Most of the proposals currently debated focus on reforming the Stability and Growth Pact and how to reinforce compliance and deepen fiscal policy coordination. After the disaster left by the Karamanlis government, this is understandable. However, there are significant problems with the proposed reforms.

First, they are exclusively intergovernmental and this approach has always been part of the problem and never the solution. National governments have their own agenda and, by definition, they cannot be responsible for the collective interest of all European citizens.  Secondly, the proposals seek to strengthen the surveillance of member states by member states. Who has ever found that poachers make good gamekeepers?

Thirdly, to turn poachers into honourable gentlemen, they impose quasi-automatic penalties decided by purely bureaucratic rather than democratic procedures. The ECB even wishes to delegate fiscal policy to an ‘independent European fiscal agency’, as if the democratic principle ‘No taxation without representation’ had no meaning in Europe. But fiscal policy cannot be handed over to an autopilot. It is policy in the noblest sense: making choices that represent public preferences and affect all citizens together. Because only the European Parliament represents all European citizens, it must have the right to discipline and punish (surveiller et punir) member states’ governments.

Fourthly, there is no mechanism that can guarantee the implementation of policies agreed between governments, because member states are supposed to be sovereign. National parliaments are autonomous in their decisions, but they represent the partial interests of their national constituencies. Only the European Parliament has a European constituency. The implementation of policies is therefore conditional on the goodwill of member states. But what happens, if national interests seek the opposite from what is good for all? Intergovernmentalism causes permanent gridlock. See the recent decision by the Slovak Parliament, which refused to pay its country’s contribution to the European Financial Stability Facility, despite benefiting from a stable euro.

The proposed reforms of Europe’s economic governance will not avoid future crises. They are inefficient and undemocratic. They will only increase the gap between citizens and EU institutions. They are a bypass into the abyss. European Democrats – whether Socialists, Liberals or Christian-democrats – must reject such reforms. They need an alternative.

Taking up the idea of tradable deficit permits (Casella, 2001) and linking it to the formulation of the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines (Amato 2002), I have proposed a different approach (for example in Collignon 2004, 2010, and most recently in a forthcoming Briefing Paper to the Economic And Monetary Affairs Committee of the European Parliament that will be posted here). It could open a significant democratic dimension to Europe’s fiscal policy by giving the European Parliament, as the voice of European citizens, the democratic right to control the aggregate budget policies pursued in Europe under the Stability and Growth Pact. This is how it could be done:

• The Economic Policy Guidelines will become a legal act of the European Union that defines the general policy orientations and decides the optimal borrowing requirement for the Euro Area, i.e. the aggregate budget deficit which is considered consistent with the economic environment (business cycle) and the structural requirements of the European economy (public investment, aging etc.). On the basis of a Commission proposal, the Council together with the European Parliament will pass a directive that defines the aggregate amount of borrowing permits, which give public authorities the right to issue new debt, and will allocate these permits to member states.
• The European Parliament will have an active role in the formulation of the desirable aggregate policy stance. Art. 135 of the TFEU requests the Council ‘to set out economic policy guidelines for [member states in the Euro Area], while ensuring that they are compatible with those adopted for the whole of the Union and are kept under surveillance’. A priori, this excludes the Parliament. However, who would object that the Council, with reference to art. 289 and 290, would stipulate that an ordinary legislative procedure regarding the Economic Policy Guidelines will define the desirable aggregate deficit of the Euro Area? Political will is the key to such reform.
• If the aggregate budget position regulates the external effects arising from national budget policies, member states must implement the allocation of public resource in a way that is consistent with the common policy stance. For this purpose, each member state must be allocated a share of the total borrowing authorization. The obvious criterion for this allocation is the relative share in GDP, but one could imagine modifications to this distribution that reflect other criteria, e.g. excesses over the 60% debt ratio.
• Some member states may wish to borrow more than they have been authorized. The coherence of fiscal policy can only be maintained, if the excess borrowing by some countries is compensated by less borrowing in other countries. Hence, there must be the possibility of horizontal transfers of the borrowing permits. Inspired by tradable pollution permits, such transfers could be traded in a specifically set up market. Table 1 gives an indication of the size of such transfers, based on the actual borrowing of the Euro Area in 2009. Total borrowing was €574.7bn, i.e. 6.5% of GDP. Assuming that this was the desirable amount of aggregate borrowing in the crisis situation, Germany’s borrowing share was only half of its GDP weight and Spain’s nearly double. With the tradable permit system, the request of excess borrowing by Ireland, Greece, France and Spain could have been authorized by transferring unused permits from Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Finland and Austria.

