A Party in Search of an Identity and a Role
The Confederation of the Socialist Parties of the European Community (CPS), founded in 1974, succeeded the Liaison Bureau of the Socialist Parties of the EC, and was intended to be an ambitious organizational response to the relaunch of the communitarian dynamic at the time. But despite its transnational aims, the Confederation – also referred to by its French name, Union – marked a sharp decline in co-operation between European socialists. Handicapped by the arrival of new, rather Eurosceptical members (British, Dutch, Irish),1 by the left turn of others (the French), and by the national introversion of nearly all its members (connected with the onset of the economic crisis and the ‘territorial instinct’ this induced), socialists were not able to direct the process of constructing the European Community. Moreover, particularly during the 1970s, they gave the impression of a deeply divided political family, with an uncertain ‘European’ commitment. For the Confederation of the 1970s and 1980s the supranational aim was merely rhetorical, without any real impact either on the programmatic objectives or on the life and structures of the organization. In effect, as Guillaume Devin put it: ‘rather than a renewal, the creation of the Confederation instead marked a peak’.2
The creation of the Party of European Socialists (PES) in November 1992, on the initiative of the Socialist group in the European Parliament, represented a new step in the process of co-operation between the Community’s socialists. Its promoters’ clearly stated objective was to create ‘a political instrument allowing socialist bodies to exercise a decisive influence in the European Community’,3 by moving towards the creation of a ‘genuine party’.
Nearly a decade after the creation of the PES, we can draw up an initial balance sheet of European socialist co-operation.4 This balance sheet is ‘positive overall’. It suffers, however, from significant weaknesses that are very revealing about the limits of any transnational party activity at the European level.
1.Compared with the stagnation of the preceding period, the PES has contributed to the rejuvenation, reorganization and deepening of cooperation within European socialism. A more homogeneous party than the Confederation, today it is more than a simple framework for cooperation, more than a liaison structure, more than a round-table organization. The PES has established itself, and has gradually been recognized, as the undisputed organizational centre of socialist co-ordination at EU level, imparting a new dynamic to social-democratic regional ‘integration’.
2.The political influence of the PES has increased (notably through the Leaders’ Conference), and its authority is more clearly asserted and consolidated at the European level (see below). Today, the PES is more coherent and better equipped than the European People’s Party (EPP), its eternal partner-opponent, to conduct ‘effective’ action within European institutions. The new strategy of ‘numerical preponderance’ adopted by the EPP (the desire to encompass the maximum number of national parties in order to optimize its influence) has put a question mark against its traditional coherence and ‘federalist’ capacity.5 Faced with this development, the socialists pride themselves today on being – after their failure at the 1999 European elections – the ‘premier group’ (!) in the European Parliament, stressing that their numerical inferiority is largely compensated by their greater political homogeneity. Contemporary socialists no longer ‘lag behind integration’.6
3.However, the organizational and logistical infrastructure of the PES was and remains very slight, which is an index of the party’s weak institutionalization. The size of its ‘professional’ staff is fairly stagnant, despite a small reinforcement since 1992, the year the party was founded.7 The secretariat is limited and overly dependent on the parliamentary group, both in financial terms and as regards recruitment of personnel.
4.The Bureau, political organ par excellence, which – according to the statutes – is supposed to implement Congress decisions and decide on political orientations in the intervals between Congress meetings, in reality performs this role only very partially. Its activity is largely devoted to administrative questions and co-ordination (despite an increased ‘politicization’ in the last two or three years); and it is not greatly concerned with questions of general policy. It is rare for the Bureau, responsible for the political line, to make declarations of general import. It is also rare for it to intervene in the everyday political life of the EU. This patent lack of political energy and dynamism reveals the uncertain situation of the PES – and of all the Europarties – and assumes an eminently political significance: exactly like the party, the Bureau is a body without a clearly defined role. If its activity does not follow European political life, this is because the PES does not form part – except in a marginal or interim manner – of this political life, which is itself weakly structured. There is no political demand, either from the institutional system of the Union or European populations, to elicit a supply, prompting the Bureau – that is, the party – continually to assert itself as an influential, decision-making body. From this viewpoint, the largely ‘administrative’ activity of the Bureau is eminently political, and should be treated as such.
