International Foundation Links Europa, to give it its formal name, was set up in 1976 by Carlos Pronk, an activist in PvdA (the Dutch Labour Party), along with members of sister parties, mainly in Britain and West Germany. The aim was to bring rank and file members of socialdemocratic parties together by holding conferences and publishing a quarterly journal. The stimulus for setting up the organisation was the planning of direct elections to the European Parliament for 1978 (which were eventually held in 1979)
The legal status of Links Europa is a foundation in Dutch law. As such it has a general board (algemeen bestuur) with members who are appointed by the existing board. This body is sovereign in the organisation; but there is also a constitution which lays down for example that members must belong to SI parties (effectively now PES members) and also makes provision for an executive (dagelijk bestuur) and editorial committee.
The journal was published continuously until 2004 under a chief editor appointed by the board. There is provision for the existence of readers’ groups in each country and in the 1980’s there were groups in Britain, the Netherlands, West Germany and Belgium. Conferences were organised every two to three years during the 1980’s and 1990’s. Readers of the journal paid a subscription which funded the production and postage of the journal in English, German and Dutch versions.
There was a very strong link to another journal called “Interfakt” which dealt with issues across the divide in Europe and enabled some contact with the left opposition in the East. However, the end of the cold war in 1990, together with the advancing age of those particular activists, meant that this link and the group in Germany disappeared. A very successful conference was organised in Vienna in spring 1991, aided by funding from the Karl Renner Institut, which made some contacts with Socialdemocrats in emerging eastern democracies. This was followed immediately by a mission to the Hungarian SzDP and independent trades unions, aided by European Community funding. However, the application for a return visit by those trades unionists (to planned training sessions in Britain and the Netherlands) was vetoed by the Hungarian (conservative) government.
In the late 1990’s the board decided to set up a website with archive articles from past editions of the journal and contact details for country groups. In 1999 the then president of Links Europa, Richard Corbett MEP, arranged for the hosting of the website. However, after the 2004 elections, Richard stepped down as president and his office ceased paying for the site.
By this time contributions for articles were drying up and so the board decided to stop publishing the journal in printed form and subsequently not to pay for hosting a website. It was expected that the PES would start bringing activists together. The main activity for Links Europa would be organising conferences aimed at discussing issues inside the PES.
A new journal appeared called Social Europe, and it became apparent that they were doing what Links Europa had tried to do but with a wider spread of countries involved. It had also become apparent that the formal structures of the PES were not bringing activists together. In the run up to the 2009 elections, despite a clear crisis of the capitalist financial system, socialdemocratic parties were not making gains and were not coordinated in their response. Links Europa organised a conference in April 2009 in Den Haag on this question, which attracted participants from PES city groups in various countries.
The board meeting held that weekend decided that encouraging
1) the setting up of further PES city groups
2) individual subscription to Social Europe
should be added to organising conferences as the principal functions of Links Europa.
The board postponed any setting up of a website to publicise its aims and during the last decade has donated money to a small number of trans-border events.
In 2016 (in the wake of the referendum on EU membership) the UK branch decided to explore the possibility of setting up a website again and reinvigorating the organisation. The UK branch felt that it was now even more important to foster contact between rank and file socialdemocratic party members.
Eventually a website has been constructed and is now open for contributions. In the future the site will allow people to join as supporters and have the opportunity to contribute to the debate. We also intend to organise conferences again, details of which will also appear on the site.
Peter Smith February 2020