European Parliament elections 2009 (83): PES and ELDR start campaign fight with exchange of open letters

Yesterday, the Party of European Socialist (PES) wrote an open letter to the European Liberals and Democrats (ELDR). Today, ELDR has answered with another open letter.

This is the first substantial exchange of political arguments I am aware of on the European level in this campaign.

It is the first time we get into something that is worth debating. And because it's not about me (although I had my say on the issues yesterday), let me just present you parts of the letters (PES in italic, ELDR in blockquote) and make it a true exchange, without my comments interfering. I have erased some lines, to make it not too long, but don't hesitate to read the integral versions that are linked above!

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PES: Today your European party – the European Liberal Democrats – will launch its European election campaign. One of its priorities for the elections worries us. It says “The single market should be reinforced and extended in energy, postal services, railways and health care”.

ELDR: You are surprised about our commitment to the Single Market. You should not be. Liberals believe that Europeans benefit from the Single Market. It gives European consumers more choice and better products. It gives European companies opportunities to grow and create jobs.

PES: Our question is: how do you propose to use the single market to ensure these services remain high-quality, affordable and accessible to all?

ELDR: The Single Market is not an end in itself for Liberals, but rather serves as the most efficient means to meet the citizens' demands.

PES: Heath care is a public service. Our priority must be to ensure that everyone has access to good quality health care where they live, regardless of ability to pay. This is a fundamental principle: market forces must never be the master of health services. The European Parliament has recently been discussing ‘cross-border health care’: plans to give citizens a right to medical treatment in other EU countries, paid for by their government. While Liberal MEPs have been arguing for an open market for health care without regard for the implications, we Socialists have been working hard to make sure that a privilege for a few – less than 1 per cent of patients – does not undermine health care for the many. It sounds nice for a patient from Belgium to travel, let’s say, to Austria for treatment, but how much will it cost and where does the money come from ultimately - from local health services or is it the patient who will pay the difference?

ELDR: Public health care systems all over the EU have shown to be falling short of patients' demands. Socialists regard patients as recipients; Liberals regard patients as consumers who demand the best possible service. Patients want choice, and competition will lead to better health coverage for all Europeans. 12 years of Socialist government in the UK did not help to remedy the failures of the British National Health Service. Aren't the months-long waiting lists for a surgery the best arguments to open up borders for treatment?

PES: It is fine to extend the single market, but where is future investment going to come from? Rail infrastructure is not cheap and all major European rail projects are at least partly state-funded. We Socialists say that ultimately the function of railways is not to generate profits for private companies: good, affordable transport is a social and economic necessity. Look at the disastrous railway privatisation in the UK (under the Conservatives).

ELDR: Successful cross border projects such as the Thalys or the Eurostar project have served the European consumers while German state-owned railway services become constantly more expensive. If you compare the market services with state services you will easily find out that the forces of markets satisfy the demands of citizens much better and create growth, jobs and opportunities.

PES: Postal services have already been exposed to the single market, involving substantial job losses, but no evident benefit for the consumer. With more and more local Post Office closures, perhaps the longer walk to the Post Office is good for our health! What is the advantage of another extension of the single market in postal services?

ELDR: [W]e are proud of our commitment to open postal services. Do you really want to go back to a world of postal monopolies? Don't you remember the queues? Competition forces monopolies to give better service to their users, creates more choice and lower prices and benefits society in general by "increasing the overall cake" to be shared amongst all. Did state monopolies ever deliver better outcomes to consumers?

PES: The EU is about to conclude its third energy liberalisation package. We supported that because the market has a role to play in energy supplies. But greater challenges than more liberalization lie ahead. Has the single market improved security of energy supplies, helped the transition to renewable energy or improved energy efficiency?

ELDR: No answer.

PES: In 2006 socialists in the European Parliament secured an important victory in excluding health and social services from the infamous Services Directive. We did not have the support of most Liberal MEPs. With this stain on your voting record, can the Liberals be trusted to take care of essential public services?

ELDR: No answer.

