International Political Parties (Poland and EU)

Alright, I've got a serious question in a bit of a hypothetical scenario.

Do you think the working class people of the EU should unite under one banner for the greater good? Do you think it's possible to start a European political party in this current climate? I think we all know that bussiness people tend to have international relations and contacts, so I'm wondering why the working class of EU should be excluded from having international relations and contacts?

What would be required or even necessary to start a political party which could operate internationally, aswell as locally? Would such a thing even be possible? Does anyone know? Any ideas?

I can't speak for everyone, but I'd like to see a fair exchange of work and immigration throughout Europe, balanced salaries, and a fair, transparant, aswell as a regulated immigration process for foreign workers, which will probably benefit everyone in the long run. If I would explain these ideas in great detail it'll probably make more sense, but I'm afraid it'll be the longest post on the internet.

So how do workers from Poland feel about their salaries abroad? How do they feel about explotation? How do they feel about their safety and their rights while working abroad? I've heard, read and seen a few disturbing stories already, but I'd like to hear more.. Oh, and feel free to contribute to this thread where ever you're coming from. I'm sure you have some ideas yourself.. It's a free world, right?

:)

Um...there ARE european political parties already:


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_political_party#The_Europarties
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_political_party#Regulations

There's already a socialist alliance.

Anyway, regarding the changes you're advocating, it takes time, it's balancing out. There are some countries like Germany, Austria, France that saw the danger to both countries of opening up their labor market to countries with median incomes which were 1/5th of theirs. They were demonized for it at the time, and praised for it now.

Do you want it all to happen over night? Give it 30 years and get back to me. Some countries are quicker than others to figure it out(Slovenia comes to mind...).

The only way you are going to unite the peoples of Europe is to start a movement like the hippies in the sixties.
There are too many differences in politics and religion, hence the need to find another way.

Politics = manifesto,s, intentions, a way of life and rules.

Religion = a creed, a way of life and rules.

Both one of the same thing, an influence on people.

Therefore the need for a "New Movement ", nonreligious or political.

Find that, and you have the beginnings.

The hippies were a fringe group, not some unifying movement.

Yes, I'm aware of that. (But here comes the big BUT..) Do they co-operate locally? Are they even active locally? No they aren't. Are they going to? Do they have plans to operate locally?


I still don't see anything happening locally.


Not really, but atleast I want to see something happen. (Which I simply don't!)


They only needed about ten years to privatize the whole public system? They've changed the marketing system in less than ten years? (And they're making new changes as we speak!) I'm absolutely positive they could make these changes happen within a shorter period of time, if they really wanted to. I don't think they're very enthusiastic? Or maybe they don't see the benefits of working locally?


I agree, to a certain extent.


What I'm basically talking about is a need for local politics, interacting with other local politicians, through an international organisation or structure. People usually know what they need locally. Infact, they often are quite adept at making assessments, and know the local situation better than the government usually does, simply because they're more involved.


What we need is the left wings and the right wings to stop bickering about who's the Nazi and who's the Hippy. Who's the evil heathen or who's the bad Catholic. We need people who will simply look at the facts, listen to what the people want, or convince them of the alternatives, and then come up with a logical solution. (How hard can it be I wonder?)

I believe all forms of religion should be completely seperated from politics. Having a belief should be something personal, and something you should be allowed to practice with other people if you feel the need to. Essentially, there's nothing wrong with politics and debating or discussing, but it's usually the people themselves who just can't seem to look past all the differences without stigmatizing one another. They tend to create camps, and seem to need their absolute truths.

I believe the truth is usually somewhere in the middle.

;)

I thought this definition of centrist was amusing:
"define as 'centrist' any position which the Left considers too far Right and the Right considers too far Left.."

Convex: This is basically your Socialist Alliance in a nutshell;

- The strengthening of the socialist and social democratic movement in the Union and throughout Europe.

- The development of close working relationships between the national parties, the national parliamentary groups, the Parliamentary Group of the PES, PES Women, ECOSY, and other socialist and social democratic organisations.

- The definition of common policies for the European Union.

- The adoption of a common manifesto for elections to the European Parliament.

I'm talking about one party. Different countries. Co-operating. I think it'll prove far more effective than having all kinds of different political parties and movements, each with its own different agenda, which just happen to flock together in Brussels, but in reality, fail to do anything locally. How do they communicate I wonder? I think it's too complicated, and I think a simplification might help everyone. (Or maybe this'll actually happen in about thirty years, and I'm being too negative now?)

