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Luxembourg City Delegation Tour
In the fall of 2007 a delegation from Luxembourg visited Minnesota and Twin Cities DSA. They were four executive committee members of the Luxembourg City local of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), one of the few SPD locals existing outside that country. The one week visit was the result of two years of planning involving two preparatory visits to Luxembourg by a DSA International Commission member. While in Minnesota, the Luxembourg local met with members of Twin Cities DSA and DSA International Commission, the DFL Education Foundation, visited the U of M Center for German and European Studies, local co-ops, and leading representatives of the MN AFL-CIO, among others. Globalisation from below requires international grass-roots collaboration. Read this report from the Luxembourg local.
December, 2007
IUSY Festival 2006
The 2006 IUSY (International Union of Socialist Youth) Festival 2006 was held at Alicante, Spain. I and another student attended this year's festival via club funding for our college's "Democrats & Progressives" Club.
You may be wondering, "What the heck is the International Union of Socialist Youth all about?" The IUSY was founded on August 24, 1907, but suspended activities during the two world wars and re-convened after WWII on September 30, 1946, in Paris. The organization's goal is to put into practice and defend the ideals of democratic socialism (www.iusy.org). The organization is comprised of 143 socialist, social democratic and labor youth organizations from 100 countries all over the world. America's member organization is the YDS, the Young Democratic Socialists. See www.ydsusa.org for more information.
Read the entire article
December, 2006
The Future of Europe
Jo Leinen, from the Saarland state near the German - French border, represents the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in the European Parliament, where he sits with the Party of European Socialists group. Leinen is currently President of the European Parliament's Constitutional Affairs Committee - a key post in a Europe struggling over issues of "widening" and "deepening" and to come to terms with the 2005 French and Dutch "non" to the European Constitution. Leinen's numerous political functions include President of the Union of European Federalists since 1997, Vice-President of the International European Movement since 2002, and also Berlin Member of the Committee for a Democratic U.N., among others. In 2004 he accepted an invitation by DSA's International Commission to participate as a panelist in a DSA co-sponsored symposium on multilateralism in Minneapolis. The following "Europe" interview with Leinen was taped by DSA International Commission Co-chair Stephan Peter in late summer, 2006, in Saarbruecken, Germany.
Question: Jo, what is your role as president of the European Parliament’s Constitutional Affairs Committee?
Answer: We deal with the future of Europe and the architecture of this fantastic unification of 25 states on the European continent. The European Constitution is the goal shaped for both a democratic Europe and a social Europe. We don't only want a Europe of governments, but more a Europe of citizens with a full-fledged democratic system. And in the same way, we want to overcome a mere common market focus and promote the political union, which would have, in the European tradition, a very strong social dimension. So, I think, we are coming from "economics" and we are going towards "politics". We have now six different treaties for the European integration process. The next step would be to integrate this work of now 50 years into a European Constitution with the purpose to unite people and to give this European unification a political and, especially, a social dimension.
Read the entire article
October, 2006
The Market State Is Not A European Possibility
Erhard Eppler is an 'elder statesman' of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD). He has been chair of the SPD 'basic values' commission, cabinet minister, foreign policy spokesperson for the party in the national parliament, president of the German Protestant Church Council, and reknown book author. The main thesis of this article: together with European partners, the SPD must resist a neo-liberal market state, and instead define a European social state model, distinguished from the Japanese or US-American model. Eppler's piece is part of the party's current discussion about a new basic program. But the article also fits in the context of a broader debate among German and European labor unions, progressive political foundations, and social democratic parties today: what is meant by 'the social Europe?'
Der Marktstaat ist keine Europaeische Moeglichkeit
Ich habe von Willy Brandt gelernt, dass eine Partei wie die unsere nicht in jedem Abschnitt ihrer Geschichte in der Lage ist, ein Grundsatzprogramm zu schreiben und zu beschliessen. In der zweiten Haelfte der 70er und der ersten Haelfte der 80er Jahre war das nicht moeglich. Wir waren zu polarisiert. Und ich hatte jetzt auch meine grossen Zweifel, ob die ersten Jahre diese Jahrhunderts der richtige Zeitpunkt wird.
Read the full article at: www.programmdebatte.spd.de , then click 'Dokumentation.'
June, 2006
Europe needs political parties
In this article, available only in German, Jo Leinen sketches out a compelling vision of how to better connect Europeans with their Union - from a European statute for political parties, to European party lists, and European political foundations. The article can be read as a follow-up on the interview posted above.
Europa braucht Parteien
Die politische Willensbildung der Buerger muss ueber die nationale Ebene hinaus gehen.
Politische Parteien sind für die parlamentarische Demokratie von entscheidender Bedeutung. Das ist auf der nationalen Ebene so und das gilt auch für die Europäische Union. Politische Parteien sind unverzichtbar für die Bündelung der verschiedenen Interessen in der Gesellschaft und sie transportieren die Botschaften der Bürgerinnen und Bürger zu den Regierungs-Organen.
The Historical Task of Renewing the Political Left
In the course of his long political career, Oskar Lafontaine has been chair of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), the party's candidate for chancellor, and a reknown book author. Some have called him Germany's most brilliant progressive politician. In 1998 he succeeded, together with Gerhard Schroeder, in establishing Germany's first 'red-green' coalition government. In 1999, he resigned from all party and government functions charging the SPD under Chancellor Schroeder having embraced neo-liberalism. Later, Lafontaine left the SPD altogether. In 2005 he helped unite the largely East German Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) with grass- roots, union based, voter initiatives that had sprung up in West Gemany in recent years. Lafontaine's speech below, delivered at a joint PDS/ voter initiatives national convention in Berlin in August of 2005, describes as historic this "voluntary unification of a democratic socialist Left in Germany." In the fall 2005 national elections, the new 'Linke' (Left) Party garners almost 9% of the vote-the first time since WWII that a new, decisively socialist party wins enough in both West and East Germany to have a solid representation in the national parliament.
Parteitag der Linkspartei. PDS. 27. August 2005, Berlin.
"Oskar Lafontaine: Wir haben die historische Aufgabe einer Erneuerung der politischen Linken. Rede des Spitzenkandidaten der Linkspartei.PDS in der Debatte.
"Sehr geehrte Gaeste des Parteitages, liebe Freundinnen und Freunde, liebe Genossinnen und Genossen, am 22. Mai verlor die SPD die Landtagswahl in Nordrhein-Westfalen. Am selben Abend verkuendeten Schroeder und Muentefering, dass man nunmehr Neuwahlen anstreben wuerde. Zum damaligen Zeitpunkt hatten wir eine starke Partei im Osten - die PDS -, die im Westen schwach verankert war und die sich Sorgen machte, ob sie die 5 %-Huerde bei einer eventuellen Bundestagswahl ueberwinden wuerde. Wir hatten im Westen eine WASG, die in Nordrhein-Westfalen einen Achtungserfolg von 2,2 % erreicht hatte, aber dennoch zu schwach organisiert war, um sicher zu sein, bei einer vorgezogenen Bundestagswahl die 5-%-Huerde zu ueberspringen. In dieser Situation haben wir vorgeschlagen, dass beide Parteien zusammen die Bundestagswahl bestreiten sollten, weil es historisch nicht verantwortbar waere, wenn sich die Linke wieder einmal spalten wuerde, wenn sie sich nicht zusammenfaende, um endlich wieder eine starke linke Fraktion in den Bundestag zu schicken..."
Read the entire speech at
http://web.archive.org/web/20061007184521/http://sozialisten.de/partei/parteitag/pt0902/view_html?zid=29631&bs=1&n=13
March, 2006