5.In the Congress – the party’s highest assembly, convened every two years according to the constitution – everything – or nearly everything – is settled in advance; everything – or nearly everything – is played out in advance. The culture of majorities and oppositions, constitutive of traditional modes of representation, is practically absent from this great media circus. Basically, what is missing is a principle of European, and potentially supranational, legitimation superior to the national principle, which is commonly accepted and currently dominant.8 In this sense the operation of the congresses is indicative of the contradictory character – and all the ambiguity – of the PES, which is constructed on a transnational ambition whose legitimation nevertheless appears problematic even in the eyes of the agents promoting it. In the PES, conflict (‘vexed questions’) is almost systematically repressed or deferred; this is the sign of an ‘immature’ transnational construct.9
6.The party exerts only a marginal influence on the elites of the national parties, as it does on the national delegations within its parliamentary group. The PES has not contributed to the creation of a ‘European space of socialist activism’ either. Ordinary members of the national parties do not feel that they belong to an organizational arena extending beyond national borders. Symmetrically, contacts in the PES occur in the intimacy of a narrow circle, often restricted to the ‘international affairs’ specialists of the national parties (the ‘internationalism of the functionaries’, in the words of the Catalan socialist Raimon Obiols).10 Thus, the PES remains an ‘elite exercise’;11 closed in on itself, it has not found the ‘openings’ to associate socialist activists extra muros in its proceedings. In practice, the quasi-totality of adherents of the member parties (national elites included) do not form part of its life, and it does not form part of their universe. Like the other transnational parties, the PES acts largely in isolation: it has no direct organizational contact with European societies.12
7.The PES is barely capable of supervising its parliamentary group (which, according to the statutes, is a fully fledged member of the PES), and of genuinely guiding its daily political options. Like the other groups, the socialist group, assured of the ‘structuring support’ of the parliamentary institution (Guillaume Devin), represents the most ‘integrated’ element within the European socialist family. In addition, it is equipped – and obliged – to handle a much higher volume of business than the party can deal with. Thanks to its position in the European Parliament, it is distinguished by its functional superiority relative to the party.13 Moreover, within the Parliament dilution of the ‘partisan treatment of certain questions’,14 and operation by the conjunction of centres, favours the group’s independence. That said, the trend is towards better co-ordination and a strengthening of exchanges. On the ‘major questions’ and political options, the PES seems currently better placed to influence the positions adopted by socialist parliamentarians, notably through increased contact and collaboration between the president of the group and the leading party organizations.15 In addition, ‘party spirit’ – the sense of belonging to the same transnational organization – is growing ever stronger.16
The Apex of the Contradictions: Socialist Summit Meetings
Within the EU’s ‘institutional triangle’, the Council of Ministers is simultaneously the principal component of the ‘community legislator’ and one of the constitutive elements of its ‘executive’.17 Thus, despite the recent strengthening of the Parliament, endowed with joint decision-making power in some spheres, the Council remains the focal institutional site and privileged locus of decision-making. It is therefore not surprising if the European parties tend to concentrate their efforts on influencing this privileged instance of the exercise of power. ‘Parties will go where the power is,’ Simon Hix has written, ‘and in the EU, decisional power rests with the European Council and not the European Parliament.’18
As a result, socialist summit meetings, in the form either of the party leaders’ conference, or especially the summit of socialist heads of state and government (pre-Council meetings), assume a particular importance. In fact, summit conferences are becoming a galvanizing element in the revitalization of the Europarties, and particularly the PES, which takes considerable advantage of the fact that the majority of government leaders in Europe are socialists.
Meetings between socialist leaders date back to the 1970s, but the Party Leaders’ Conference became an organ of the party, recognized as such in the statutes, only in 1992. The figures indicate that the meeting of these ‘conclaves’, which was irregular, episodic and occasional in the 1970s and 1980s, became regular and sustained in the 1990s.19 The uninterrupted functioning of these summits is indicative of the path followed in relation to the Confederation, and clearly indicates the trend towards increased cooperation in European socialism. Occasions for negotiating, elaborating points of view, and resolving conflicts, they contribute to the creation of an ‘ethos’ of co-operation at the highest level, as well as to a certain ‘Europeanization’ of the left/right divide. This generates an undoubted ‘integrationist effect’. In addition, these meetings (prepared by groups of experts including representatives of the PES) are usually followed by a press conference, which – thanks to the presence of prominent personalities – enhances the party’s visibility among the European publics.
But the most important contribution of these summits, particularly the summit of the heads of state and government, is the influence they exert on the Council’s agenda, and thus on decision-taking within the EU.20 The PES can now say, as claimed by the SPD’s slogan for the 1979 European elections, ‘Our word counts in Europe’.21 The party – finally! – is acquiring the status of a community-wide political interlocutor. In visible – though scarcely institutional – fashion, it is becoming a back-door partner in the process of integration. This is a development whose significance should not be underestimated, even if the ‘back-door’ character of the partnership (consisting in initiatives that do not always leave a written trace) resists systematic analysis.
