Not only the supporters’network is searching for its raison d’etre and role in European politics. The PES activists will discuss their role in the Party of European Socialists (PES) during the PES Congress in Prague on December 7 and 8. How have they been organised so far and how do they envisage their future?

The PES activists were founded in 2006. Every member of a national party is automatically a member of the PES. By registering with PES a member can become a PES activist. Activists are allowed to attend PES meetings as an individual, but they have no voting rights. PES offers information tools and campaign materials to support its program. On the local and national level PES activists try to promote the debate on European issues.

Dilemmas

During a meeting in Dublin the PES activists discussed their future role. An important dilemma for them is to show the national parties that they are an added value and not a threat. Obtaining a formal role within the European party would be a good way to secure their current activities and extend them even. Communicating activists’ achievements is vital to showing the added value they have.

These coming two days the future role of the PES Activists within the party will be discussed. You can follow the PES congress live on their website. Read an extensive summary of their discussion in Dublin here. Here are two examples of the activities of two PES activists blogs (http://www.eurosocialist.eu and http://www.jonworth.eu)

Update: PES activists are now mentioned in the PES Statutes.

I felt uncomfortable.

Horse trading

Sure, when the Wall crumbled down and the Iron Fence was torn, one important barrier to a unified Europe was removed. But many remain. Among the most tough ones are those within the political system. Even the Green parties, the most outspoken advocates of Europeanism, are basically national – as they prove time and again in EGP, the European Green Party that, in fact, still is a Federation. In that party, national party interests prevail and the same games of power and horse trading are played as in the European meetings of Heads of State.

European back door

How difficult it is to change these nationalist reflexes, I found out when I joined a group of grassroots (and not real grassroots) Greens that launched an initiative to counterbalance this European Party of Parties by a Party of People. We managed to create an official status for European activists – the Individual Supportership, but the supporters’ rights had to be limited in many ways to take away national party fears: supporters don’t have the right to vote, and they have to register through national parties so all possibilities that political enemies join through the European back door are eliminated.

Still, only 4 parties have started to register people and no single party actively encourages the scheme. And it took the party delegates over seven years to accept our initiative as the part of the EGP, and only on the condition that one third of the team would be nominated by the EGP executive.

To merge or Not to merge

Tomorrow we’ll decide, at least in principle, if we can go along with our merging. If it means that our original ideal – a borderless Europe of citizens, starting in the Green parties, is the price to pay for a structural role, I find that price too high and will opt for a space of our own – because we cannot expect from the EGP executive members in our board to go along with an ideal that part of the EGP members hasn’t even started to think about.

A Thousand flags

But another problem has to be tackled, that of how that borderless European party should be built. Some believe in what I call a ‘centrist’ model, in which the EGP is the centre of gravity, just like the European Union should be the centre of gravity to build a borderless Europe from – the Europe of the European flag and anthem. Others believe in a ‘decentralised’ development in which, facilitated by fading borders, all sorts of cross border links grow, not only vertical links between citizens and Brussels/Strasbourg but also horizontal ones between citizens of different nations, and in which the initiatives are not only top down but also bottom up ad crisscross, and in which there is no big stately flag to replace the national symbols, but in which a thousand flags float in unison.

Both models are represented in our group. In a couple of hours we’ll find out which prevails.

by Lin Tabak

Purposes of the Network:

Mentioned here because some participants are new to the issue)

* Offer grassroots members of Green parties a European platform for common action and the exchange of experiences and views

* Facilitate cross border cooperation and action, both Europe wide and on a regional and local scale,

* By doing so give European Green politics a stronger basis in (Green) society

Priorities

As part of the EGP structures the Network has a unique opportunity to enlarge its scope in many ways. Identifying priorities and working methodically from what we have is called for now

• Parties:

-   Expand, together with EGP and Green Group in the European Parliament, the number of parties that implement the individual supportership and encourage it.

-   Write a set of guidelines for parties that consider inmplementing the individual supportership, containing information about rules & structures – who decides about membership, contact persons, settling within the EGP etc. – and about best practices of and tools for the work of the individual supporters.

• Grassroots members:

-   Reach out to them, offering concrete participation projects and space to propose their own ideas

-   Develop a model structure or guidelines for supporter networks in parties

-   Turn electronic communication tools into platforms of interactive exchange.

