Richard Corbett - Member of the Cabinet of Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council

‘Out of its depth? The EU and the Crisis’

Tuesday 24 April – Horloge du Sud, Rue du Trône 141, 1050 Ixelles – 20:00

The meeting begins at 20:00. The venue opens at 19:30. If you would like to eat, please come early and order before the meeting starts.

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Forthcoming meetings include:

London Mayoral elections campaign day

Tuesday 1 May – Join Brussels Labour in Hackney and Islington and help get Ken Livingstone elected! A group of Brussels Labour members will be going to London to help Ken’s campaign – please contact the Secretary if you would like to join

Branch Meeting

Wednesday 30 May – Horloge du Sud – Further details tbc

Pascal Smet – Flemish Minister for Education, Youth, Equal Opportunities and Brussels Affairs

‘The Belgian communal elections’

Wednesday 20 June – Horloge du Sud, Rue du Trône 141, 1050 Ixelles – 20:00

The meeting begins at 20:00. The venue opens at 19:30. If you would like to eat, please come early and order before the meeting starts.

This year’s event is taking place at the Quai du K-Nal, from 19:00.

Tickets are on sale at €9 (pre-sale, includes free drink) or €10 on the night.

More information on the Fête du Progrès website.

April 2010 | May 2010 | June 2010 | September 2010 | February 2011 | March 2011 | April 2011 | September 2011 | January 2012

More details and a registration form are available here.

Jan Royall was very happy to be back in Brussels to deliver the 2011 John Fitzmaurice memorial lecture.

For her, Brussels bring together three of the most important things in her life democratic socialism, Europe and friendship – and there were many old friends in the audience whom Jan had met during her time in Brussels.

Currently the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords and a Privy Councillor, Jan had previously been Leader of the House of Lords and a member of Gordon Brown’s cabinet from 2008-2010.

During her time with the European Commission, she was a long-serving member of the cabinet of Neil Kinnock and then Head of the Commission’s office in Wales before she re-entered British politics full time.

She began her address started by recalling that she first met John Fitzmaurice in the 1970s. John was an Oxford contemporary of Jan’s late husband Stuart Hercock, who died 2010 of prostate cancer. (Jan noted her belief that Stuart would still be alive today if he had had an early prostrate cancer test – and as part of the introduction to her lecture, she reminded all men present, especially middle-aged men, to have the test.)

Jan’s lecture began by looking back 16 years to the start of her time in Brussels – when Europe was a “beacon of hope” and there was optimism about jobs, growth and a prosperous future.

She regretted that more progress had not been made during the good times and that a lack of sufficiently bold political leadership contributed to the current problems.

Refreshingly she did not hesitate to be critical of some aspects of the European project – in particular the absence of the right mechanisms to manage the euro, and the fact that the EU institutions are too ‘distant’ from citizens.

One recurrent theme in her talk was the nature of the British press. A situation where politicians fear press reaction to their comments stifles them from saying what they really think – and so stifles meaningful broad debate on issues such as ‘Europe’.

Jan concluded her talk by recalling John Fitzmaurice fondly. “He was a decent and delightful human being”, she said. Jan reminded the audience that he was active not only in the European institutions and at high-level summits, but also on the ground: standing in elections where he had almost no chance of success, and taking progressive democratic socialism ideas and arguments to the doorsteps across the UK.

Mark Major, with Kathryn Seren

There is more information on prostate cancer tests here.

Electoral law in Belgium recognises the right of all EU citizens to vote in – and stand for – local elections, and casting your vote could make all the difference in your commune.

But you have to register. If you haven’t done so yet, then don’t delay!

Brussels Labour strongly urges you to take up this opportunity to support the socialist candidates in the Brussels communes, who will include candidates from other EU member states. At least two Brussels Labour members will stand.

Your registration form has to be submitted by 31 July 2012 and copies are available at the electoral registration service (service électorat) in your commune, with specific details provided on their websites. If you registered for the 2006 elections, then you don’t need to do so again.

You can find out why your commune matters to you here.