Nevertheless, the importance and integrationist effects of this ‘functioning by summits’ must be qualified. The heads of national parties and governments act solely in their capacity as national leaders (their legitimation deriving exclusively from their position on the national political scene), not as ‘bearers’ or ‘vehicles’ of a European socialist identity. No doubt the participation of representatives of the PES, particularly the presidents of the PES and the parliamentary group (as well as, by invitation, socialist commissioners), adds a European and supranational touch to these conclaves of an intergovernmental type. But it cannot offset the ‘superiority’ possessed by the national heads in terms of authority and legitimacy. Thus it cannot be the spearhead of a supranational logic. Without lingering too long over personal destinies that we know to be very different, we are obliged to observe that the balance of influence, bound up with the role of personalities, operates to the detriment of the presidents of the PES and the parliamentary group. Since they face leaders with high celebrity status, personal capital and ‘delegated’ capital (attributable to the weight of the country represented by a premier), the capacity of the PES’s representatives to convert their arguments at socialist summits into decisions and deeds is not very strong.22
In reality, the summit meetings have nothing very supranational about them, because when it comes to their composition and operation (equal representation of parties, practice of unanimity, and hence reduced decisional autonomy), they inevitably tend to push national parties (and leaders) to the forefront, accentuating their primacy in the PES. This yields the following paradoxical result. Summit meetings highlight the PES and enhance its visibility as a Europarty; at the same time they doubly devalue it: as a structure with a supranational design (by reinforcing intergovernmental logic within it), and as a structure tout court. In the latter respect, it is interesting to note that the leaders’ authority, and the legitimation of this authority, is totally independent of their participation in the organizational life of the PES (which is nonexistent). The importance assumed by summit conferences confirms the preponderance of a body that is largely ‘external’ to the organization of the PES. This quasi-superimposed body acts in the name of the party – and nominally forms part of the party – but in reality, in the absence of an organizational foundation, it possesses very considerable autonomy in relation to it. Armed with a collective authorization linked to their national pedigree, the leaders supervise the edifice called the ‘PES’ from on high and – virtually – from without, largely substituting themselves for the collective organization.23
In sum, if meetings between leaders represent an important step forward in socialist co-operation, and an accelerator indicating increased co-operation, they are also a step backward, since they indicate growing ‘intergovernmentalism’, as well as a certain depreciation of the PES as a system of collective action. With the plethora of summits, the party is in reality adopting a presidential style with ‘several heads’.24 Contrary to the view of some analysts, I do not believe that summit meetings can assume the role of an engine of integration, breaking through the institutional weakness of the Europarties and their weak identity.
The Network Operation of a Weak Integrationist Institution
That said, it remains the case that the influence of the PES has grown since 1992, thanks to the leaders’ meeting. This is a real advance in co-operation between European socialists, an advance also for the PES’s self-assertion within – or rather, alongside – the EU’s decision-making instances. However, this ‘tangential’ and ‘back-door’ aspect makes the PES less an authentic party, even sui generis, and more of a ‘proto-party’, this term indicating a limited, even elliptical and highly incomplete, partisan profile.25 Unable to perform the traditional functions of a genuine political party, this protoparty – provisionally? – performs various functions of co-ordination, advice and pressure.
Basically, the PES operates in large part as a political network, whose influence is bound up with the set of connections and contacts it is in a position to make.26 The PES is unintelligible outside the relations that are formed, on the one hand, between the party’s instances and elites and, on the other, between the men and women who occupy positions of power and influence within the EU and national parties. These relations are either interpersonal27 or institutional and semi-institutional relations,28 or – most frequently – a combination of the two. The links thus established, whether institutionalized or not, are channels of influence and pressure that enhance the party’s European capacity (i.e. its ability to influence decisions about European construction), whether direct or back-door. Operating via networks is, in addition, considerably encouraged by the fact that the boundaries delimiting the prerogatives of the three components of the European institutional triangle do not correspond to the classical model of the separation of powers. Thus, an important aspect of the PES’s consolidation derives from the fact that the links it can make have tightened significantly over the last few years. The PES is a structure that is progressively and discreetly strengthening its penetration of the institutional fabric of the EU through its active presence.
The PES and the 1999 European Elections29
While the PES has made its presence felt more among the EU’s institutional elites, acquiring a certain ‘obviousness’ and ‘visibility’ (if only via the ambiguous path of the socialist summits), the threshold of visibility has not as yet been crossed within European societies – far from it. The presence of the PES (as of all the Europarties) in the national media is marginal (albeit markedly stronger than in the past), and its influence on the political life of EU countries virtually nonexistent. The PES does not as yet possess the image and recognition of a real actor in European public opinion. It is thus virtually incapable of attracting media attention and mobilizing support (‘identitative’ or ‘systemic’) on European questions.30 Its visibility remains too low even during campaigns for the European elections. The elections of 1999 largely confirmed this.
The Manifesto
The PES manifesto for the June 1999 elections was prepared – a ‘reassuring’ enterprise or strange irony of fate? – under the responsibility of the Briton Robin Cook and the Frenchman Henri Nallet. Adopted by the Milan Congress (1 March 1999), this manifesto was structured around four major themes (‘a Europe of jobs and growth, a Europe that puts citizens first, a strong Europe, a democratic Union that works better’), and offered ‘21 commitments’. The manifesto’s ideological orientation (fruit of a laborious compromise) reflects the ideological and programmatic orientations of contemporary social democracy. It is, however, closer to ‘continental’ social democracy, and themes dear to the left (creating employment, striving for growth, promoting social Europe) are prioritized in the PES’s objectives. An attachment to some classically social-democratic values and, above all, its tone distinguish this manifesto both from various British formulations and from the EPP’s manifesto which, while invoking Christian ‘personalism’, was much closer to the logic of the market.
