Author Archives: Graham Watson MEP

Across Europe we have entered the age of drawbridge politics. What do I mean by this? That the dividing line between left and right, which for years divided those favouring a free market economy (generally on the right) from those favouring a planned or social market economy (generally on the left) – and which estranged economic liberals from social liberals though they belong together – is disappearing fast.

Most of the left has now recognised the need for a globally competitive economy and a less costly welfare state, as evidenced in the manifesto of the Party of European Socialists adopted in Oporto in Dec 2006 (though a few have joined the ‘stop the world I wanna get off’ camp). In an almost conciliatory gesture, many on the right now discuss the impact of massive shifts in investment and jobs on desirable and necessary levels of social cohesion. If we are sacrificing some social cohesion for economic dynamism, what happens to what we used to call ‘the common good’? A new social contract, capable of reconciling the competing demands of flexibility and fairness in te post-industrial age, is actively sought.

Their is a new dividing line in politics, however, no less clear than the old left-right division over the management of the economy. It reflects our response to the challenges of globalisation.