:S


It's funny sometimes, but also tragic really. I guess 'Centrist' is just another one of those labelling words I don't use. I'd rather call people who listen to both sides of the story realistic, practical and down to earth. It's normal to compromise when you're debating, and you should be open to all kinds of suggestions, possibilities and solutions, regardless of who or which party provides you a good solution. (Atleast that's how I see it!)

:)

I'm not sure what you mean!

The Green parties operate of course locally as a party has to be a minimum on voters at home to be eligible for the european parliament...and there the green parties from EU-countries cooperate then.

Just as an example but the same works for all parties in the european parliament!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Green_Party


But why should the polish green party for example be active in Germany or the german green party in Poland???

The European parliament is like the parliaments in the the member states...hence similiar alliances are being made...lefties against righties etc.

You don't need to invent the wheel again! ;)

When you harbor socialist ideals then you have a party for that already too:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_of_European_Socialists

I'll explain.


Let me give you an example; A German party in Berlin wants Polish workers to fill the vacancies. A Polish party in Kraków wants German workers. Today, these two parties do not know what the other party is doing locally, simply because they don't communicate on that level. (Do you know about the twin town concept?) Each town should have a twin town they can deal with. The government doesn't have to intervene with these dealings, but they can still oversee the whole picture.

If the Polish and German parties would team up, if they would become one party, and perhaps even exhange some personnel, they may know that Berlin needs 3000 Polish workers, and that Kraków needs 3000 German workers. (There are jobless people in Germany aswell, no?) That way, they can inform themselves properly, and even exchange personnel without flooding eachother's markets, and request the kind of personnel they really need, instead of what's happening now, with all these free-lancing agencies, because nobody honestly knows who's working where anymore! Just look at all these articles about immigration, and you'll see that even the newspapers have to guess and estimate how many immigrant workers they have in their countries, because no one really knows the exact figures.

So that's what I mean with regulated immigration and communication/co-operation on a local scale. Healthier for everyone. Local political parties have access to files, know who's jobless and who isn't. The governments only check up annually..

Local parties should get involved with people frequently. It might seem like a lot of work, but it only takes a few persons extra in the office, and if they do what they're supposed to do, then we will see a dramatic change in the unemployment rates everywhere. Better for everyone, right or left.


Yes, and what exactly are they doing to become effective on a local scale? Nothing. Nada. Just because you're bickering in Brussels doesn't mean you're actually helping anyone. Alright, you might change a few rules, and change a few rights, but I'm afraid that's all they're doing in Brussels. We need local job offices with registered people instead of all these free-lancing agencies working behind eachother's backs, and proper communication between local parties.


I'm not talking about a wheel. I'm talking about a racing car. We need to do something to make our system run faster, and the only way how we could achieve this, is to co-operate locally.

:)


I harbour all kinds of ideals. I'm all for practical solutions. Some of my vieuws would be left, and some of my vieuws would be right, and a few ideas I have may seem a bit radical at first, but I can assure you that no one will come to harm. What we need to do is make people co-operate, instead of working individually. This means the agencies I was talking about earlier don't necessarily have to be shut down, but that they should melt into one big job office, and simply change their activities. So we don't have to re-invent the wheel at all, we only have to sing a different tune. I could probably explain it better, but I'm sure you get the idea?

I'll attempt to explain it in my 'ideal' scenario.

I would like to see job offices with registered people (Qualification, marital status, age, gender, along with the motivation to work abroad yes or no.) I would like these job offices to communicate with other job offices. (Phone, internet, etc!) I would like to see complexes with affordable appartments for temporary foreign workers everywhere, so that they won't flood the housing market all at once. (We already have a few 'Polish villages' in Holland so I'm sure this whole concept isn't too new, or too strange for certain people.) These people could later decide if they want to stay in the new country yes or no, and move into a house of their choice once they obtained a contract. (Perhaps a small school in these complexes will help to teach them the language of the country they're in, only for those people who consider staying.) This way, you can regulate everything from A to Z, and exchange people and work in a fair and honest way, without exploiting anyone, without flooding eachother's markets through rogue agencies and anomymous immigrants.