The text directly takes its place in the long tradition of Europarties (of every political complexion) producing documents ‘which are … bland, offering little more than platitudes … [and] little in the way of hard policy proposals’.31 Written in very general terms that blur its European message, the socialist programme in reality contains no concrete commitments. Any issues that might give rise to disagreement (e.g. concrete measures to promote employment, reform of the European budget, reform of European institutions, enlargement) are either evaded, or invariably dealt with in extremely vague terms.
Thus, in the consensual logic that governed its composition, this document is no different from other manifestos adopted in the past either by the PES, or by the Union. Gilbert Germain has written:
The fact that the procedure for finalizing such programmes obliges the representatives of the member parties, in the framework of the programme commissions initiated by the Federations, to compare viewpoints, to understand each other’s positions on certain specific issues better, and to search for a consensual basis acceptable to all (even if it is a lowest common denominator), already seems to us to be a determining factor in the evolution of political families towards greater cohesion at a European level, in both conceptual and practical terms.32
Certainly, compared with the Confederation’s failure to present a joint manifesto for the 1979 elections (it confined itself to a simple ‘Appeal to Voters’), the production of the manifesto for the 1999 elections indicates that a considerable ‘consensual basis’ exists in today’s PES. It is even growing continuously. But this basis is weak. And it will remain so as long as the process of finalizing programmes is marked by the same profound contradiction. As Germain has rightly emphasized, the programme is the quintessential medium of debate among socialists, and a way of developing greater cohesion. Yet at the same time, it is the quintessential instrument for ‘fudged consensus’ and, consequently, for restricting debate. This inevitably produces superficial cohesion. The persistent production of programmatic documents based on the lowest common denominator demonstrates the great distance that remains to be covered before any real cohesion exists within socialism in Europe.
Moreover, minimalist programmes cannot be transformed into instruments of action. Given the overly general character of the commitments made, it seems to me natural that the last PES manifesto, just like previous ones, did not become the political instrument, if only verbally, of an authentically European campaign. Programmatic formulations with weak doctrinal and practical impact are not the kind of thing that genuinely encourages the electoral activity of the member parties – something that was demonstrated once again in June 1999.33
Basically, the national socialist parties, and with them the PES, find themselves in a doubly impossible situation: bound by a programme with strong commitments, they are equally bound by a programme whose commitments are too feeble. In addition, they cannot escape this dual impossibility (which in reality is a problem of identity) by defining a halfway position. Despite the growing ideological convergence in European socialism, identifying a middle way between an ‘extensive’ programme (which alone provides a basis for consensus) and an ‘intensive’ programme (which renders that consensus difficult to achieve) is a procedure that has yet to find adequate modes of elaboration.
‘With regard to future electoral statements,’ wrote Axel Hanisch, former PES general secretary, in 1995, ‘the PES might pose the following questions: how far should we push the pursuit of joint statements and thus often the lowest common denominator? Wouldn’t setting the views of certain isolated parties to one side lead to the expression of firmer political electoral objectives?’34 These questions, posed after the 1994 elections, retain all their topicality in the wake of those of 1999. They demonstrate that the process of achieving ‘integrated’ programmes is slow – slower than some optimistic observers envisaged. There are two reasons for this. First of all, the absence of ‘integrated’ programmes directly corresponds to the PES’s weak internal ‘integration’: we are dealing with a game of mirrors. Next, it is based on ‘institutional’ freedom. As long as the Europarties do not have to direct a governmental system, they can allow themselves to privilege the unity of their organization, and hence to be imprecise, incoherent, and flexible in formulating their policies, and ‘permissive’ as regards the ‘commitments’ they make. Since the ‘logic of influence’, which presupposes effective transnational construction, is weak, the ‘logic of membership’ prevails.35 Thus, for want of institutional power and significant influence, consensus is privileged. Decision-making based on consensus is of very limited ‘integrationist’ value and impact.
The Network Europe Group
Created in 1998, the Network Europe group responded to the PES’s wish to rejuvenate its ideas and experiment with new, more inventive forms of joint work. Network Europe assigned itself the objective of bringing a new dynamism to the communications activities, internal and external, of the PES and its group in the European Parliament. The clearly stated ambition of this communications network, probably inspired by the effectiveness of the British Labour Party’s communications structure, was ‘to be the best’.36 ‘We, Network Europe,’ they declared,
will be a dynamic and innovative team.… It is our task to add value to the information and communication activities within the European socialist family. Therefore we want to:
–Make the group more visible
–Make the members more visible
–Turn the discussions on European issues from a top and bureaucratic phenomenon to a relevant issue among the citizens of Europe.…37
Network Europe proceeded to create three working groups: Polling Network, Media Network, and Issues Network, with a specialist named to take charge of each. These working groups at the European level have multiplied contacts (including face-to-face contacts by trips to most European capitals) with the press offices and opinion research and communications officials of the member parties of the PES.
