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PES in Porto: the view from the Congress floor
12 posts
Written by Jon Worth
CV : I'm 26, resident in London, and am a member of the Labour Party. I'm also an active blogger (blog.jonworth.eu) and freelance website designer. I've been fascinated by EU politics for a number of years; I'm presently working to rejuvenate the Labour Movement for Europe in the UK, and have previously worked in Brussels. English is my mother tongue, but I'm happy to enter into dialogue here in French, German or Italian too.
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Activists at the PES Congress: some preliminary conclusions - 08-12-2006 20:44:48 - Only logged activists can post a comment, please sign in or register here
The PES Congress in Porto has steadily drawing to a close; the fringe meetings are over, and the final session is about to start. So what are the overall impressions, and what should happen now?
First and foremost it has been a fascinating experience to be present here. I do not understand or necessarily appreciate all of the dynamics of an event like this. The relentless pursuit of consensus - often to the detriment of the quality of the content - of the political debates was striking. However the opportunity to hear speeches from such a range of high level politicians and have the freedom to write my observations about those has been very welcome.
Secondly, the role of the PES Activists remains extremely unclear after the 2 days here. It seems that we are at best tolerated here. We pay our own travel, we don’t even get any food in the conference centre, and we of course have no political representation in any of the decision making structures. Yet as a group of politically motivated, committed and experienced people that is not a status quo that the Activists are going to be happy living with in the medium term. The very nature of party political activism - especially on the centre-left - is the wish to change things, make things better, gain influence.
The network of activists also needs to reflect on its role and responsibility. Influence is not only something you get, it something you work hard for. We need to make sure that the activist network contributes to a good european debate, organises interesting activities and must not be exclusive. It is up to us as PES activists to reach out and recruit more activists - among members of the member parties, but why not also among the public, with universities as an excellent place to start.
Europe is ever more diverse, so our party political structures must be more diverse and flexible too. Porto has been a good start for the PES Activists. But we’ll be back in 2 years at the next congress: more demanding, more committed, more organised - there’s no doubt about that. -
Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, leader of the PES - 08-12-2006 14:40:02 - Only logged activists can post a comment, please sign in or register here
Poul was re-elected as leader of the PES in Porto. This has allowed him to make plenty of speeches on the podium. It’s the first time I have seen Rasmussen perform in the flesh, and he’s actually quite impressive. He comes across as honest, as expressive, and almost emotional in his means of delivery. He also has a tendency to move around lot, and wave his hands left and right. You almost feel he might suddenly break into a Saturday Night Fever dance routine. Have a look at this animation and see what you think.
He’s also intensely personal; his grandson Lukas has featured at least a couple of times in his speeches. Little Lukas, we are assured, will be protected by the new REACH legislation that Martin Schultz and the Socialist Group in the European Parliament have worked on.
So well done Poul. I’m sat in Porto like this in large part thanks to him. It was his determination to get PES Activists running that allows me to even be here and write this. Let’s hope that in 2 years time, with more work from Rasmussen, PES Activists is even stronger, even better. -
Royal in Porto: the anglophone press doesn't care - 08-12-2006 11:52:55 - Only logged activists can post a comment, please sign in or register here
A quick check of Google News this morning maybe explains why Ségolène Royal's speech yesterday was 100% in French. Searching Google News - French Version - for 'Ségolène Royal' gives more than 20 articles about her speech in Porto, with titles such as 'Ségolène Royal ovationnée au Portugal' - do the search here . Compare that to the English version of Google news - not a single article appears. Try the search here . Trying a search for PES Porto or PES Congress in Google News does not give any better results.
Beyond that, the blogosphere is not really buzzing with debate about the Congress - my posts here are the only ones listed in Technorati and Google Blogsearch . -
Party politics: what's going on in Poland? - 07-12-2006 18:39:29 - Only logged activists can post a comment, please sign in or register here
The Polish government has been roundly criticised for its stance on a number of EU issues recently - the veto of the EU-Russia Treaty for example. I had perhaps naively assumed that the problems stemmed largely from the positions of the Law & Justice Party that is currently predominant in Warsaw, or at least those on the right of Polish politics.