“Ireland’s Future in a Changing Europe, Developing a Mutual Understanding”

Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA) Brussels Branch
Permanent Representation of Ireland, Rue Froissart 50, 1040 EtterbeekFrom 12.45-14:00 – Snack lunch is provided but pre-registration essential via email to the IIEA.

Meeting with the Irish Labour Party Brussels & friends

Place de Londres, 13 Place de Londres, 1050 Ixelles – map
Meeting starts at 18:00

François Hollande may not have been the first choice for many socialists – his very ‘ordinariness’ places charisma outside his range; his programme is cautiously social democratic, not transformative; other more exciting contenders have – how can we put it delicately? – fallen by the wayside. But he was the democratic choice of three million Socialist party members and sympathisers in an open primary which gave the Left a game-changing kick-off in the campaign.

His assured performance at the rally at Le Bourget in late January, addressing 25,000 supporters (that’s ten times the size of the Sheffield rally and without the gaffes), on TV and in a programme which rightly places all the emphasis on jobs and growth have given him a head-start. In the French presidential and legislative elections in April and May of this year Europe’s Left has its first chance of re-gaining power in a major EU member state since 2004.

This matters. First it means that at the top table in Europe there will be at least one significance voice opposed to the technocratic imposition of continent-wide austerity which is the mantra of the currently all-powerful centre-right. Hollande is committed to re-negotiate the ‘Fiscal Pact’ to be agreed in principle by 25 member states in March.

The French socialists do not reject budgetary discipline but want, quite reasonably to avoid arbitrary straight-jackets being imposed on member states without any accompanying measures for growth, and without adequate parliamentary safeguards. And their party has started working out a coordinated economic programme with German social democrats in the fairly confident expectation that ‘Merkozy’ will be seen by 2013 as a kind of historical aberration.

The 60 proposals in Hollande’s project, while slightly watered down from the party programme of last year, still represent a radical departure from ten years of conservative government in France, and place the right emphasis on education, social reform, active labour market policies, fairer taxation and equality measures which should be the hallmark of 21st century social democracy.

Incidentally it favours the financial transactions tax, inaugurated in France to set an example – but in this he has been joined belatedly by President Sarkozy. Indeed what used to be called ‘the Tobin tax’ is now part of a continent-wide orthodoxy, with only the British conservatives – and sadly some leading figures in the Labour Party – still refusing to support an important revenue raising measure which would discourage reckless speculation while being socially just.

The election is important as well politically – as the first battle in the fight-back for the Left. Some people, including certain think-tanks which vaunt themselves as progressive, have started to take the line that the decline of European social democracy is terminal, that the left can only win power if it reneges on practically the whole range of its ideological heritage, and that embracing austerity and the shrinking state as the new orthodoxy is the only way to crawl back into office.

For this new generation of social defeatists, whether they call themselves ‘Blue Labour’ or ‘Black Labour’ a Hollande victory in the Spring of 2012 would be highly inconvenient for their revisionist narrative.

For Labour this election is particularly important. If the French socialists win, it should give heart to their British counterparts and inject a well-needed dose of electoral and ideological self-confidence.

More specifically the election provides an opportunity to efface the shameful harm inflicted on relations between the two ‘sister’ parties by the overt support for candidate Sarkozy from leading figures in the Labour government in 2007. The photographic images of the French standard-bearer of the Right being coached by the then Prime Minister and his spokesperson have not been forgotten in French progressive circles.

For this election in France is a European election. Chancellor Merkel realises this, and has already announced that she will campaign for her fellow conservative. The fact that it is unlikely that Sarkozy would see any benefit from being joined on the campaign trail by David Cameron does not mean that the Labour leadership should sit this one out.

On the contrary, Ed Miliband appearing on platforms in France to support the socialist candidate for the Presidency and welcoming him to London when he campaigns for the votes of the three hundred thousand French nationals living there would signal a new era of cooperation between progressives Europe-wide and the coalescing of support for an alternative Europe-wide agenda of jobs and growth.

And who knows? Labour might just for once be on the winning side.

Julian Priestley
Waterloo, 1 February 2012