Table 1. Deviations from aggregate borrowing requirements

• The idea of creating borrowing permits through the ordinary legislative procedure also has advantages with respect to the surveillance and implementation of the agreed common fiscal policy. A European law in the form of a directive could oblige financial institutions to lend only to public entities if they can present borrowing permits for the required amount. This ensures that no government can violate the budget position, which was considered optimal by the democratic institutions of the European Union. Thus, contrary to the bureaucratic surveillance proposed by European authorities, the system of borrowing permits would give democratic legitimacy to the process of defining the desirable aggregate budget position for the Euro Area, and decentralize the policy implementation, which would be policed by markets that simply apply the law.

References

Amato, G. (2002), Verso un DPEF Europeo; NENS No.4 (Nuova Economia Nuova Società), luglio, pp.15-19.

Casella, A. (2001), ‘Trade-able Deficit Permits’ in: Brumila, A., Buti, M and Franco, D. (2001), The Stability and Growth Pact, The Architecture of Fiscal Policy in EMU, London: Palgrave.

Collignon, S. (8 June 2010), Europe’s economic government or how to use the Treaty for more effective economic coordination in the euro area?, http://www.stefancollignon.de/PDF/Collignon_June10.pdf

Collignon, S. (2004), Fiscal Policy and Democracy, paper presented at Monetary Workshop, Österreichische Nationalbank, Vienna, 2004; published as ÖNB Discussion paper No. 4, ‘A Constitutional Treaty for an Enlarged Europe: Institutional and Economic Implications for Economic and Monetary Union’, http://www.stefancollignon.de/PDF/OENBank.pdf

That is a sound we have been hearing from senior figures in the Labour Party since its defeat in May, including from some of the leadership candidates. The Iraq war is the most obvious example, but there are others. I would like to focus on one dear to my heart, the European Agency Workers Directive.

In 2004, the Labour government took the correct but brave decision to accept its legal obligations and allow free movement of labour from the eight Central and Eastern European countries that had joined the EU. Unfortunately, that brought into sharp relief a fundamental flaw in the UK labour market, namely the activities of employment agencies.

Mrs Thatcher had deregulated agencies so that anyone could set one up, free to pay low wages and ignore working conditions. That only became a headline issue with the influx of labour from the new EU member states, particularly from Poland. Exploitation became rife and there were no end of horror stories concerning working and living conditions. Furthermore, established labour forces found their wages being undercut and even their jobs taken over. Sometimes entire labour forces would be sacked and replaced by agency workers (not necessarily migrant workers). Tragically, the positive case for the benefits of immigration was lost in this sea of exploitation and resentment. Inevitably, the beneficiaries could only be the political right.

Naturally, the government was told this by trades unions, MEPs and MPs. I personally constantly sought to bring this situation to the notice of cabinet ministers and No. 10. The fact is though that nobody was listening. The government’s only significant response was to restrict the movement of labour from Bulgaria and Rumania in 2007, a classic example of dealing with the symptoms, not the cause. In reality, the agenda was about flexible labour markets, minimum regulation and listening to the CBI above anybody else.

The government could have taken action at a national level to regulate the activities of employment agencies, but chose not to. The battleground, therefore, shifted to the proposed European Directive on agency workers, which attempted to establish a relatively level playing field across the EU. The government, supported by the CBI, fought the directive tooth and nail to the extent of briefing Tory and Liberal MEPs against Labour MEPs! Eventually, the UK was forced to back down, but not before it had diluted the directive as much as it could.

Then, along came the election and ministers were confronted with an electorate angry at how their livelihoods were being undermined by among other things, exploited migrant labour. That anger was personified by the infamous encounter between Gordon Brown and Gillian Duffy from Rochdale.

This all seems to have come as a surprise to senior figures in the Party, hence the self-flagellation now that the horse has bolted. Yet, if they had listened to the warnings, it could have been avoided. The challenge to the new leadership is to create a genuine two-way communication in the Party and to learn to really listen and not just hand out policy. The furious self-discipline that the Party adopted in order to get power in the 1990s unfortunately led to a culture where constructive criticism became impossible. That has to change.

Naturally, the election was not just about migrant labour and exploitation. There was, though, a feeling of disconnection among many of the electorate. People could see the huge investment Labour had made in public services and the economy, yet their own personal experience often was poor. Their livelihoods and future pensions were all being damaged, not by any fault of their own, but by remote people who were allowed to operate by an entirely different moral compass and indeed, who were encouraged to do so by the government. People felt themselves the victim of forces that they had no control over.