However, while sat here at the PES Activists’ introductory meeting earlier on, it became clear that the euroscepticism is more all-pervasive in and systematised in Polish politics. It is currently impossible for any non-Polish citizen to join any Polish political party - it is prohibited by law! This is absolutely ludicrous. I wonder whether this is in any way contrary to European law? Or have parties been so scared about European integration that party politics has somehow managed to escape the rules that apply to everything else? Can someone enlighten me in the comments? Perhaps the PES should work to do something to right these sorts of anomalies. -
Royal’s speech needs polish, and some better policies too - 07-12-2006 17:33:20 - Only logged activists can post a comment, please sign in or register here
Somehow the hopes of a continent’s Social Democrats seem to be embodied by Ségolène Royal. She gives a reason for hope that somehow a different politics is possible, that the French PS can emerge from the shadows, that the centre-left can re-assume its place as the predominant political family in Europe. There’s a hope that somehow she can replace Blair as the darling of the left, a vacuum left since the Third Way / Neue Mitte euphoria of the late 1990s.
Yet from my standpoint, Royal’s speech was disappointing, not least in terms of the way it was delivered. Royal was clearly reading throughout, and her style of delivery was rather flat.
Then there is the issue of what was said. There were only 2 ‘policies’ that really struck me in Royal’s speech. The first was an idea that PES leaders should agree a political delcaration before each European Council, as an important political statement of intent; probably not really a major step forward.
The second suggestion was that more political control is needed over the policies of the European Central Bank. I wonder what the German SPD representatives here - brought up in the era of Bundesbank independence - would have made of that?
Last but not least, Royal was the only main speaker not to utter a single word in their non-native language, and she also made no reference to the presence of Howard Dean in the audience, something that both Poul and José had mentioned. Strategically that might be the right approach for French politics, yet in the context of this Congress it feels a little out of place. -
Technical Issues - 07-12-2006 15:20:25 - Only logged activists can post a comment, please sign in or register here
So much for citizen journalism. So much for the Lisbon Process that Europe should be the world's most dynamic knowledge-based economy by 2010. In short, it is proving quite hard to blog from the Congress here. I can manage to get an unreliable WLAN connection in the room with the display stands, yet in the seminar rooms and main conference hall there's only a password-protected PES network to which I have been given no access. There are plenty of things that I would like to report, but the technology is letting me down at present.
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First impressions of the Congress: materials, wine and smoking - 07-12-2006 13:46:50 - Only logged activists can post a comment, please sign in or register here
I'm now sat writing from the Alfandega conference centre - a sprawling old building beside the Douro river. Clearly plenty of cash has been spent on this Congress - huge banners and signs are to be found at every corner.
The Delegate Bags are no exception; they come complete with a PES mousemat, pin, and fridge magnet. Oh, and masses of papers too. One report alone is around 100 pages - does anyone really expect us to read that? Perhaps its a statutory obligation that I am unaware of, but it's the total quantity of paper we receive is a bit worrying. Furthermore, the nylon delegate bags don't have any maker's label inside - what is the origin of these, and have they been produced sustainably?
I also have two further first impressions of note. There's a stall selling wine in the Congress stalls hall, and I don't ever recall seeing one of those at any similar events previously. Second, people are smoking everywhere in the venue. Such an approach would be socially unacceptable in most countries in Northern Europe now. -
I wish it wouldn’t rain down - 07-12-2006 12:46:30 - Only logged activists can post a comment, please sign in or register here
It’s 9.30 on the first day of the congress. Only I’m not there yet. I’m sat in café beside the River Douro, escaping the driving rain. However the café has a whole Phil Collins CD playing, and the track that’s just been playing was “I Wish It Would Rain Down” – very suitable I think.
