PES Manifesto

Into the future ... and Beyond

Publié lundi 26 mai 2008 à 15h11
par Duncan Anderson (vu 833 fois et 0 commentaires)

Okay, so maybe Buzz Lighyear didn't say that, but he might have if he had to write a political manifesto.

When I helped write the local government manifesto for North Lincolnshire Labour Party I was emphatic about putting in something for the future, in fact many things for the future. This included policies that wouldn't come to fruition until the term after the one we were campaigning to win and consultations that we could turn into policies in the following term.

Hopefully this gives the electorate a belief in a brighter future with which they have some ownership - and I do believe that we should be looking at the Swedish Socialist principle of helping the electorate of Europe have ownership of policies.

Most of these longer term items/policies are big issues or because they are big issues it will take longer for them to be resolved. But if we - European Socialists - don't make a start &/or an attempt then how can we - as a political party - claim to be leaders within society if we can't address some of the more complex issues?

This isn't a list of all the big complex issues, I'm sure others can add more, but I want to make a start before this consultation finishes and hopefully the powers that be will think beyond one term when writing the PES manifesto.

• The Fisheries policy is virtually a failure for Europe. We nearly killed all of the fish in European waters and now we are going to other's waters and factory fishing. To the extent that native fishermen now can't catch anything and are migrating to Europe. A new fisheries policy should include the whole of the sea world, so dredging for minerals, whaling and other sea creatures should be included into one policy review.
• Should the Common Agricultural Policy be used to pay farmers to continue farming in inefficient ways and preserve a way of life, to preserve the rural environment &/or to feed the starving of the world?
• How should European nations state deal with rogue states like Burma, North Korea, Zimbabwe and others?

All of these will need the agreement of nation states, but how they respond to a situation can be influenced by a consultation and review undertaken by the EU.

Tags: agriculture, pêcherie