PES in Porto: the view from the Congress floor

• 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.

   

• comment(s):

  • Rita Bento - 11-12-2006 21:38:38

    Hi Jonathan and all of you who read this.
    
    Unfortunatelly I was not able to go to that fringe meeting so I can't really comment on those ideas but I do think it is possible for us to become more rooted as a fraction of the PES. I am sure all the PES activists are commited to do so. Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe this initiative is quite young so maybe we can "transit" into something more permanent and solid...
    

  • Jonathan Worth - 11-12-2006 10:45:45

    Sorry for the slow reply - I'm finally back in London!
    
    In reply to Valerie - yes, I was there are the fringe meeting too. Plenty of ideas, but a lack of coherency among those. A lot of what I wrote here was as a result of reflections from that fringe meeting - these are things I would have said if I had had the chance to speak from the audience. Don't get me wrong - I think PES Activists is an excellent initiative. But it feels a bit temporary, transitive at the moment, and it's the responsibility of each of us to do something about that.
    
    In reply to Rita and Carl - thanks for the comments. I know that the Labour Party in the UK has quite a tricky relationship with the PES. Perhaps that's why I am a bit confused here - as a Labour Party member committed to the PES as well it's hard to know how quite where to stand.

  • Valerie Rabault - 10-12-2006 19:05:05

    Dear all
    
    I do not totally agree with what has been written about activists' role within the PES. For the first time in the PES story, we were firstly invited at the PES congress and secondly we have had the opportunity to have our own fringe session: "how to promote PES activists".
    
    This fringe session was attended by around 60 activists from 5/6 countries. There was debate about how we should / could organise, what could be our rights within the PES, how we could contribute to ideas. I am writing the minutes of this fringe session (I already put some comments on my blog, but this is in French). http://sortir-impasse.blogspot.com/2006/12/congrs-du-pse-acte-3-une-nouvelle.html
    

  • Rita Bento - 09-12-2006 22:57:57

    Hi! I totally agree with your post and I think that we as activists and with all the motivation we have (because that was in great part what took us to Porto) are capable of working hard to achieve great results specially among people outside the Socialist Party Family. I think it is fair to say we are actually the "connectors". By working close to those close to us, family and friends or just people from our comunity, we'll be able to take the messages further. Because people are the factor that make the world spin and no matter how many top politicians say they are working hard to make policies that will make a New Social Europe, If those that will truly deliever and reinforce those policies are not willing to do so then we're stuck. So, I'm sure that we will be capable to organize ourselfs and work together to help. :)

  • Carl Rowlands - 09-12-2006 21:34:34

    Hi Jonathan, all very interesting and no doubt there is very much truth in what you say. From what I see as a new member of PES activists, the individual member parties in the PES often have very difficult domestic situations to deal with and there doesn't seem to be too much of a consensus on how to proceed. For example, many countries in Eastern Europe seem to have very weak trade unions and the political parties don't have to take them seriously as societal actors. In France and Spain, obviously the situation is different.
    
    When and if the gaps between the constituents of PES narrow I would imagine that there could be a huge general upsurge of interest in becoming involved at an EU level.
    
    In the meantime, I'm impressed that the leadership of the PES is taking the Activist idea forward and think it shows a genuine commitment.
    
    Having observed the usual format of formal debate in Brussels I can only think that we need our own congresses/festivals/parties in order to introduce some energy into the proceedings. Just an idea...

   

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