ELDR doesn't stop here, but challenges the PES in other areas:

Equal opportunities

ELDR: A few weeks ago, you questioned our liberal commitment to equal opportunities. Actions speak louder than words!

The ELDR President is a woman. What about the PES President? The ELDR Secretary General is a woman. What about the PES Secretary General? 5 out of 7 ELDR Vice Presidents are women. How many women serve in the PES board? 42% of Liberal MEPs are women and they hold positions of real power within our Parliamentary Group. What about your Parliamentary Group?

You find female heads of lists for the European elections in liberal parties in Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, Estonia, Austria and England while Socialists seem to remain committed to patriarchal party structures.

International relations and human rights

ELDR: So does the voting record of Socialists in the European Parliament. Only a few weeks ago the Socialist Group voted against or abstained when the European Parliament voted in favor of a Tibetan-Chinese dialogue. Why?

The Socialists group didn't back the Parliament's report on a new EU-Russia cooperation agreement to raise the Human Rights situation in Russia. Why?

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I would like to see this exchange continue, because I suppose the PES won't be satisfied with these answers, and they might have good replies to the equal opportunities and IR/HR challenges. I think they can do better than they did in their initial letter, and i suppose that the ELDR reply will offer good food for a counter-attack.

Could this become, finally, a true European debate? Why other European parties do not join? I want more, more, more!

Update: Jon calls the ELDR letter "rubbish", especially the part on trains - and in comparison to his own reply published yesterday, that is absolutely true.

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European Parliament elections 2009 (81): PES without vision and without tact

You know from previous posts that I like the way the Party of European Socialists (PES) has managed to develop a European campaign.

But when I see the open letter PES leader Poul Nyrup Rasmussen has written to "attack" the European Liberals and Democrats (ELDR) which start their European campaign today with an event in Brussels, I feel kind of lala.

The positions expressed in the letter may sound social democratic or socialist, but in general they sound rather anti-European and anti-EU.

This is what the European Socialists have to offer? Arguments against the European Union? Amazing. Where have they been over the last 20 years?

The letter doesn't present answers, and it is backwards looking, without much good reasoning. Jon Worth, a social democrat and European blogger, puts forward many good arguments against the propositions of Mr Rasmussen and I don't have much to add besides repeating that this letter sounds deeply anti-EU and is a huge minus for the European Socialists in my eyes. If ELDR campaign people are intelligent enough, that's an easy target...

And another issue regarding campaign strategies:

I have received the open letter in advance yesterday evening from the PES, together with other EU bloggers like Nosemonkey, Kosmopolit or Jon Worth. We were told that we would get this letter in advance exclusively because we were top 10 bloggers for the PES. Still, we were asked not to publish the letter before this morning and to keep an embargo because it would be published in some main(stream) media and would cause great interest.

It's "sweet" (quote from Nosemonkey on Twitter) to be among the top 10 bloggers, and I like to get background information directly from the source instead of living with hearsay. But to be treated like a campaign tool ("You may have exclusive information, but you may only publish them when we want to.") is not very pleasant. And this with a letter of this quality - a letter that didn't cause any great interest so far, at least I haven't seen anything.

If I am among the top bloggers for the PES, I would like to get the exclusive information that Mr Rasmussen will run against Barroso, that he stops beating about the bush, and to do what you expect for a true democratic campaign: To offer a choice to the citizens.

And if I may publish the information exclusively, why not with other bloggers, then I would feel privileged as a blogger. But more important: I would feel happy as an EU citizen - more happy than with a lame letter without good arguments!

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Under the category "European Parliament elections 2009" I am following up national and European activities on the path to the European Parliament elections 2009.

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European Parliament elections 2009 (46): European Liberals and Democrats (ELDR) with new website

The European Liberals and Democrats (ELDR) have launched their new website:

http://www.eldr.eu.

The reason, according to a press release, are the coming EU elections.

In fact, the new site is not very revolutionary compared to the old site which is still online at the moment.