A European survey, the so-called ‘Pan-European Poll’, was conducted under the auspices of Network Europe in December 1998 by Gallup International. Focused on the issue priorities and attitudes to Europe of public opinion in the member countries, the survey also tested the attractiveness (and unattractiveness) of different ‘messages’ about European construction. The aim of the research, which was not narrowly pre-electoral (no question on party choice, voting intentions, or rating of parties was asked), was to assemble the requisite body of information to facilitate communication with the citizens of Europe by the PES and parliamentary group. The results have served as the guide that has largely ‘structured’ Network Europe’s work in internal and external information.
Certain conclusions follow from the work done by Network Europe.
The Internet websites of the group and the PES have been manifestly improved and modernized, as have internal information systems (by the development of the ‘European Socialist Information Space’ [ESIS] on the Intranet). All this has aided better ‘structuration’ and diffusion of information.
Network Europe has organized and encouraged joint work between the PES’s officials and experts on one side, and those of the member parties (and national delegations to the Parliament) on the other. It has thus contributed to establishing an initial European socialist ‘nucleus’ in the spheres of public opinion research, the media, and electoral management.
However, this attempt at co-operation, unknown on such a scale before the creation of Network Europe, has remained confined to a very restricted personnel, a largely isolated micro-collective; and, after a flamboyant start, it is increasingly losing momentum and influence. Over and above the difficulties inherent in this kind of joint work, it appears that the primarily national character of the 1999 European elections was a ‘structural’ obstacle that contributed significantly to the group’s loss of momentum and influence. Moreover, the prominence given to Network Europe circumvented the communications structures that already existed in the party and parliamentary group. This created significant tensions, particularly with the communications officials of the group, who (by Network Europe’s own admission) were much better acquainted with ‘the corridors of the European Parliament’.38 These tensions impaired the whole communications effort and influence of Network Europe. Finally, on reading the manifesto, it is interesting to note that Network Europe’s policy proposals have not really been ‘incorporated’ into the official programmatic document of the PES. An implicit disavowal of the work done by the group, this does not bode well for its future.
An overview of the 1999 elections indicates that the PES did not embark on a genuinely European campaign which, extending beyond the national dimension, could have highlighted the party and the transnational themes of which it is the vehicle. The 1999 campaign was not an authentically transnational experience. Notwithstanding worthy efforts by the PES leadership to multiply contacts and strengthen joint work, the campaign did not really engage the PES on a more ambitious course, or allow the coordination of important joint activities. Certainly, the party tested new, resolutely ‘modern’ forms of communication and publicity. However, the impact of these innovations was rather disappointing; after the initial commotion, it waned. In addition, the failure to adopt a common acronym and logo (e.g. PES–SPD, PES–PASOK) – something that was always deferred39 – is an index of the weakness of the European dimension of the last PES electoral campaign, even at the level of symbolic semantics. The party was unable to surmount the barrier of ‘non-visibility’ and achieve the objective agreed at the Malmo Congress (1995): ‘to pass from the role of internal coordination to external representation, promoting the public role of the PES’.40
The experience of the 1999 elections proved that what the social democrats have to offer in terms of European identity is still too weak really to contribute to the formation of a ‘European consciousness’ as defined by Article 138A of the Maastricht Treaty. At the same time, the weakness of any ‘European consciousness’ – regarded not as a substitute for national consciousness, but (in Dimitris Tsatsos’s terms) as a ‘second level’ of politics and politicization directly bound up with the existence of a European common good – damages any appeal in terms of identity that does not employ national idioms and is not directed to national clienteles.41 The nation remains the centre of partisan identifications, and this handicaps transnational party regroupment. The 1999 European election campaign confirmed this yet again.
Conclusions: Between the National and the Supranational
1.Appreciably more than in the past, the PES is assuming the function of framework and instrument – in short, organizer – of socialist cooperation. The PES is now located at the heart of social-democratic networks at the EU’s ‘systemic’ level (socialist group in the European Parliament, member parties, heads of socialist governments, commissioners from the socialist family); and it occupies a significant (though not central) position in the set of social-democratic networks in Europe. Moreover, its activity, which largely depends on rhythms and developments within the EU’s institutional system, is establishing it as a structure with strong political and operational autonomy, not as a mere regional organization (the ‘European’ section) of the Socialist International. It is equally obvious that the party enjoys greater operational capacity in its dealings with the other actors in the European game. It exercises a certain influence – and pressure – on the community’s decision-making bodies, particularly through summit meetings and the socialist group in a European Parliament with greater powers. This influence, however, is exercised through structures (the socialist heads of state summit, the parliamentary group) that are largely ‘autonomous’ vis-à-vis the party, while theoretically belonging to it. These structures are stronger and more visible than the PES. In consequence, the latter’s influence (which in some instances is more nominal than real) is without solid institutional and political foundation. In addition, it does not pursue (or not sufficiently) a supranational approach to the European phenomenon (and in some ways signals the reintroduction and reassertion of an intergovernmental type of logic). Thus, the areas resistant to an authentically supranational logic are numerous, and they decisively mark the contours of the PES and the European partisan landscape in general.