If we would interact locally, we could make such changes happen, and probably fix the whole unemployment issue, probably halt crime rates, and ofcourse this will generate quite a lot office jobs aswell! (Good for teachers aswell!) Bad plan? Good plan? Any suggestions? Ideas? I myself wouldn't mind working abroad for a while and experience something new, if only the chances of actually getting somewhere were fair enough. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the whole plan in Brussels to create one Europe for Europeans? So why not communicate and interact more intensively I wonder?

:)

Interesting side note: To build these kind of complexes, you'll need construction workers and architects. (Which also means more jobs for the local population.)

Sure, as long as it doesn't cost working people any more money. Unfortunately, individual countries can't even make this effective at home at the moment.


This creates ghettos and keeps labor costs artificially low.

Most Europeans are for a union, against a federalist superstate.

The current approach is more organic, but it has its problems. I think that opening up the labor markets completely was detrimental to immigrant host countries and home countries, and was the cause of many of the problems that you mentioned.

Process should look a bit like this, FDI and grants provided to build infrastructure and create jobs where needed. Make investment attractive enough to bring jobs, which raises salaries. Wash, rinse, repeat until prices and wages increase to become more or less equal.

They have job centres everywhere, right? So why should that cost anyone any money I wonder? They already have access to certain files. They already have access to a database of employers, and they already have a network. How hard can it be to tell people to sign up if they're looking for a job? How hard can it be to exchange information with other job centres, wether they are Spanish, Swiss, Austrian, English, French, German, Dutch or Polish job centres?


Which is funny, because I remember well organised job centres in Holland, only about 15 years ago? They deliberately ruined these, all for the sake of privatizing business, and the new marketing system. I'm sure they're able to make these effective at home, if only they wanted to. (There's no excuse really, and everyone knows that most of the people in our countries aren't completely retarded yet!)


I don't think so. I think this will help a lot of jobless people to make a start for themselves somewhere, or even help them to a contract. Ghetto? How? It's far better to build a decent appartment complex for foreign workers, because these appartments will have no impact whatsoever on housing prices, or the internal market, because they're exclusive destinations, designed for a special purpose. (Think!) You want to see ghetto's? Take a look in Rotterdam, where immigrants live in a house or an appartment together with twenty other people. (Which is illegal.)


I'm for solutions. I wouldn't mind a federalistic superstate, as long as it keeps its democratic values. I wouldn't mind a union either. I happen to think that it's not about what type of system we have, but more about the values we keep. We need to be more co-operative, and more effective.


Investments and infrastructure always help, but you'll need to give your workers some perspectives aswell. You can't expect skilled workers to sleep in a tent, can you? Or even expect them to be happy about living in a bungalow or a house, together with twenty other people.

So that's why I think these appartments complexes are necessary. (They're going to build 300 appartments for foreign workers in my area, so I know it's possible!) I think we should make it attractive for workers to work abroad aswell, instead of expecting them to arrange everything on their own in a country where they can't even speak the language, which probably is the biggest obstacle for a lot of people who would consider working abroad. I know some of us are smarter than others, but you can't possibly expect people to study every European language first?

:)

You're absolutely right. There's no reason not to. It would also allow for better of tracking of things like paying taxes to the proper authority.


You've got a Union right now, with a number of treaties binding the countries together. Right now the problem is that the powers that be have brought the EU into limbo between countries bound together in certain aspects, and a single entity with common laws across all countries (which removes the need for national governments). It should be either-or, being stuck in the middle isn't really helping.


By losing all of your skilled workers to foreign markets, you lose the chance for knowledge transfer in the workplace back at home. I think it would make more sense to build up the individual countries first, and then implement full movement of labor once equilibrium has been achieved (which is happening, albeit slowly...which is better, allows people to adjust to the unintended consequences better).


I think without being able to communicate, you just create an opportunity for exploitation. The jobs that those people could get are labor jobs, which can be performed by people in the target country. If they're not being performed by the residents of the target country, it is because the wages are too low, and the employer will be forced by the market to increase wages.

= " like ".


They were neither a political group, I was simply giving an example.
Let me rephrase, people are tired of the same old, same old. Presently we have the EU and hence as someone has mentioned we have members to the EU parliament. So whats new ?

For europe to be truly united, it would have to have one ultimate leader, a bit like the USA.
Only where will you find such an unbiased person ?

So basically as said, it,s simply hypothetical. Otherwise we are delving into heavy politics.