Labour’s public service reform programme was important and led to better services. The downside, though, was that in its hurry to get things done, it sometimes felt as if the Labour government had reduced the world to targets and standards but forgot to include people. A central tenet of the Third Way originally was that what was important was to deliver good services, not who delivered them. Actually, who delivers is important, because it is people who deliver and they need to feel valued and that they belong.

The new leadership of the party must make people, not markets, the centre of politics. People must feel they have control over their own lives and are confident that all sections of society are operating by the same rules and moral code. Most importantly, the leadership should learn to listen.

Some time ago I had a series of lengthy conversations with Erhard Eppler, who is a leading social democratic thinker. During the conversations we talked about the red-green government in Germany and how the green party developed.

Erhard insisted that the core ideas of green politics were developed in the SPD first. This claim was something that stuck with me.

After some very superficial research it became clear that he was right. And being the very humble man that he is he did not mention that is was he himself who as early as in the late 1960s and 1970s pushed ideas about ‘sustainable development’ and necessary changes to energy policy.

I think this would be a great topic for a short research project leading to a sound journal article. If there only was enough time to pursue all interesting research questions…

Be that as it may, my colleague Tom Palley has written a Labor Day appeal to the Obama administration to implement a four-point plan to: inject stimulus into the economy, cauterise the housing market, reduce the trade deficit and restore the productivity-wage link.

From a European perspective I note two things. First, politically, it is vital for European progressive prospects that the Obama Presidency succeed, and that requires decisive action along the lines Tom and others have suggested. There is a serious risk that his administration will be hamstrung after the November mid-terms if the economy and job market continue to flag (or worse).

Second, economically, the call for the USA to reduce its yawning trade deficit is a further reminder that Europe cannot expect other countries to create demand for it. The dollar will very likely fall against the euro, even if the main adjustment need is between the US and Asia. American net imports must decline, as must (in particular) German net exports.* Europe needs to boost domestic demand, and that means, well, fiscal and monetary stimulus, targetted support for the housing market (in some countries) and aligning wage and productivity growth. What it does not need is an export drive like in the US (although some individual EU countries certainly do).

Oh, and I am in favo(u)r of getting rid of all of those redundant ‘u”s in British English.

*Anticipating likely criticisms: net exports are not the same as exports. Germany can sell ever more goods abroad if it so wants. It should just increase its imports by at least an equivalent amount.

First, the good news: the economic side of the case. China’s response of to the world economic crisis is the central reason why the financial turbulence that emanated from the US sub-prime debacle did not completely destroy the world economy and lead to a repeat of the 1930’s Great Depression.

In a famous analysis of the Great Depression, the economic historian Charles Kindleberger argued that it arose from a failure of world leadership. Great Britain had been the hegemonic power of the nineteenth century, but its creditor status had been severely eroded by the cost of fighting World War I.

The United States had emerged from the war as the world’s largest creditor, but it had a double vulnerability. Its financial system was unstable and prone to panics, and its political system was immature and prone to populism and nativism.

In the Depression, according to Kindleberger, the US should have provided an open market to foreign goods. Instead, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act closed off American markets and provoked other countries into a spiral of retaliatory trade measures.

US financial institutions should have continued to lend to distressed borrowers, in order to prevent a spiral in which credit rationing forced price reductions and intensified world deflation. Instead, US banks, widely blamed for the international lending boom that preceded the bust, were so intimidated and weakened that the flow of American credit stopped.

After World War II, as a leading figure in developing the Marshall Plan, Kindleberger set about applying these lessons: the US should keep its markets and its flow of funds open to support other countries.

How different the twenty-first century looks! It is as if China’s leaders were the star pupils in one of Kindleberger’s courses. Throughout the crisis, the Chinese economy continued to grow at an amazing pace, in part as a consequence of massive fiscal stimulus. When anyone wants an example of how effective a Keynesian counter-cyclical strategy can be, internationally as well as domestically, they need look no further than China’s four-trillion-renminbi stimulus of 2008-2009.

Apart from a six-month period after the September 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers, in which trade finance stopped and the world did look as if it was close to Great Depression circumstances, China and other emerging markets helped those export-oriented industrial economies to recover. The surprising strength of the German economy, with more vigorous growth than at any time in the past 15 years, is due to the dynamism of emerging-market – particularly Chinese – demand, not only for investment goods, engineering products, and machine tools, but also for luxury consumer products. Germany’s high-end automobile producers are now operating at full capacity.