2.The structure and operational logic of the PES – which are primarily confederal and partly federal, but intended to be supranational – attest to the complexity of the situation. Despite being strengthened, the PES remains a ‘party of parties’ whose authority is drastically restricted by the national units composing it. Neither a centralized party, nor a polycentric party (in the sense that the authority of member parties is strong, but ultimately confined to the space defined by the party), the PES is, instead, a party with a weak centre and overly autonomous ‘territorial’ structures. For want of a strong link between the central decision-making system and the member parties, real authority, which derives from the national parties, is thus often transferred outside the PES.42 In sum, the PES is traversed by contrary trends that complement, and are superimposed upon, one another; and while it is no longer ‘bereft of a role’, it remains a party in search of a European role, structure and vision. In terms of Panayotis Soldatos’s classification, we might say that the PES, even in its strengthened form, remains a ‘weak integrationist institution’.43
3.As such, the PES is incapable of imposing itself as a source of power and constraint, and hence as a political force in the literal sense of the term. In effect, in politics a logic of exclusion operates in the constitution of any political group, in its production as a group. The dialectic of exclusion/inclusion renders a group cohesive, and hence aggressive towards the ‘exterior’ and repressive towards the ‘interior’. Whether we are talking about international organizations, social movements, secret societies or political parties, this ‘particularistic logic’ is universal, and fundamental to the political.44 Each political group ‘creates’ its own adversaries, presents itself as their adversary/challenger, and thus defines and asserts itself as a distinct group, with a distinct identity and distinct interests. Now, the PES seems incapable of being ‘aggressive’, of ‘creating’ its own ‘enemies’ – external and internal – and endowing itself with a genuine identity, a strong and strongly shared identity. The largely consensual functioning of the EU’s institutions (the rule of the grand coalition in part determines the process of decision-making), and the programmatic affinity between socialists and centre-right forces (grouped around the EPP), contribute to this. However, in politics, those who cannot establish themselves as a structure of division and adversity are in fact basically incapable of presenting and imposing themselves as a political force in the literal sense of the term. This inability to conform to the logic of the most commonplace and universally known political code is indicative not of a new political ‘ethic’, but of the extreme vulnerability of the identity of European socialists. Like the other Europarties, the PES remains to this day a proto-structure – and this is not conducive to its operating as an authentic political force.
4.The Confederation, wrote Guillaume Devin in 1989, basically remains ‘the instrument of national socialist politics, less for the purpose of transcending them, than to legitimate them through joint formulas’.45 Heir to the Confederation, today’s PES, while it is not the ‘instrument of national politics’, is a structure that has yet to find its place and role in the persistent toing-and-froing between the ‘national’ and the ‘supranational’. Certainly, this toing-and-froing is a matter of the balance to be struck – not a sharp division – between pro-integrationists and Eurosceptics. Consolidated and strengthened as it unquestionably is, the current PES is still seeking to cut a path through difficult terrain dominated by the question of boundaries: the boundary between the national and the supranational; the boundary between the nations that compose Europe and the Europe that is more than the nations that compose it; and the boundary between the ‘nationalist’ dimension and the internationalist dimension in the innermost tradition of European socialism. On this terrain, where contradictory interests, fragile loyalties and heterodox logics coincide, the PES – like all the Europarties – is seeking its bearings. Accordingly, we should not be amazed if it is groping about, hesitating, making slow progress, and if it often ‘advances masked’. The ‘boundary’ is internal; it runs through the party, its executives, and its member parties. But it does not constitute a ‘frontline’: it is mobile, fluid, undecided, inconstant, imperceptible but real. Traversed by contradictory tendencies and aspirations, the PES – like European socialism in its entirety – finds itself in what, in terms of identity, is a no-man’s-land. The 1999 elections only served to confirm this state, which is a state of mind, but also a strategic state. They demonstrated that a ‘Common Market of political parties’ has yet to emerge in Europe.46
5.Socialist efforts to strengthen their co-operation and presence at the European level can be interpreted as a contribution to European political integration. Nevertheless, political and partisan conflict in Europe remains primarily and profoundly ‘national-territorial’.47 And the socialist parties have neither defined a social-democratic road to European construction, nor hit upon the means to ‘insert their combined weight in the variety of policy openings within the [European] Union’.48 For its part, the PES, despite reinforcement, remains at the ‘project’ stage – a project which, to this day, is vague, modest, and uncertain in its contours; a project that lacks radicalism either for Europe, or for socialism. European socialism in its entirety still lacks an effective transnational structure capable of co-ordinating the activities of the national socialist parties in hegemonic fashion. The ‘European internationalism’ of the PES is too respectful of liberal logic and national interests; its organizational structure, directed from above, is too asthenic, and its implantation in the European societies virtually nonexistent.
The PES does not – or not yet – constitute the requisite political matrix to initiate effective collective action at a European level. There is no doubt that its weakness mirrors, in large part, that of European socialism in general, as well as the weakness of the system called the ‘European Union’. Social democracy, this modern, pro-European social democracy, possesses a hegemonic project neither for Europe, nor for the societies of Europe. The social democrats’ greatest failure at the dawn of a new century possibly consists in their inability to put forward a social-democratic project for Europe.