-

Activities

The existing ones: • annual ‘Heerlen’ meetings, • Supporters on Tour, • site & newsletter, • cross border campaign & participation, will be improved.

• Cross border cooperation:

An explanation proved useful. Such cooperations are in most cases not ORGANISED by the supporters’ Network – local and regional Greens are at the core – but encouraged or facilitated by it. The Network puts best practices online, collects useful dos and don’ts, and may help to establish contacts. Some good examples were provided by Alexandra Medwedeff (Austrian Greens): they regularly organise a cross border action on topics that ‘concern not only our country but also South Tyrol (Italy) and Bavaria (Germany), like the plans for the Brenner Basis tunnel, or a power plant at the border of Bavaria, Tyrol and Vorarlberg. Those actions are organised on a political level and generally initiated by a general secretary or politicians from the regional parliaments, but usually activists also take part.

• Contribute to a Green European citizens’ initiative as soon as the Lisbon Treaty  comes into force

This suggestion from the Round Table in Brussels, was received with enthusiasm. Includes helping to identify an issue that ‘works’ in a maximum of member states, collect signatures, maybe organise local debates.

• New suggestion:

Help to fill a new web tool on best local practices, launched by the Vienna Greens and linked to the ‘Greens in Big Cities’ initiative. At the moment only a test front page and an example from Vienna are available.

Network Team

Kristien Lesage has to stop because of lack of time. Annette Muggenthaler and Rafael Font will look for replacement from the Hondarribia initiative.

Picture: Remco van der Stoep (GroenLinks), the first ever candidate for the EGP committee presenting himself as an individual supporter. He didn’t get elected because a party mate, Jacqueline Cremers, was elected secretary general.

Jean LAMBERT: No, I am not cautious on that. I think that’s very important, that people who feel they’ve a European identity, who want to work across borders, can express themselves as individual members of a EGP. That’s not to say they make all the decisions, but it’s to say they want to demonstrate an active engagement and to really be involved in creating a new European politics.

G.Sch: The EGP’s paper on „The future of Europe“ contains frequent criticism of what appears as a deficit of democracy in the EU’s institutional life. But has this supposedly first real European Party herself really come to life yet, or is it still rather just one more of those good old European federations of many national parties?

Jean LAMBERT: I think it’s important that Greens find a way to practice what they preach, about democracy, about involvement. And also that when you are making decisions you consult with the people who are going to be affected by your decisions, and obviously as party members of Green Parties, we ARE affected by the decisions our party leadership takes at the international level. So we need to be consulted, we need to be part of that decision-making process. If what we are really creating is a Green politics which has depth, not just an identity on a poster, but which has a living reality that we feel part of as Green members, than you realize why it’s important to really begin to develop this individual membership.

G.Sch: Without such a drive towards individual membership, what would be lost in your view?

Jean LAMBERT: I suppose the spirit of the Greens which comes from the grass-roots up to the center. Yes, leadership IS important. But it’s also important to involve those who are implicated in that leadership. For me as a Green MEP it is important to give a depth to Green politics, to really make it live as a reality throughout Europe, with a European dimension, not simply through our national party boards. We don’t think this is the way it should happen for the EU. I don’t think it’s the way it should happen for our party.

(verbatim transcript of an interview recorded on dvd at The Herleen Group’s fringe meeting on individual supportership at the 2nd EGP Congress Geneva on the 13th October 2006)

At the moment EU parties are banned from entering the national political fray at European election time, meaning that although the vote is about electing over 700 MEPs to the Brussels assembly, it tends to be fought as 27 national election campaigns with candidates made or broken on domestic issues.
The new rules will also allow parties to have a financial surplus at the end of the year and build up small financial reserves, they also foresee over €1 million to establish political foundations – providing an extra forum for political debate and research.
According to Margot Wallstrom, the commissioner tasked with bringing Brussels closer to citizens, it needs to be made clear that citizens’ “political choice matters and that their active involvement on European issues has a direct bearing on their everyday lives.”
The plans have been generally welcomed in the European Parliament, where MEPs experience first hand the political vacuum between national and European level politics.
UK liberal MEP Andrew Duff says “party political foundations at the EU level are going to be a key element in developing political thought and sharpening debate with a European dimension.”
“I think the European parties have to be more present to create a trans-national debate,” says German socialist MEP Jo Leinen, in charge of this dossier in the parliament.

Read more in the EU Observer