25 September 1991, 5 am, in Sec, Czechoslovakia during the 19th IUSY Congress, the European Committee ends with an agreement to create a youth organisation for the Confederation of Socialist Parties of the
European Community, the predecessor of the PES. Three years after the fall of the Berlin wall and five months before the agreement on the Treaty on European Union in Maastricht, European young socialists finally decided to organise on the level of the European Community.
The debate had been very hot inside IUSY for several years between those who wanted an EC linked political youth organisation and those who favoured work inside IUSY.
The arguments of those against were mainly concentrated around the fear of creating a strong euro-centric organisation which would in the medium term weaken IUSY and global solidarity in the socialist youth movement. Another concern was that by creating an EC linked structure, it would increase the gap between the traditional western European members and the new Eastern European organisations which were being accepted as IUSY members that same Congress. 15 years later, we can say that these fears were dissipated. The relations between IUSY and ECOSY were excellent from the very beginning. IUSY Presidents and Secretary Generals Roger Hällhag and Ricard Torrell and later Nicola Zingaretti and Alfredo Lazzeretti were all very constructive and believed in strong cooperation. We managed to build a very complementary partnership which rapidly proved that ECOSY was filling a gap in youth politics rather than entering in a competition with IUSY or its members. This was particularly true regarding the European members of IUSY that were not in ECOSY. Austrian, Swedish and Finnish organisations joined ECOSY as full members in the 2nd Congress, held in Munich in December 1994. Cooperation was also intensified with the newly established organisations in East and central Europe which finally became Associate members during the 3rd ECOSY Congress in Strasbourg in January 1997.
The arguments of those in favour of creating ECOSY, which I belonged to, were about developing a common socialist youth approach to EC policy and about influencing the increasing number of decisions taken on European level. Europe was becoming more and more integrated. Our mother parties were in the process of transforming their loose Confederation into a more integrated Party of European Socialists, anticipating in this the Maastricht treaty which was about to recognise European political parties as “important as a factor for integration within the Union”. The socialist youth movement could not be absent. We needed a political tool which would bring together our youth organisations in a more integrated way, capable of defining a common political line and of involving member organisations and their activists in common campaigns and actions.
Many valid arguments were exchanged on both sides but finally what turned the decision were the political environment and the determination of a few organisations and individuals, including the IUSY Secretary General Ricard Torrell.
This debate was not only taking place among young socialists in Europe. It was daily feature across Europe. Should we first enlarge or deepen the Europe of 15 ? The perspective for future enlargements of the European Community was there. We were all thrilled about the political perspective of reuniting the European continent and knew that during our lifetime the European Union would be the Union of the whole continent. There was absolutely no dispute about the objective. Differences appeared when discussing the strategy on how to achieve this goal. Some favoured a rapid enlargement of the European Union, others thought it was necessary to deepen the Union, make it more efficient before enlarging in order to make the enlarged Union a more efficient tool. It was not a question of goal, but a question of strategy.
A small preparatory group was set up composed of Joris Jurriens a Dutch young socialist who had been one of the most active promoters of ECOSY in the past years, Giustina Magistretti, from the Italian socialist youth, Jens Geier from the German JUSOS, Pascal Smet from the Belgian Flemish young socialists and me. The group met many times to work out the name, the structure, the statutes, potential financial support and all other necessary details for such an ambitious project to take off.
After many consultations with the member organisations, an agreement on the name, structure and statutes was reached in Lisbon in June 1992 during the first Portuguese Presidency of the EU, in a meeting gathered and chaired by another long time promoter of ECOSY, Antonio Jose Seguro, chair of the Portuguese young socialists. Six months later, in the Hague, on 9th November 1992, after a two day politically intense Congress, ECOSY was officially created, just a few hours before the Party of European Socialists. I was elected Secretary General and Joris Jurriens was elected Treasurer.
Among the specifities of the structure we set up for ECOSY, two were of particular political importance : the equality of votes between the organisations and the rotating Presidency. They were a real opportunity for smaller organisations that didn’t have the means to be active in IUSY to play a role, including a leading role in international politics
In this way, I had the pleasure to work with many Presidents. The first was Tracey Paul, Labour students UK, the ECOSY President with the shortest mandate, a month and a half, but not the least active one. We had the opportunity together to distribute our first statement towards the European Council at the PES Leaders meeting in Edinburgh in December 1992. Despite long negotiations we did not manage to have our statement distributed in the files so we had to stand at the hotel door and hand it out to the Leaders as they walked in! Maybe it was in fact more effective as many Leaders stopped, asked us what we were doing there and engaged in a conversation …
After Tracey, Henrik Sass Larsen, DSU Denmark, Ronald Gossiaux, MJS Belgium, Afrodite Niforou, PASOK Greece, Reinhold Rünker, JUSOS Germany, Renaud Lagrave, MJS France, Martin Guillermo, JSE Spain, Vinicio Peluffo, SG Italy and Mick McLoughlin, Labour Youth Ireland all chaired ECOSY during the EU Presidencies of their countries. All of them deserve a special mention given their very valuable contribution to the development of ECOSY, each with their style and personality and each developing a specific aspect of our organisation. The rotating Presidency was in my view a real success. It enabled all member organisations, big and small, rich and poor, to be involved in the same way in the life of ECOSY and to bring in their experience and specific touch. In the Munich Congress in 1994, we decided to keep the rotating Presidency but to introduce some continuity by electing 2 permanent vice-Presidents, Umberto Gentiloni from Sinistra Giovanile and Connall McDevit, from SDLP Northern Ireland, representing the diversity of the member organisations.