China also followed Kindleberger’s financial lessons. For a moment, it looked as if a contagious crisis, driven by fears of government over-indebtedness, would destroy the politically fragile compromise that European countries had carefully constructed over a 50-year period. The turning point in this spring’s euro panic came when big holders of reserve currencies signaled that they saw the need for the euro as an alternative to the increasingly problematic dollar and the equally vulnerable yen. China started to buy European Union governments’ bonds, and a high-profile Chinese team even went to Greece to buy under-priced real assets.

It was not just Europe that benefited from China’s willingness to take on the mantle of “lender of last resort.” The new-found dynamism of African economies is a consequence of the Chinese drive to build up and secure sources of raw materials.

But there is a problem with Kindleberger’s argument. Kindleberger, a kind and well-meaning man, could never see that the world is never entirely grateful to the country that saves it. Being a hegemon is a thankless task. The beneficent effects of China’s engagement in the world economy are felt much more powerfully farther away from China. In that sense, too, there is a parallel with the story of the US, whose leadership was felt much more positively in Europe than it was in Canada, Mexico, or Central America.

It is not surprising that the greatest and strongest ideological opponent of the American way of life was not in distant Europe or Asia, but in Cuba, just 90 miles off the Florida coast. Since the early twentieth century, Mexicans have felt worried and threatened by American strength. And, in the same way, Taiwan and Vietnam feel that they will be the Chinese giant’s first victims.

The global hegemon has never been loved by its neighbors. But the US gradually, if imperfectly, built up trust through multilateral institutions. Europeans did much better at reconciliation with their neighbors after WWII, in part because the malign and evil conditions of Nazi rule made it necessary to talk about the past in terms of moral categories rather than power politics.

In contrast to America’s engagement in multilateralism, or Europe’s search for reconciliation through a plethora of common institutions, power politics is much more a part of Asia’s twentieth-century legacy. The real challenge for China’s leaders will be to develop a coherent view of the world that does not scare the people just across the border.

Copyright Project Syndicate

Le Monde commented that the Low Countries suffer from ‘’the disease of populism’’, and something is right about that. Both in Belgium and the Netherlands, an attempt was made to form a coalition between establishment parties at one hand and anti-establishment populist parties at the other, the Freedoms party of Geert Wilders, respectively the Flemish-nationalist N-VA-party of Bart De Wever. These attempts failed dramatically, at the expense of the established parties. The Dutch CDA nearly collapsed because of an intra-party conflict between a pro-Wilders wing and an anti-Wilders camp.

Time will teach us, if and how the traditional party political systems and government formation patterns can survive the plague of populism. Small countries frequently act as a barometer for future social and political developments, so the chaos of the Belgian and Dutch cabinet formation may be a warning message for Europe as a whole.

To cut a long story short, the trust decided, at the height of the boom, to invest a large proportion of its financial assets in companies – most of which were also in the media sector – in cooperation with a private equity group. They then engaged in the usual practices of that form of investor, notably saddling the companies with debt, reducing their tax liabilities etc. The final outcome of this adventure is still unclear, but serious losses were incurred on some ventures. The CEO is leaving and moving to, err, easyJet (you can’t see me, but I am biting my tongue).

What is one to make of this? The siren call of private equity and financial alchemy was heard loud and clear even at what is, in effect, a charitable organisation. It tried, late in the day, to jump on the supposed bandwagon.  As elsewhere, ambitious senior managers went unchecked by disinterested or ignorant boards. They also took away large bonuses.  So far, so unremarkable. But this is the Guardian/Observer! These are papers that regularly inveighed against the excesses of financial capitalism. Did nobody see a problem here?

Even without getting all liberal-hoity-toity, the strategy was clearly economically daft. Can we expect (well-paid) board members to do a bit of elementary maths? The aim of the trust is to generate steady revenue in order to ensure the independence of the newspapers. Even a safe, highly diversified portfolio yielding a 5% return on GBP 1 bn generates 50 million a year, more than enough to cover the papers’ losses. (But then that would have required approximately one person to oversee it, and all the CEOs and CFOs and other hangers-on with their large bonuses would have been redundant.) To concentrate virtually all of the investments on media firms which – do I really have to point this out? – belong to the same sector as the newspapers, ensuring minimal diversification, is investment incompetence of the first degree. Whatever the hype about private equity’s returns, they are lumpy, illiquid investments. It might have made sense for the trust to have a flutter with a small percentage of its assets, but not bet the farm, sorry the printing presses. And how hard was it to see in 2007 that the private equity wave was peaking? In the spring of that year, Blackstone, the largest PE group in the world, went public, accompanied by much media speculation that the smart money was getting out.