Interactivity and web 2.0 don't seem to play a big role for the European Liberals. The new site looks a bit nicer, a bit more positive, but I don't see much improvement from the old one.

A change in style, but not in spirit.

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Under the category "European parliament elections 2009" I am following up national and European activities on the path to the European Parliament elections 2009.

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European Parliament elections 2009 (45): EPP will present draft manifesto and DialogueTV tomorrow - updated

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Update: Read also my post on the EPP manifesto(s)!
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Some days ago I complained about the European People's Party (EPP) not moving with regard to their electoral manifesto.

And woosh: Tomorrow, at 13.00 (CET - or BT [Brussels Time]) the EPP will do its first incredible move and present its draft manifesto during a press conference.

I am getting shaky!

In addition, they will also present their incredible DialogueTV, which so far looks like a MonologueTV, compared to the two-way communication of other competitors...

On the other side, Greens or Liberals say that they cannot really afford such a platform - but honestly, it doesn't seem like a big problem to me. This MonologueTV looks very shiny, but not very innovative. It's video in good quality, not more and not less.

Update (30 January, 14:55):

The full DialogueTV page is now online and it looks a bit more interactive than the version from yesterday. In fact, when you enter the website of the EPP (http://www.epp.eu) it redirects you to this DialogueTV page which is designed as campaign page.

There you can find the draft manifesto in a short version and in the full version. I will comment on these texts in one of the next posts in this category.

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Under the category "European parliament elections 2009" I am following up national and European activities on the path to the European Parliament elections 2009.

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European Parliament elections 2009 (44): European Liberals hope for around 100 seats

In an interview with EUobserver, Graham Watson, leader of the Liberals (ALDE) in the European Parliament, and their candidate for EP president, has said that he hopes that his group will have at least 100 seats (=13.6% of all 736 seats) after the 2009 elections, equalising the score of the last polls (103 seats = 13.1% of all 785 seats).

Sounds rather modest for someone, who wants to be EP President, doesn't it?

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European Parliament elections 2009 (35): The Party of the European Left

Since I have already taken first look at the Party of European Socialists and the European Liberal Party and neither the European Green Party nor the European People's Party show any particular sign of interest in the 2009 European Parliament elections on their websites, let me take a look at a party not yet covered under this category: The Party of the European Left.

Uniting 20 of what could be called the "leftish" or radical left and communist parties of the continent, the European Left is a rather unnoticed political movement. In the European Parliament, they form an alliance with the Nordic Green Left and are called European United Left/Nordic Green Left, holding 41 seats (around 5.2% of all seats), which gave them roughly half a million of Euros of financial support from the European Parliament in 2007 (according to their public financial report).

On their main website there is a clear announcement of the "Elections 2009" and link to their electoral platform which has been decided upon on the Left's Congress in Berlin in late November. The main statement under this platform is:

[T]he neo-liberal foundations of the EU treaties are called into question, in particular the insistence on an “open market economy with free competition”: the unchecked free circulation of capital, the liberalization and privatization of public services, the status and mission of the European Central Bank.

The European Left is also clearly and openly against the Lisbon Treaty. And although this might seem to unite them with other, more nationalist anti-EU movements, their statement towards their political opponents is clear:

The EL competes against conservative and liberal, social democratic and green parties in the member countries and with the corresponding European political parties, which are sticking to the logic of current European policies. The EL is striving for change and regaining the political space in Europe. The EL confirms its consequent struggle against any attempt by extreme right and right populist parties to broaden their influence in Europe.

When you look at the more concrete measures the European Left is proposing, its getting tough, especially hearing classical communist terminology like agricultural land reforms:

We strive for a substantial review of the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). It must be directed at the right of people everywhere in the world to decide on their agricultural policy themselves by fully respecting the environment. [...] This means giving priority to local agricultural production, quality food and no constraints on submitting the products to the world market. The access to land, seeds, water and credits must be regulated in a real land reform in Europe and the other continents.

