PES Manifesto

Social Europe: great project for the future!

Publié mardi 17 juin 2008 à 12h04
par Editeur (vu 741 fois et 0 commentaires)

Everyone is talking about the „New Social Europe“these days: it is one of the most important issues of the upcoming European elections, not only for European but also for German social democrats. On June 9 SPD chairman and manifesto2009 theme group leader Kurt Beck hosted an expert conference in Berlin. Together with Poul Nyrup Rasmussen (President of the PES), Walter Veltrony (chairman of the Democratic Party of Italy), Michael Sommer (head of the Confederation of German Trade Unions) and many others he discussed the challenges and future duties for the national states and the European Union in order to devise a European economic and social model for a globalized world. 

SPD chairman declared the social Europe to be the central social-democratic future project for the European Union in the 21st century: “After the creation of the Single European Market, a common currency and the peaceful unification of the continent through enlargement, the work on a new social Europe must be the great integration project of the forthcoming years.”

In contrast to the European conservatives and the liberals, who are focusing solely on the liberalization of the market, social democrats also want to frame the forces of the market with common social and ecologic standards. Kurt Beck emphasized: “We want to translate the success of social market economy to the level of the European Union and to anchor it there as a guiding principle.”

Poul Nyrup Rasmussen held a passionate speech, highlighting that it would not be possible to construct the new social Europe without talking about financial markets. Social market economy does not mean a market society. We need transparency to ensure financial stability and workers rights, minimum reporting standards and information disclosure. We must set up limits of leverage to lower the risk of default and not undermine firms. Effective taxation for funds managers must be assured: they should pay taxes as workers do! Finally, transparent rules of conduct for the CEO’s of companies and managers of funds are also necessary.

For the next European elections, participants agreed that people need to have a clear political choice. Therefore it is crucial to identify advocates and adversaries of a social Europe. Unlike for the EPP there is a unifying element of all European social democrats: the interest in a social Europe!

Click here to access Beck’s speech in German and here to find out more about President Rasmussen’s work on financial markets.

Tags: dialogue social, UE