Maybe the strategy will work out in the end. But it was a huge and totally unnecessary punt. It is perfectly conceivable that the fund would  have incurred massive losses (indeed it may still happen). Sure, lots of stupid and not so stupid people have lost a lot of money in the crisis. But think about it! Serious losses would have threatened (or will threaten) the very existence of the two most important liberal voices in the British, and to a lesser extent European, media. Now that would have been a victory for financial capitalism.

But I remember two events heralding the start of a split between the two. The first was over OMOV – the method by which the party would elect its leader. Gordon vacillated over the purer form of OMOV, and Tony took the risky option despite the fact that the unions were against it. Then, after the 1992 defeat, I recall the first of the big rows: this time Tony wanted Gordon to stand for leader against John Smith and the politics of one more heave. Gordon declined. It was then that Tony knew that he would have to be the next leader. And so it was to be.

It is impossible to look into someone’s heart and tell if they are a good person or not. Tony Blair had all the political talents a party leader could desire – except the right instincts. Personalities are always going to be an unreliable basis for radical political progress. What leaders need, though they seldom know it, is the ideas and movements to ensure they are channelled in the right direction. Blair chose the wrong ideas and tried to marginalise the forces that could have enshrined a new centre left hegemony. He opted for Anthony Giddens’ Third Way as a way to move beyond left and right, which left the Party with few friends, enemies only to the left, and a belief that change could come through triangulation not struggle. In defining New Labour against Old, he consistently took on the unions, local government and public sector workers – the very people who could have helped sustain a more purposeful and ambitious political venture. The good that he and New Labour did was largely confined to the first years in the first term: the new deal, the minimum wage and devolution. Ironically, much of it was down to John Smith.

After 2001 it started to go badly wrong – when Blair, in the cases of invading Iraq, privatising the public sector and being tough on crime for example, increasingly followed his convictions and his emerging instincts. What Brown believed in is anyone’s guess. Over the years, Blair has shifted so far to the right that now, his politics seem indistinguishable from the Conservatives’ dominated Coalition and their savage cuts agenda. On which points he differs from them is unclear. He regrets the ban on fox hunting but doesn’t regret the Iraq invasion. He wants to cut the deficit but not prison numbers. The cuts are right and the commercialisation of the public sector and the reform of welfare should continue. The state has no role in sorting out the excesses of financialised capitalism.

That there is nothing in this for Labour hardly matters. No one in Labour’s ranks would be willing to follow such a dried up and desiccated policy agenda. But where Blair does still strike a chord is with the idea that the Party only wins as New Labour. The notion is as toxic as it is wrong. Blair always claimed that they won as New Labour and would govern as New Labour. The claim is absurd. No one knew what New Labour actually stood for – least of all Blair given how much he changed. Labour won like all Oppositions by not being the government. Its always governments that lose elections – the Opposition just has to look credible.

It meant that the future after 1997 wasn’t set in stone but that instead, there were possibilities for more radical and progressive reforms. That Blair chose the wrong reforms is down to him. The fact that he was allowed to is down to those in and around the Party. The potential for social democracy was never realised. Second, New Labour started losing support after 2001 because of its political agenda. Up to 2005, around 4 million votes were lost – not to the right but to parties of the left. By 2010 the figure was 5 million. These people did not want the continuation of New Labour but something very different. When he was forced out of office, Blair and his project were out of favour with the British public. Now his intervention merely highlights the long overdue need for change.

And so we turn to the current leadership election. The Party needs to aim for the maximum possible change combined with the maximum possible chance of winning. Whoever the next Labour leader will be, this person should look long and hard at the political potential Tony Blair squandered and vow, never again.

The social democratic movement started to gain strength in Turkey in the 1960s; however, it had a major setback after the 1980 military coup. Especially, the closure of political parties, including the CHP, and the de-politicization of the society have caused significant issues to social democracy overall. An important example would be the weakened relations between social democratic parties and labour unions.