Notes
1.With the affiliation of the British Labour Party, and to a lesser extent the Danish SD and Irish Labour Party, what was gained in representativeness was lost in cohesion. Even the name of the party became subject to different national locutions. Characteristically, British Labour retained the term ‘Confederation’ (the Italians, ‘Confederazione’ and the Danes, ‘Samenslutingen’); while at the other extreme the Dutch, one of the most pro-integrationist parties, used the term ‘Federation’ (Federatie). Most other parties positioned themselves midway, employing the term ‘Union’ (the Germans, Bund). See Guillaume Devin, L’Internationale Socialiste, Presses de la FNSP, 1993, p. 273.
2.Guillaume Devin, ‘L’union des partis socialistes de la Communauté européenne. Le socialisme communautaire en quête d’identité’, in Socialismo Storia, Franco Angeli, Milan 1989, p. 268. During the 1970s the Confederation found itself far removed from the pro-European declarations of the socialists in 1966, when they stated their ‘objective and unceasing struggle for the achievement of a Federal Europe’ (Seventh Congress, 1966). It also found itself far removed from the 1971 statement, when socialists restated their conviction that European construction must lead to the creation of a ‘United States of Europe in the form of a federal state’ (Eighth Congress, 1971).
3.Guy Spitaels, Rapport d’activité de l’Union, 1990–1992, The Hague.
4.To do this, I will rely on numerous interviews on the subject conducted by the author with PES executives and socialist Euro-MPs. These interviews, done since 1992 in successive stages, would not have been possible without the support of the University of Paris-II (in the framework of the constitutional laboratory directed by Pierre Avril).
5.The affiliation of Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia to the EPP, and the opening to the British Conservatives, are two eloquent symptoms of the contradictions contained in this strategy.
6.Mario Telo, ‘La social-démocratie entre nation et Europe’, in Telo, ed., De la nation à l’Europe, Bruylant, Brussels 1993, p. 52.
7.According to Ton Beymer, general secretary of the PES, seventeen people (fifteen of them full-timers) currently work for the party (interview with the author, Brussels, November 1999). By way of comparison, the PES had thirteen paid collaborators in 1994 (as reported by Luciano Bardi, ‘Transnational Party Federations, European Parliamentary Groups and the Building of Europarties’, in Richard Katz and Peter Mair, eds, How Parties Organize: Change and Adaptation in Party Organizations in Western Democracies, Sage, London 1994, p. 362); and the Confederation had eight in 1985–87 (figure reported by Gilbert Germain, Approche socio-politique des profits et réseaux relationnels des socialistes, libéraux et démocrates-chrétiens allemands et français du Parlement Européen, doctoral thesis, Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris, 1995, p. 288).
8.In a traditional party a political tendency or current can, without too much difficulty, be placed in a minority. But in a ‘transnational’ party a national party cannot be placed in a minority, because a nation cannot readily be placed in a minority, i.e. a position of subordination.
9.According to Andy Smith, institutional systems in which conflict on the plane of values is systematically repressed are immature systems (‘L’Union européenne, un régime politique impossible?’, oral communication, Montpellier, 1999).
10.Raimon Obiols, ‘La nécessaire dimension transnationale du socialisme européen’, Nouvelle Revue Socialiste, no. 11, 1990, p. 140.
11.Geoffrey Pridham and Pippa Pridham, Transnational Party Co-operation and European Integration, George Allen & Unwin, London 1981, p. 163.
12.Bardi, ‘Transnational Party Federations’, p. 362.
13.See Devin, ‘L’union des partis socialistes de la Communauté européenne’, p. 275; Bardi, ‘Transnational Party Federations’, p. 360.
14.Robert Ladrech, ‘La coopération transnationale des partis socialistes européens’, in Telo, ed., De la nation à l’Europe, p. 126.
15.Interview with Ton Beymer (Brussels, November 1999).
16.The assertion by PES officials that the ‘osmosis between the Party and its Parliamentary Group is such that outside observers sometimes have difficulty distinguishing between the two’ is a patent exaggeration (see Activities Report of the PES, from Malmo to Milan, PES, Brussels 1999).
17.Jean-Louis Quermonne, Le Système politique européen, Montchrestien, Paris 1993, p. 41.
18.Simon Hix, ‘Political Parties in the European Union: A “Comparative Politics Approach” to the Organisational Development of the European Party Federations’, paper, Manchester 1995, p. 15.
19.The figures are unambiguous: from one meeting per annum on average for the period 1970–84 (1970–74: 3 meetings; 1975–79: 4; 1980–84: 5), we pass to around two per annum for 1985–89 (8 meetings), to more than 3 per annum for 1990–94 (17 meetings), and around 4 a year in the second half of the 1990s (17 meetings). The figures for 1970–94 derive from Hix, ‘Political Parties in the European Union’, p. 17, and thereafter from the PES secretariat, as communicated to the author. These figures involve both meetings of leaders and meetings of participants in the Council.
