"New Europe" opinion piece on Campaign.

BREAKING NEWS: "New Europe", a leading European news organisation, carries an opinion piece today on the Campaign for a PES Primary. This is more evidence that the Campaign is attacting comment and support from outside our political family and has the potential to translate that positive interest into a wave of support at the European elections in 2014.

I was asked by "New Europe" to write an opinion piece for this month's issue. I wanted to concentrate on why we were running this campaign and the difference that I belive it will make to our European party.

The article, headlined "PES primaries and the European Commission President", opens:

I was in Brussels on the evening last June 2009 when the results of the parliamentary elections started coming in from around Europe. To say they were a disappointment to members of the Party of European Socialists (PES) is an understatement. There were many reasons for this defeat. One of these reasons was that while the PES offered an intelligent, radical and compelling manifesto, we failed to agree a candidate for Commission President who would embody and articulate that manifesto. Our failure to agree a single candidate confirmed people’s suspicions that closed-door deal-making in the European Union remained the norm.

The remainder of the article can be read here.