European Union and Political Parties: the case of the Party of European Socialists (PES) (original) (raw)

The Party of European Socialists was established according the Article 138 A of the Maastricht Treaty in order to contribute to the European unification process, having a decisive role on shaping the European conscience and becoming the political expression of the European citizens. In the prospect of the European Integration, we have to take into consideration three contradictions a) the crisis of political parties b) that national parties have to build a supra national party and c) that the parties are called to contribute to a European consensus while their tradition is based on the expression of social cleavages. The present analysis focuses a) on the so-called crisis of the political parties, b) on examining the political effects of the globalization process and c) on the role of the parties since the foundation of the European Community. Also, the present analysis argues that in order to comprehend the politics and government of European Union through political parties, we hav...