Social Democracy has always been an idea and a strategy of social change. As a progressive movement it has always been on the offensive. When in the 1980s market-radical theories, supported by neo-conservatives and neo-liberals, began to dominate public opinion, the defensive mechanisms of social democracy proved to be rather poor. There was scattered resistance, but no strategy of defence.

The neo-liberals claimed to represent progress. In addition to that market radicalism presented itself as an inevitable consequence of globalisation, of global competition. So some social democrats yielded to propositions, which claimed to be factual constraints. Most people compared the new politics with what social democrats said and did in the 1970s. When they did so, they were shocked and lost confidence. They no longer trusted politicians who acted in contrast to what they had stood for only a few years before. And they found that social democracy no longer differed very much from liberal or conservative politics.

So, when in 2008 and 2009 market-radical theories and promises proved to be utterly wrong and even highly dangerous, a disillusioned majority did not turn to social democracy when they looked for an alternative. There was and there still is a lack of confidence. But this does not mean that there is no search for – and even some longing for – an alternative to an ideology that seems to have had its day.

But whatever disillusioned people may feel or think: social democracy happens to be the alternative. If social democratic parties cannot offer it – or are not taken seriously in offering it – other parties will do the job: not only parties left of social democrats, but also the Greens and in some places even christian democrats.

So the future of social democracy depends on a credible, believable alternative to what has now failed dramatically. In doing so some national parties can draw on their national programmes, for instance the German SPD on the Hamburg Programme, which has already been drafted to stop market-radicalism.

But in order to fill the credibility gaps a new European effort seems to be necessary. It was the diverse and even conflicting attitudes of social democratic parties towards the predominant ideology of neo-liberalism that helped to blur the image of the social democratic project.

If European social democrats agreed on two-dozen points regarding the different functions of markets, civil societies and states, of state responsibility for education and social security, perhaps even on principles of taxation, this would be helpful.

If European parties decisively agreed to prevent the splitting up of their societies and on the methods to keep these societies together they would satisfy a growing need.

If they even expressed their resolve to keep in touch and exchange experiences in their effort to overcome market-radicalism they would help to restore credibility.

Perhaps European parties can agree on the moral aspects of this political alterative, linking it with the moral values of 3000 years of European history.

There is a future of social democracy in Europe. But this future must be European.

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