First major impediment to a rapid recovery from these issues was the fragmented nature of the Left in Turkey. At almost every election, socialists have tried to create alliances and coalitions; however, these efforts have been carried out very ineffectively and a strong synergy could never be brought about. Therefore, they ended up being in opposition most of the time and had to go through painful setbacks and post-election restructurings without much success. However, the most important impediment was the lack of a healthy self-renewal process among social democratic parties. They could not foresee the changes in society and in the world, and could neither understand nor manage the new dynamics. At some point, they started to be seen as the political movement of elites instead of being the voice of the common people. As a result the Left could not be a viable government alternative; and more importantly lost its self confidence, momentum and energy.

Today, however, we are at a turning point with the presidency of Mr. Kilicdaroglu. After a long time, CHP is trying to position itself closer to the public and especially to working, low-income and middle classes, craftsmen, farmers and public servants. Since his inauguration, Mr. Kilicdaroglu visited 60 cities and 171 provinces; some of which are places CHP had not organised any rally for more than 10 years.

Moreover, in a short period of time, the youth and women branches of the party have been re-organised; relations with NGOs, labour unions and universities have been revitalised; and volunteers have been mobilised. For instance, on Facebook, there are nearly 700.000 people who support Mr Kilicdaroglu.

In his inauguration speech Mr. Kilicdaroglu emphasized that his priorities would be eliminating poverty, creating employment, fighting corruption, supporting young people and women to enable a better political representation, and bringing back social democratic values. This was a stark change compared to the previous party management, whose political agenda had been based mainly on protection of secularism. Although Mr Kilicdaroglu was the only candidate at the convention and his leadership was definite, he also promised to improve intra-party democracy. I believe this convention was a historical day for the revival of the party and for the revival of the social democracy in Turkey.

We, the managers of CHP, are fully aware of our responsibilities in this critical moment. We develop clear and sound programmes, policies and projects for the upcoming term that will bring the passion, enthusiasm and hope back to our people. People want to know whether the changes the political leaders are promising have substance and will lead to tangible results that will improve their lives. We are focused and determined to bring forth the change the country desperately needs for fairness and individual freedoms. We listen more carefully and communicate much better with our constituencies and will go beyond short-term commitments to ensure a sustainable development. We have already seen a very positive feedback as people have started to understand that we care about their problems and we are working very hard to provide real solutions.

As the biggest and strongest social democratic party in Turkey, CHP has also an important responsibility to strengthen the ties between Turkish and European socialists and social democrats. We need a European left who understands the dynamics of Turkey in a better way; an understanding not based on superficial observations of Turkey, but a more comprehensive one that takes into account the social, cultural, historical and geographical dynamics. And I am confident that our newly elected party management will create the required infrastructure and relations to explain Turkish social democracy in a more realistic way to Europe. As a member of the Party Assembly, I was part of the CHP team who joined the Council of the Socialist International (SI) meeting at the end of May 2010 in New York. This was the first council meeting that the CHP joined in the last 2 years since the relations of the party with the SI had been frozen.

I believe improving these ties and creating a closer working relation will be immensely beneficial to both sides. After the latest global financial crisis, the issues that socialists and social democrats need to address in different countries have more similarities. Unemployment, inequalities in the distribution of wealth and the lack of fairness are bigger issues in the world more than ever. Therefore, working on these issues together to create novel solutions is in the interest of both Turkey and European socialists and social democrats. The closer we get as social democrats the better we will be in promoting social values in Europe and in finding solutions to problems that affects us both.

In these days, because of the referendum on a partial constitutional amendment that will take place on 12 September 2010, Turkey is in a hectic political environment. The ruling party is willing to implement amendments in order to change the structure of the Constitutional Court and High Council of Judges and Prosecutors in order to dominate and control the judiciary and strengthen its power.

Under the Erdogan administration, Turkey has been facing important issues concerning independence of judiciary, freedom of press, freedom of expression, corruption, unrestricted wire tapping, etc. NGOs, businessmen and the public have been intimidated to suppress any criticism against the government. For instance, recently the Turkish industrialists’ and businessmen’s Association (TUSIAD) has been pressured and warned by the Prime Minister, who said  “The one who is impartial, will be dismissed”, because TUSIAD hasn’t explicitly supported the constitutional amendment package.

Whatever the result of the referendum may be, with all the new initiatives taken by CHP, we are confident that we will win the upcoming parliamentary elections that will take place in 2011. But our aim is not just to win the elections but to work together for a better society, more confident individuals and a stronger country.

This is certainly something that has long been overdue and it comes at a pivotal time for social democracy in general. Let’s hope there will be a good process for the elaboration of the document.

I know that the good society debate and other discussions we have been leading on these pages are informing some of the key stakeholders. So let’s kick it up another notch!