Parties set out their visions of the future

Date: 28/01/1999

The European Parliament's political groups are finalising their manifestos for this summer's Euro elections. Gareth Harding looks at the policies they contain

With less than five months to go until the European Parliament elections, Europe's main political groups are putting the finishing touches to the manifestos on which they will fight their campaigns.

The Party of European Socialists (PES), which groups together Socialist and Social Democratic parties from across the continent, will finalise its manifesto at a conference in Vienna this weekend. After national parties have had a chance to pore over the fine-print of the 21-point document, the election blueprint will then be formally launched at a party congress in Milan at the beginning of March.

A week after Socialists sign up to their campaign platform, the European Peoples Party (EPP), which joins together Christian Democrats but not the UK Conservatives, will adopt its long and detailed manifesto in Brussels.

Lastly, the European Liberal Democrats will kick-start their battle for the hearts and minds of Europe's voters at a congress in Berlin at the end of April.

Of the other political groups which will fight the June elections, the European Greens agreed their common manifesto in November, the Union for Europe Group is working on a political charter to unite the many disparate parties which make up the centre-right grouping, and the European United Left is not drawing up a joint manifesto because the group is "not a party, but a coalition of parties", according to a spokesperson.

A flick through the manifestos of the three largest political groups in the EU assembly - the Socialists, Christian Democrats and Liberals - reveals few major sticking points and much common ground between the parties. Indeed, one MEP admitted that if you swapped the covers of the blueprints, many people would not be able to tell the difference.

All three parties consider unemployment as the EU's biggest challenge. To create more jobs, all are in favour of signing up to the euro, reforming member states' tax and social security systems, and forging closer economic cooperation.

They also agree that a shake-up of the Union's major policies is needed to bring Europe closer to its citizens. The EU's Common Agricultural Policy and regional funds must be overhauled, and foreign and security policy strengthened.

All the major parties want reform to make majority voting the norm in the Council of Ministers, the European Commission more accountable and the Parliament more powerful.

The difficulties involved in getting 15 political parties from as many member states to agree on a common platform means there are often greater differences within groups than between them. Within the PES, for example, there is a huge ideological divide between the French and German Socialists, who are fiercely pro-European but lukewarm about the market economy, and their UK counterparts, who are staunch pro-marketeers but less convinced about integration.

To paper over the cracks, political groups often adopt a lowest-common denominator approach to policy making using vague language. Hence the PES manifesto's pledge to say "yes to a market economy but no to a market society".

Group officials say the manifestos are not meant to be followed slavishly by national parties, but should be used as the basis for their political programmes. As Euro elections tend to be fought largely on national issues, perhaps this is just as well.

Feature on the manifestos of the EP's political groups for the June 1999 elections.