The role of political leaders in Europe.

The role of political parties in supranational integration: A Euro-Latin American Dialogue (20 / 04 / 2009)

On April 17, representatives from Youth Wings of Political Parties in Latin America met with leaders from the Youth Wings of European Political Parties in Brussels (Roger Albinyana IFLRY; Giacomo Filibeck ECOSY; Duarte Marques YEPP; Johan Hasel IUSY). The Round Table was the result of a joint effort by European Partnership for Democracy (EPD) and Fundación Internacional y para Iberoamérica de Administración y Políticas Públicas (FIIAPP).

The Round Table focused on the role of political parties in the processes of supranational integration and creating a space for the exchange of experiences between Leaders from Youth Wings of European Political Parties and Young Latin American Leaders.

Political parties are key actors in democracy. Re-interpreting their role in the context of the supranational integration process is a necessary step in order to build more effective democracies both in Europe and Latin America, but also more legitimate and representative supranational institutions.

This is not an easy task. The trade-off between the increasing supranational dimension of politics and the local roots of political representation causes big challenges for better integration between domestic and supranational governance.

This analysis was shared by young political leaders from Europe and Latin America. European Youth Wings Leaders commented on existing difficulties to build up a truly European polity due to the strong impact of national (local constituency) interest in the articulation of political representation and political discourse. Difficulties that, in the view of European Leaders, can be overcome through generational change, giving way to a new generation of politicians and citizens, who have lived and benefitted from European Integration.

Young Latin American leaders expressed the necessity of deepening Integration Processes in the region regardless of their party affiliation. Regional integration should not only focus on economic or trade issues, but also include a political and social dimension.

In the view of participants, a political leadership that is able to more effectively articulate supranational and national interests is a pre-condition for the deepening of regional integration processes in Latin America, as well as for building more effective democratic polities in the region.

As is the case for European leaders, the responsibility for implementing a new political leadership is on the shoulders of the new generation of political leaders: a generation that has been able to socialize with partners from different countries in the region; a generation that has grown up with a clearer consciousness of the nature and the importance of global and regional challenges for domestic politics.

Similarly, the Round Table discussed the implications of supranational integration for the structures and organization of political parties. In the case of Europe, traditional families of political parties paved the way to the institutionalization of European Party structures, who have benefitted from the extension of the political dimension of the Union and the increasingly important role of the European Parliament in the decision-making process.

However, European participants acknowledged the limits of the process of Europeanization of party structures in a context where political career at the supranational level are still very much bounded within the limits of national party structures, thus challenging the possibilities for the development of truly supranational political elites.

This experience cannot be reproduced yet in Latin America due to the weakness of cross-national party ties and the limits of supranational integration processes in the region.

Favouring the establishment of spaces for multi-party and cross-national political debate among political leaders is an important step in order to build stronger ties between Europe and Latin America. Platforms of this sort offer participants a unique opportunity for exchanging experiences and mutual learning as well as for building dense cross-national and cross-regional networks of individuals, based on shared values and perceptions of common challenges.

The main challenge remains how to ensure continuity and sustainability of such a political dialogue. This is a challenge that European Partnership for Democracy, its partners and associated organizations will be tackling in the following months as part of the necessary steps to develop a consistent and strategic approach to democracy support in Latin America.