This morning the news broke that PES President Poul Nyrup Rasmussen will step down after the PES Council and Convention this weekend. Poul has certainly moved a lot in the last eight years and deserves praise for that. But he has now decided to call it quits. To me this announcement came as a surprise [...]
Danish elections to be held in three weeks
27/08/2011 by
A few days ago I wrote about an opinion poll in Denmark. Now Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen has announced that parliamentary elections will be held on September 15th. That is only three days after the Norwegian voters go to the ballot boxes in the local elections. These are two important dates if you want [...]
The Future of Social Democracy
27/10/2010 by
Our partners from the Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung have produced a special issue of their journal “Internationale Politik und Gesellschaft” which brings together (all articles in English) some very good contributions on the current status and future of European social democracy. Contributors are Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, Ehard Eppler, Gero Maass, Patrick Diamond, Rene Cuperus and Matt Browne [...]
New Commission, new European Parliament, new Treaty
08/01/2010 by
The ratification of the Lisbon Treaty at the end of last year, following eight years of institutional introspection, gives rise to mixed feelings for proponents of EU integration – relief and an element of exhaustion. The debate on the Treaty pushed its proponents into a corner, to the point where in the end – to [...]
The Future of Social Democracy
03/11/2009 by
In spite of their rhetoric, the right’s solutions to the crisis will lead to ordinary people paying the costs. This past year has been overshadowed by the dark clouds of economic crisis. Ordinary people have taken many hard knocks. Unemployment is rising. Businesses are going bust. Homes have been repossessed. Pensions have been decimated by [...]
Who will be the next PES Leader?
13/08/2009 by
In the silly season, when not much is going on in day-to-day politics, you get the time to think ahead and ponder what might happen in the second half of the year. What I have been wondering about recently is what is going to happen with the Party of European Socialists (PES). If I am [...]
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