The platform continues demanding a disarmament as well as a dissolution of NATO, quite typical positions for the more radical left. Quite interesting is the position on international co-operation and development aid:

The bilateral European Partnership Agreements are the wrong way. The international trade policy of the EU is to be measured by giving adequate answers for solving global social and ecological problems. The fight against still growing global poverty and imbalances must be put at the focus of development cooperation – the misuse of development cooperation for continuing a kind of colonial relations, for the one-sided support of export industries in favour of European enterprises, or as a geopolitical instrument must be stopped.

The paragraph I like most in the whole document is one that every European party should copy-paste and use for their political documents. Different to many other propositions in the electoral manifesto of the European Left, these words are in the heart of the author of this blog (I therefore highlight them):

The European Left favours the creation of all political and economic conditions for a peaceful coexistence of the European peoples and states. Europe needs an economic and social space which does not exclude any European country and which is based on a varied bi- and multilateral system of agreements. The EL stands for the further enlargement of the European Union and for a stable All-European structure to overcome still existing political and economic divisions in Europe. For that the EL supports in particular the preservations of democratic governance, of guaranteeing and realizing human rights for all people in daily practice, of respecting and protecting minorities and the state of law as important preconditions for negotiating with countries applying for EU membership. The EU itself must be made politically and economically ready for further enlargement steps as well.

It's a pitty that this paragraph stands in the midst of quite controversial and sometimes even contradictory statements, mixing radicalism and pragmatism, idealism and strange realism, and producing a mélange that tastes so bittersweet that you don't know whether they would like to govern or just to destroy the system.

Altogether, the text of the platform/manifesto is quite voter friendly. It could have got slightly more structure. But in total, apart from the content, it looks and reads better than the manifestos of the ELDR and the PES. It is entertaining, whether you like it or not. It is not too short, and not too long. And what is important for politics: You can read everything and nothing into many parts, giving room for national interpretations, without losing the general direction. In this sense, it looks like a rather professional text.

I could go into more details, but this post would become far too long. What I like with the European Left is that they care for the elections, more than some other European parties seem to care. I also like their website, structured, but not too playful.

But regarding policies I might eat another cake...

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European Elections 2009 (30): PES and ELDR manifesto - updated

For the thirtieth article in this series, I have invested some time to read the manifestos of the Party of European Socialist (PES) and or the European Liberal and Democratic Party (ELDR) - the other parties have not yet published theirs -, and well, how to say it, they are... interesting.

The first thing that is striking is the difference in length: the Liberals seem to have tried to keep their tradition of (fiscal) restraint and to limit themselves to three pages, while the Socialists and Social Democrats have written a small booklet of fifteen pages. In fact, something in between would have been much nicer, because the PES manifesto takes way to much time to read, while the manifesto of the ELDR seems to end as soon as you start reading.

So let's start with the ELDR manifesto. In general, I would prefer the shortness of the text to the length of the PES manifesto, but in this case the shortness is not an advantage. The manifesto is divided in an introduction and the four sub-categories

• Civil liberties
  
• EU Single Market, Growth and Employment 
  
• Environment and energy policy
  
• Enlargement, foreign, security and defence policy
  

with 15 policy statements in total which could be summarised as

• Yes to civil liberties and co-operation in criminal matters
  
• Yes to a single market and privatisation and No to nationalisation
  
• Yes to a "measured" migration through "blue cards"
  
• Yes to an environment policy if it doesn't burden business
  
• Yes to a reduction of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)
  
• Maybe to future enlargement
  
• Yes to a single foreign policy and a stronger common defence policy
  

All these points are very technical, very general, not very ambitious. It looks more like a compromise text than a document that encourages voters to vote for the Liberals. Not one single emotional appeal, no vision, and despite the fact that the Liberals start with "Civil Liberties" almost without values. I have no idea whether the Liberals plan to use this document, or whether they will hide it behind national campaigns.

Quite different the PES manifesto (UPDATE: see the video of the adoption during the PES congress). Despite its excessive length, and despite the criticism I have expressed towards the manifesto slogan "People first - A new direction for Europe", the first page of the document would be enough to run a decent political campaign. It starts with an important message:

"The voters of Europe face a fundamental political choice in these European elections."