Look on the bright side though: if the weather is bad outside there’s no incentive to leave the conference centre, so it should create a positive atmosphere. Or maybe I’m just looking for something optimistic to write to take my mind off the fact that my trousers are wet through due to the rain. -
Blogging: real citizen journalism - 07-12-2006 12:28:32 - Only logged activists can post a comment, please sign in or register here
Part of my task as a blogger at the PES Congress is to demystify what is going on there for those that are unable to be present on the spot. Yet it’s also worth spending a moment to demystify the very process of writing the blog and keeping it up to date.
The technology is all quite mainstream. I have an Apple Powerbook laptop (although any laptop PC would do just fine), and any photos appearing here are taken using my Sony Ericsson K750i camera phone . I then download the photos via a Bluetooth wireless connection, and edit them with Adobe Photoshop (although any free image editing software will do the job – try GIMP for example).
I then connect to the internet using a wireless internet connection (WLAN) at my hotel or at the conference centre, and use 2 pieces of freely-available software to publish the blog – Joomla for the PES website, and Wordpress for my own blog.
Blogging is an increasingly important means of political communication, and the technology is readily available – so what are you waiting for? If you have any questions about the technology, please post them here and I’ll be happy to give some answers where I can. -
Trains, planes and the ethics of travel - 07-12-2006 12:21:04 - Only logged activists can post a comment, please sign in or register here
There’s no other sensible way to get from London to Porto than to fly; I’m afraid I don’t have the time or the money to take the train via Paris and Madrid. But the economics of my trip to Porto are both interesting and quite scary.
First of all, the return train ticket from central London to Stansted Airport with the Stansted Express costs £16.50 (26 Euro), and that’s even with a Young Person’s reduction; the standard return is £25 (40 Euro). It’s not even as if the airport train is a premium service.
Then the plane ticket from London to Porto with Ryanair cost the sum total of £1.39 (2 Euro) for a single ticket, and £18.92 (30 Euro) including taxes and charges, only a fraction more than the return rail ticket. Even with Gordon Brown’s announcement yesterday that the airline passenger levy in the UK will double, it’s ludicrous that a 1300km flight in an aircraft pumping out carbon dioxide can cost so little. I wonder what the PES might do to offset the environmental cost of their Congress?
On the other hand, liberalisation of airfares and the opportunities for free movement that has offered to Europeans must count as one of the main achievements of European integration.
Further, for the ethical among you, there’s the additional question: should I even be flying with a company like Ryanair in the first place? They have caused consternation among Swedish Social Democrats due to disputes with trade unions, and have been criticised for denying disabled passengers access to a free wheelchair service. Yet on the other hand, I’m meeting the complete cost of my trip to Porto from my own pocket and hence it’s in my interests to economise as much as possible; one might argue that even the cost of a Ryanair flight may have denied attendance for some potential activists.
(There are also images for each entry, but the PES system blocks those - see blog.jonworth.eu for the photos of the event.) -
Football or Politics in Porto this week - 03-12-2006 20:13:27 - Only logged activists can post a comment, please sign in or register here
I will be one of a very large number of Europeans leaving London and heading to Porto on Wednesday this week. The reason most will be flying there: this Wednesday’s Champions League football group match between Porto and Arsenal . It’s the most normal thing for thousands of football fans to do: travelling across Europe to follow their team. Furthermore, many Champions League teams are microcosms of European integration; where would Arsenal be without Thierry Henry or Freddie Ljungberg?
Yet in politics we’re a long way behind. Very few Europeans of different nationalities have ever really succeeded in the political system of another Member State. It’s not even possible to vote in national elections elsewhere; not really a level playing field.
I’ve personally been at the forefront of efforts to do something about this issue, most notably through work with the Swedish Social Democrats (SSU Stockholms-län) to arrange exchanges of activists for general election campaigns in the UK in 2005 and Sweden in 2006. We need initiatives like this for every election in every country.
That’s what makes attendance at the PES Congress so exciting; it’s the first time that activists have been welcomed there, making the Congress something more than a meeting of the top officials of all the PES member parties.
I don’t think any of us PES Activists are quite sure what awaits us in Porto. Yet we will all be full of energy and ideas, and I’ll be posting as many of my observations on this blog over the next week to allow those unable to attend to get a flavour of the event. I look forward to plenty of comments and a lively debate!
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