20.On the influence exercised by meetings between the leaders of the Europarties, see the examples cited by Simon Hix and Christopher Lord, Political Parties in the European Union, Macmillan, London 1997, pp. 189–95.
21.Quoted in Pridham and Pridham, Transnational Party Co-operation and European Integration, p. 238.
22.Faced with such leaders as Blair, Jospin or Schröder, the creditworthiness and weight of Rudolf Scharping (who is also a minister in Schröder’s government) are not, and cannot be, of equivalent impact. The increased importance of summit meetings within the Europarties means that the personal impact of their president is greater today than in the past. Thus, given the specific demands of this new situation, the human capital possessed by the Europarties, and especially the political celebrity of the president, will in large part determine their dynamic and their future.
23.‘In fact,’ Luciano Bardi was already writing in 1994, ‘by enhancing the role of national party leaders, the continuing importance of intergovernmental decision-making is probably more of a hindrance than an incentive for the development of Europarties’ (‘Transnational Party Federations’, p. 361).
24.In the initial phase of the Scharping presidency, a marked decline occurred in the democratic functioning (and functioning tout court) of the party’s organization. The downgrading of the Bureau, whose meetings became less regular, was the most evident consequence of this reduction in joint work, which was bound up with the priority accorded by Scharping to the leaders’ conference.
25.Panayotis Soldatos, Le Système institutionnel et politique des communautés européennes dans un monde en mutation, Bruylant, Brussels 1989, p. 231.
26.See Robert Ladzeck, ‘Party Networks, Issue Agendas and European Union Governance’, in Transnational Parties in the European Union, Aldershot, Ashgate 1998, pp. 51–85.
27.Germain, Approche socio-politique des profils et réseaux relationnels, p. 297.
28.Examples: the link between the general secretary of the PES and the president of the parliamentary group, or between the Bureau and socialist commissioners. Depending on their sphere of responsibility, the latter are invited to participate in Bureau meetings, and in practice either participate directly, or send a representative.
29.This subsection, focused on the activity of the PES in the 1999 European elections, summarizes the conclusions reached by Gérard Grunberg and Gerassimos Moschonas in ‘Socialistes: les illusions perdues’, in Pascal Perrineau and Gérard Grunberg, Le Vote des Quinze, Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, Paris 2000.
30.On L.N. Lindberg and S.A. Scheingold’s distinction between ‘identitative’ and ‘systemic’ support, see Soldatos, Le Système institutionnel and politique des communautés européennes, p. 241.
31.Julie Smith, Europe’s Elected Parliament, Sheffield Academic Press, Sheffield 1999, pp. 93, 96.
32.Germain, Approche socio-politique des profils et réseaux relationnels, pp. 309–10.
33.The appearance of the Blair-Schröder manifesto a few days before the June elections spectacularly demonstrated the extent to which the programmatic documents of the PES scarcely ‘constrain’ and ‘commit’ their signatories. This manifesto – a differentiating document within European socialism, not a unifying one – was badly received, and produced friction (and French irritation) within the PES.
34.Axel Hanisch, Rapport d’activités, Brussels, 1995.
35.The terms ‘logic of influence’ and ‘logic of membership’ come from Jon Erik Dolvik, as cited in Richard Hyman, ‘National Industrial Relations Systems and Transnational Challenges’, European Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 5, no. 1, 1999, p. 103.
36.The ‘quality of excellence’, in the words of Network Europe, was the principle on which the group wished to base its action: ‘To have the best management systems (internal communication networks, Intranet, information management and outreach strategy), the best European political website, the best political story adaptable to national circumstances, the best European polling programme, the best media management’ (Network Europe, Final Report, internal document, Brussels, 30 June 1999, pp. 2–3).
37.Ibid., pp. 2, 6.
38.Ibid., p. 47.
39.Some PES executive officers seem to be convinced that socialists will be in a position to present themselves under a common acronym at the next European elections.
40.Activities Report of the PES, from Malmo to Milan, Brussels 1999.
41.See Dimitis Tsatsos, ‘Des partis politiques européens? Premières réflexions sur l’interprétation de l’article 138a du traité des Maastricht sur les partis’, Brussels (no date), p. 5.
42.In the absence of centralization and cohesion, no instance of the PES can prevent or punish dissidence.
43.Soldatos, Le Système institutionnel et politique des communautés européennes, p. 186.
44.Danilo Zolo, Democracy and Complexity, Polity Press, Cambridge 1992, pp. 41–2.
45.Devin, ‘L’union des partis socialistes de la Communauté européenne’, p. 282.
46.The words of Henk Vredeling, quoted by Hix, ‘Political Parties in the European Union’, p. 2.
47.Ibid., p. 3.
48.Robert Ladrech, ‘Postscript: Social Democratic Parties and the European Union’, in Ladrech and Philippe Marlière, eds, Social-Democratic Parties in the European Union, Macmillan, London 1999, p. 222.