During these first two Congress periods, ECOSY developed into a strong recognised political youth organisation. The three objectives set in this period were firstly the establishment of ECOSY, including the involvement of individual members in our work, secondly to build another Europe and to develop a political line to reach this goal and finally to defend the rights of young people.
The establishment of ECOSY was the major achievement of the first Congress period. The Socialist group in the European Parliament, its President Jean-Pierre Cot, its Secretary General Julian Priestly and Marilisa Xenogiannakopoulou were tremendously helpful and provided ECOSY with the necessary support to start setting up the organisation. In the same way relations with the PES improved constantly and both successive Secretary Generals Axel Hanish and Jean-François Vallin, contributed to this.
Rapidly ECOSY became an essential partner, playing an important role in IUSY, in the PES and in the European Youth Forum. Its political role was strengthened, as all member organisations played an active role in trying to develop ECOSY into an integrated organisation with common positions and activities.
There was also much progress in establishing ECOSY inside the member organisations and involving individual members in our work, which was one of the more challenging tasks. The involvement of activists in the political debate, in the summer camps and in common campaigns were step forwards in developing an organisation in which all members could feel fully part of. Individual membership was introduced but suffered from the lack of development of new technologies at the time. The first access to e-mail was only in 1996…European election campaigns were of course privileged times for common campaigns. In 1994, ECOSY produced common material, actively supported young candidates across Europe and organised for the first time a series of exchanges to show the European dimension of the campaign. In 1995 and 1996, similar support was also given to candidates in Sweden, Austria and Finland.
Developing a strong, coherent and common message was the second objective. The will to define a common political line was shared by all member organisations, including at the leadership level. At the 2nd Congress in Munich we decided to start a two year consultation “the ECOSY Debate” to elaborate a political platform. This consultation was the great achievement of the second mandate. Debates were initiated inside each member organisation, including at local and regional level, with hundreds of contributions being drafted and between member organisations in various meetings: bureau, seminars conferences… All topics were debated, without taboo, from youth unemployment to environmental issues, passing by social, economic and foreign policy and even more difficult issues such as migration, EMU or agriculture. Each time ECOSY met, intense political debates took place, sometimes with strong oppositions but always leading to progress in understanding and a step further towards an integrated political programme.
To put this debate back into context, the 90s were years of uncertainty for European socialists and social-democrats. Shortly after the fall of the Berlin wall, European social-democracy was going through serious ideological questioning. The economic crisis was at its peak with constantly growing unemployment, specifically among young people and the neo-liberal wind was blowing over Europe. Among the big countries, Germany and the UK had been in the hands of the right since the 80s, France and Spain underwent severe defeats and Italy was just about recovering from the major crisis involving the socialists with the emergence of a new partner, the PDS. On the European level, after a dynamic and visionary Presidency of the Commission by Jacques Delors which enabled European integration to make much progress, the Europe of the late 90s lacked direction and perspective.
In this context, European young socialists were motivated and determined to bring their contribution to the ongoing debates about the future of European social-democracy and to promote a Social Europe. As the 1997 report of activities states, “We can be proud of this political work, especially as we have developed a pro European left wing project which can be the basis of a left wing answer to the crisis of confidence which Europe is going through. We need another Europe. We don’t just say it, we explain what we mean by it in a challenging but realistic way.” Another element of pride of this generation lies in the fact that this position paper remained the basis of ECOSY’s political orientation until the last congress in 2007 !
Third objective was defending the rights of young people and their inclusion in society. In addition to developing a youth policy in the position paper, the goal was also to influence European policy. ECOSY organised meetings between socialist Ministers for youth and MEPs involved on youth issues in the European Parliament in order to define common strategies, particularly in the field of youth unemployment. In the run up to the Delors White paper on unemployment in 1994, ECOSY presented its own contribution on youth unemployment which had been dratted after a series of consultations with Ministers, MEPs and the ETUC youth section. The Ministers also agreed in 1996 to present a joint proposal to the IGC preparing the Amsterdam treaty on the inclusion of a special provision for youth in the treaty.
Looking back at these exciting years, I can express collective satisfaction that such an essential and necessary political tool was created from scratch. The dedication and involvement of those who initiated and consolidated has a lot to do with the successful start. We were all driven by a common goal : bringing together our political activism and our belief in Europe in order to create a European activism capable of changing Europe into a better place to live in for the citizens.
There are many similarities with what the PES is now achieving under the leadership of Poul Nyrup Rasmussen. The methods may be different, the means are not the same but there the objective is the same and also the issues: creating a political tool enabling socialists to influence European politics for the benefit of citizens.
ECOSY is now a more mature organisation, keeping its same goals and objectives. Europe is increasingly the natural place for young people to be politically active. ECOSY must remain foreword looking, always be at the forefront of new developments and continue promoting challenging ideas.
Long live ECOSY !
Philip Cordery
ECOSY Secretary General 1992-1997
Now Secretary General of the PES