There is no single reference to the voters in the ELDR manifesto, and for the PES to start with this sentence is very pertinent on the European level. The first page, after identifying challenges and problems of the European Union, ends with the six main policy commitments of the European Socialists:

• Relaunching the economy and preventing new financial crises 
  
• New social Europe – giving people a fairer deal 
  
• Transforming Europe into the leading global force against climate change 
  
• Championing gender equality in Europe 
  
• Developing an effective European migration policy 
  
• Enhancing Europe’s role as a partner for peace, security and development 
  

However, instead of directly getting into these issues, we have to read a general assessment of the situation in and around Europe and about the alleged shortcomings of the Conservatives (apparently the only opponent of the Socialists). Quite boring, and nothing for the general voter. And afterwards we get, along with the six main commitments, 71 single sub-issues and sub-proposals, which probably nobody but some journalists (i.e. bloggers) and lobby organisations will read. In line with the general subtitles heading these 71 proposals, I would summarise/quote the manifesto like this:

• Yes to reforming the financial markets to serve the real economy, jobs and growth
  
• Yes to a European strategy for Smart Green Growth and Jobs
  
• Yes to ensuring workers and businesses benefit from economic transformation
  
• Yes to a European framework legislation for social policies
  
• Yes to the protection of citizens' rights including more transparency of EU lobbying
  
• Yes to the EU leading international negotiations for a global climate deal, inter alia through more internal ambitions
  
• Yes to more gender equality
  
• Yes to European standards for legal migration and integration
  
• Yes to a balance of peace and security issues, including a development of the European defence system in coordination with NATO
  
• Yes to enlargement (including Turkey), as well as Yes to the Black Sea Union, the Union of a Mediterranean and the Eastern Partnership
  
• Yes to active poverty reduction
  

I know that there is much more in the manifesto, but it would exceed the limits of a blog article to get into more details.

I don't share a number of the policies proposed, but at least the documents is quite clear on a number of very concrete issues (although some, including the position on nuclear energy, clearly are compromises [update: see also the comments]). I don't think that it was the best choice to have a document of this length, but the first and the last page are short and clear enough to present to European voters the choice they make when voting PES, without the need to read through all single issues.

As a conclusion, I might say that the ELDR does not present many controversial issues (which might make them electable), however it does also not present a vision or any concrete policy proposals. It is short to read, but when I finished reading it just thought: So what? The PES manifesto is ambitious, it is detailed, it is comprehensive, but it is too long. The many details offer much more room to find points of disagreement, and anyone who takes the time to read through the document will most probably find a number of positions that might not be shared. The political opponents and journalists will also find enough food for attack. Yet, this is the essence of a political document, so why not. 

Altogether, I prefer the PES manifesto. Would I vote for them because of this manifesto? Maybe. Maybe not.

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Under the category "Tracking: European parliament elections 2009" I am following up national and European activities on the path to the European Parliament elections 2009.

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Tracking: European elections 2009 (XXII)

Via openeurope blog I found these introductory remarks in an Guardian article by EU Parliament President Hans-Gert Pöttering (European Peoples Party, EPP):

It would be wonderful to think that the intense interest with which Europeans are following today's US presidential election might be matched by Americans watching the European parliamentary elections in June 2009.

I fully share openeurope's comment: Ha ha!

Anything might happen until next year, but not that the EP elections will get nearly as much attention in our media than the American presidential election got attention in our media. The fault is to the EU, because it is increasingly boring and increasingly intransparent. The only alternative could be: Free coffee!

Meanwhile, on this weekend, the European Liberal Democrats (ELDR) met in Stockholm for their congress, adopting, inter alia, their manifesto for the next EP elections.

In the press release from the meeting (which does not yet contain the manifesto...), we learn that

Annemie Neyts, ELDR party president expressed her satisfaction and added: I really encourage all the member parties to base their European campaigns on this common European liberal vision.

