 2008 at 14:30
by
yoan.abiven
in European democracy & diversity (1548 views and 4 comments)
At long
last, France has joined the group of sensible nations to have
ratified the Lisbon treaty!
This time though, it chose not to risk asking the French people
either through a vote or a referendum. Thus President Sarkozy
kept his electoral promise of choosing to go the parliamentary
way. And as if nothing had changed since the French rejection of
the constitutional treaty in 2005, all the 'narrow-minded
Frenchies' of back then rose up in arms more or less exactly as
last time. The campaign for the French presidential elections and
the 'forced' bipartisanship of that particular moment in time had
silenced them for a while.
The Socialist Party lost itself in its own contradictions,
thereby illustrating the old saying that if there is no solution,
then maybe there is no problem. This may account for the rebirth
of a true political centre in France. The Left has at least
remained united on one thing: it called for a new referendum,
some of its members so that they can relive the great feeling of
having said yes the first time, the others, of having said no, I
guess, but beyond that all Socialists have remained good friends
and comrades.
The tricky thing about this whole story is that those in favour
of a referendum are not totally wrong from the perspective of a
good democratic...
Published Sunday, March 2, 2008 at 23:58
by
rikkeindenmark
in European democracy & diversity (1110 views and 1 comments)
Among this morning’s
activities at the Danish PES manifesto conference was a workshop about
campaigns and cooperation in Europe – the participants discussed
how Europe’s social democrats can work together on common
campaign initiatives in the next European elections. There were
plenty of ideas – to mention a few:
Published Saturday, March 1, 2008 at 13:44
by
rikkeindenmark
in European democracy & diversity (1432 views and 0 comments)
This weekend stands a
good chance at becoming a turning point for the PES activists movement!Published Monday, February 25, 2008 at 11:33
by
Thomas Lefebvre
in European democracy & diversity (944 views and 1 comments)
The current scandal over alleged misuses of MEP expenses raises key questions for the next PES. The dealing of the scandal has been, so far, a PR disaster for the EP, especially when Pöttering reportedly said: “we want reform but we cannot make this report available to the public if we want people to vote in the European elections next year.” Pöttering is making a big mistake here: it is, on the contrary, the absence of transparency that is fuelling populist and anti-EP commentaries. For instance, the lack of access to the report already lead to cheap eurosceptic articles, on the ‘gravy trains theme’, as highlighted by Jon Worth.
However, there is an opportunity to be taken: the PES could capitalize on the crisis by introducing transparency for MEPs expenses, as it is the case within the House of Commons, in its manifesto. The PES should also pledge to introduce a common status for MEPs assistants who deserve better working rights. Finally, the PES needs to pledge that PES MEPs who misuse their expenses are going to be excluded from the group.
These proposals would put the PES at the forefront of democracy and accountability. It would portray the PES as a modern party which can only help for wining next year elections.
read morePublished Tuesday, February 19, 2008 at 14:30
by
jonworth
in European democracy & diversity (1263 views and 5 comments)
In every
European election to date candidates from the PES Member Parties have campaigned under their
national party banners. Apart for the initiated in Brussels, and
the growing band of PES activists and members of ECOSY, few of
the electorate have ever heard of the PES. Yet when the MEPs,
freshly elected, find themselves in Brussels and Strasbourg
freshly elected in 2009, working in a pan-European party
political manner in the Socialist Group in the European Parliament
will become second nature.
So how do we bridge this gap, and is it indeed worth doing so?
Let's start with the socialist MEPs in the Parliament at the moment. The Socialist Group has 215 MEPs from 25 countries - so that's on average 8.6 MEPs per country. With 20 full committees in the EP, and MEPs normally...
read morePublished Monday, February 18, 2008 at 15:58
by
jonworth
in European democracy & diversity (1327 views and 6 comments)
Rather than political ideology as such, I would like to
start my posts as 'blogger of the week' here at Yourspace with
some reflections about campaign tactics ahead of the 2009
European elections, for it strikes me that this election offers
more prospect for interesting uses of the internet than any other
election fought anywhere in Europe to date.
First of all, the very existence of Yourspace is the most radical departure from what has happened prior to previous European elections - Web 2.0 technologies (blogs, forums, YouTube etc.) allow centre-left activists from across Europe to participate in policy discussions prior to the elections. We're of course profiting from the achievements of Ségolène Royal's Désirs d'Avenir in the 2007 Presidential Elections - her site demonstrated what's possible - but for EU-wide policy discussion there's simply no way to organise it other than online.
Secondly the Treaty of Lisbon, and its ongoing ratification, give 2009 added significance. Not only will the European Parliament elections take place, but a new Commission team will be chosen, and for the first time there will be a High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (aka EU...
read morePublished Thursday, October 4, 2007 at 15:43
by
chourka
in European democracy & diversity (1398 views and 1 comments)
The initiative launched by the PES is a true revolution in its approach to European politics. For too many years, the voice of grassroots has been confined to the national level without any possibility to work at the higher level. Now, this level is also at people’s reach. A true revolution, I tell you!
The PES activists will make sure this consultation is carried out as closely to the citizens as possible. In the words of Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, European socialists can now listen to the grassroots and make sure that through our action, the European Union becomes an area where the living is good, where it is possible to travel, to live, to study, etc.
read more
loading...