Funferal

European left to splinter?

Two interesting stories in the EU observer today deal with political realignments in Europe, and the Italians are central to each. First, there’s the founding of a new Europe-wide party, Europe Left by parties on the ‘radical left’ including the Italian and French Communists, the German Democratic Socialists, and parties in at least seven other countries. The new leader, Fausto Bertinotto of the Italian Communists, stressed that the new party must sever its links with Stalinismin order to move forward.
Separately, Romano Prodi, President of the European Commission, is in talks with the Liberal grouping in the European Parliament and others, about founding a new centrist grouping (which will lose the Liberal label because people don’t trust it in southern Europe). Prodi leads the centre-left in Italy (and is fighting the good fight against Berlusconi). I believe his party is part of the PES, so one wonders whether he hopes to pull them into the new centrist grouping, or will strike out on his own.
The result of all this is that we could end up with three, rather than two and a half, major party groupings in the European Parliament. But with pressure from the centre, and possibly from the left, this could reshape the left in Europe, at a formal level, in interesting ways. Where would ‘New Labour’ sit, for example?