This does not sound overly optimistic that member parties will actually use the European vision, it rather sounds like a helpless plea to desinterested national parties. But I might be mistaken... At least ELDR's youth organisation (LYMEC) shows a bit of enthusiasm and informs that they have a "Facebook strategy".

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Under the category "Tracking: European parliament elections 2009" I am following up national and European activities on the path to the European Parliament elections 2009.

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Tracking: European parliament elections 2009 (XV)

The Bureau of the European Peoples Party (EPP), "ahead of the European elections", has approved a paper (PDF) titled "Tackling the Demographic Challenge – Solutions for the Ageing of our Societies". Some measures proposed are a better work-life-balance, flexible retirement schemes, life-long learning, national pension reforms. An interesting paragraph is the following:

"Immigration from outside the EU, provided that regional needs and the particular situation concerning skill shortages in different sectors are taken into account, could help to mitigate the efforts of the falling population between now and 2025, although it will not be enough on its own to solve all the problems associated with ageing and it is no substitute for economic reforms. However, immigration enables us to meet the need for labour and safeguard Europe’s prosperity. Decisions on immigration should always be closely linked to essential efforts in the field of integration."

Altogether, this is a quite general paper and I don't think any national party will be able to build its electoral campaign on its content. It is more a stock-taking than a really inspiring paper.

The European Liberal Democrats (ELDR) do not have anything new concerning the 2009 elections, at least not on their front-page.

The same is valid for the European Green Party (EGP). Nothing new on their main webpage.

On the site of the Party of European Socialists (PES) there is still the link to the Manifesto 2009 page. There, however, not much news with regard to the upcoming European elections.

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Under the category "Tracking: European parliament elections 2009" I am following up national and European activities on the path to the European Parliament elections 2009. So far: (14), (13), (12), (11), (10), (9), (8), (7), (6), (5), (4), (3), (2), (1).

Tracking: EP elections 2009 (VIII) - updated

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Update (28 January 2009): Read also the follow-up article with the the comparison between the PES and ELDR manifestos.
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The European Liberal Democrat and Reform (ELDR) party has published the draft program for its next congress from 29 to 31 October 2008 in Stockholm.

Apparently, only six hours will be spent on the final drafting of and voting on the electoral manifesto. On 30 October 2008 there are two drafting sessions, from 10.30 to 12.30 and 15.30 to 17.30. And on 31 October 2008, from 14.00 to 16.00 there will be the voting (supposedly on the draft manifesto and possible amendments) on the manifesto.

The process leading to the draft manifesto has been described in one of the party's publications from April 2008:

The programme is developing in the format of a ten point action plan, the first stage of which was a consultation of ELDR member parties and stakeholders.

Following this process, four priority themes have been identified, which member parties and supporters would like to see included in the ELDR 2009 Manifesto.

[...]

Workshops composed of representatives of ELDR member parties that are experts in the fields of civil liberties and immigration (“liberal Europe”), the EU Single Market, and foreign, security and defence policy are scheduled to discuss and define two to four policy statements on each subject that will be included in the electoral Manifesto. The first such workshop on foreign, security and defence policy took place in Tallinn on 11th April in the framework of the ELDR Council meeting.

Let us compare this with the description of the process of the Party of European Socialists (PES):

From October 2007 to 1 July 2008, the PES ran an open consultation on its manifesto for the 2009 European elections. The consultation was a big success: 300,000 visitors, 500 posts, 100 videos, 1,350 members in our Facebook group, more than 60 written contributions from PES member parties, NGOs, Foundations and activists. Moreover, 3,000 activists joined us during the process.

A draft manifesto will be drawn up on the basis of that consultation, and there will be discussions within the PES between the end of the consultation and the adoption of the final document. The PES manifesto will be adopted by the PES Council - a mini-Congress with voting representatives from all member parties - in December 2008.

At a first glance, the PES process seems to be more oriented towards broader participation (and the figures support this analysis), while the ELDR seems to be more expert oriented, although it remains unclear how the "consultation of ELDR member parties and stakeholders" has been conducted.

At a second glance, however, it is also not too clear how open the process within the PES has been and will be since the public consultations have ended: Who decides which of the ideas and proposals of the manifesto consulations are included in the draft manifesto? It is also not specified what a "mini-congress" will be and whether there will be actually more time spent on discussions about the final version of the manifest than the six hours ELDR is planning to spend. Still, the pre-drafting consultation figures are quite impressive and far beyond what I have seen and heard about on the national level.

I would have also liked to add more about the other parties, but so far, I could not find any indications of the specific process the European Peoples Party (EPP) or the European Green Party (EGP), which is why I can only compare ELDR and PES. I hope I provide you with more information in the future.

But comparing PES and ELDR, the PES at least manages to keep on an open debate, which creates the feeling of better involvement of the public in the process (PES secretariat staff is even openly commenting on my articles). Whether this will bring more activism and identification with the final document will have to be proven.

And it will be interesting to see whether the other parties will try to keep up with this kind of publicity after the summer break.

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Under the category "European parliament elections 2009" I am following up national and European activities on the path to the European Parliament elections 2009.

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Tracking: EP elections 2009 (VI)

EurActive has published a long article titled "European Elections: Outlook for 2009".

While most of the article deals with general questions (e.g. voter turnout, political groups etc.) and history, for those of you rather familiar with the European Parliament it is still worth scrolling down until the section "Strategies to re-engage European voters: What the parties are doing".

Some quotes:

For the 2009 campaign, the EGP [European Green Party] plans to do [...] “a common campaign” and events planned in several European capitals such as Rome and Prague. [...] "In some countries, the common campaign will be 99% of the campaign because they do not want to add a national touch to it, whereas in other countries the common campaign might only make up 15%."

To re-engage with its voters, the PES [Party of European Socialists] has therefore chosen to polarise the debate along traditional left-right political fault lines.

Whether the EPP [European Peoples Party] will be able to translate its political strategy into a coherent common campaign for the 2009 election ... remains to be seen. And it is not certain either that such a programme will appeal to its core voters, especially in countries with a traditionally more critical stance towards Europe.

The European Liberals and Democrats (ELDR) [...] have only recently started discussing their strategy. The party manifesto will be based around four themes, the first being foreign, security and defence policy. Future discussions [...] will take place on the themes of "Liberal Europe" (understood as civil liberties) and the EU single market.

For more details, I recommend reading the complete article, that offers quite some food for thought and discussion.

One issue that I would like to raise is connected to the following quote:

[A] vicious circle of voter apathy has developed among EU citizens, fuelled by a lack of clear-cut power struggles which in turn diverts media interest away from the election.

For me, this points at one of the biggest problems:

Mainstream media are looking for the same old power struggles at the European level that they are used to from national politics. They are unable to tell an interesting story about something that is different from the usual boring games of politics. For me, it is rather interesting to see a British Labour party MEP, a Swedish conservative, a Romanian Liberal and a Latvian Green working on the same question in very similar directions than hoping that they have to clash over everything just because they belong to different party affiliations.

From my point of view, we will only get more interest in EU and general European matters if the media - and I include us bloggers to a certain extend - will become able to tell new stories in a new fashion. We should not try to project our old national and political stereotypes onto situations that have nothing to do with what we observe locally or nationally.

It is in the nature of things that European matters are more complex, because there are more people, more institutions, more cultures, more geographical and political interests involved in every single matter. So what? Then let's try to tell a complex story in new words and story lines.

And that we add more complexity does not mean that we have to make it more complicated! We just have to make it different, innovative in the true sense of the word.

If we manage, the European story will become interesting and European politics will become more democratic - not just because we have changed institutions but because we have changed interest in European matters and created the inherent need to participate - in European parliament elections but especially beyond.

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Under the category "Tracking: European parliament elections 2009" I am following up national and European activities on the path to the European Parliament elections 2009.

For an overview over all articles in this category have a look at the overview article.

For the five newest post see also the sidebar.