European Forum

Full report:First Promising Politicians seminar 2010 in Montenegro

Between 27 and 30 May Friedrich Ebert Stiftung in cooperation with Alfred Mozer Stichting and the European Forum for Democracy and Solidarity organized a seminar for young and promising politicians and members of social democratic parties from the countries of former Yugoslavia and Albania. The seminar, in which 27 participants participated, took place in Bečići in Montenegro and can be considered a great success.

Since 2003 the seminar has been organized three times annually and the course includes seminars on ideology, media and communications skills and EU integration. The aim of the course is to introduce young politicians to the various aspects of political leadership, governance and the dynamics and structures of party policies. In addition, the organisers aim to create a network among young and politically active persons and to improve their knowledge on the political developments in the countries in the region.

After the welcome by the organisers, the seminar started with a ‘getting to know each other’ game which required from each of the participant to interview its neighbour and introduce him or her to the group. This workshop aimed at breaking the ice and allowing participants to get familiar with each other.

Social democracy and its policies
The theme of the first seminar was ‘Social Democracy and its Policies’ and therefore Arjen Berkvens (AMS and European Forum), prepared an introduction on the history and the values of social democracy. He touched upon necessary elements such as the roots of the social democratic movement, the ideology of social democracy, its values, and its meaning for the welfare state. This was followed by a short discussion on the basic values of social democracy, its meaning for the state and society and the current challenges of social democracy. During the discussion the participants had no problem discussing in depth the main current challenges of the social democracy, reflecting the social democratic values on the situation in their country and arguing why social democracy appeals to them.

After this introduction Danijel Tadić (AMS and European Forum) gave an outline of other mainstream political theories: liberalism and conservatism. Having the French Revolution as a starting point it was set out how liberalism and conservatism have developed since. Important thinkers, who’s ideas are still influential, and main characteristics of modern conservatism and liberalisms were discussed.

Education, health care and social security
The second part of the seminar dealt with social democratic issues. Milan Živković gave a presentation about how to go from theory to practice and how policies are developed. He discussed various social policy institutions like pension and health services. In addition, main features of social policy models — Scandinavian model, liberal model and continental model — were discussed. This was followed by the first workshop on education in which the participants were divided into three groups, a liberal, conservative and social democratic group. Each group was asked to make a list of three policies on education that would give an insight in the priorities of each political mainstream theory that was appointed to them. The participants showed great eagerness and creativeness in resolving this assignment which helped them to see how ideology and policy making on specific topic relate to each other.

Second day of the seminar started with a short summary of the previous day. Milan Zivkovic gave an introduction on health care which was followed by a discussion on the situation in health care sector in the countries of the region. After this a workshop on health care from the social democratic, liberal and conservative perspective was conducted. This workshop was structured in the same way as the first one. Just as during the first workshop the participants managed to develop clear-cut policies which fitted into the framework of the three mainstream political theories discussed.

After a short break, Milan gave an introduction on social policy. Again, this was followed by a discussion on social policy in several countries in the region and a workshop. This time all three groups had to set out three social democratic social policy programmes, which made it possible to compare and discuss in depth several proposals.

Strategy and message
After lunch, Arjen Berkvens gave a presentation on how to go from practice to strategy. He stressed that it is important to have a clear central message, which is a key to success. This presentation was followed by a workshop were the imagined country Montaldonia, with its specific characteristics, played an important role. The participants had to make a matrix were the strong and weak points were made clear and the opportunities and threats were defined.

Hereafter Arjen Berkvens gave a presentation on message, pledges and slogans. He pointed out that it was necessary to have a clear, concise, compelling, connected, contrasted, and credible message. This was followed by the last workshop. Each group had to make its own central message for their imagined country Montaldonia. The messages were very professional, sometimes emotional and fulfilled all criteria.

Guest speakers
The last day of the seminar welcomed professor Vladimir Pavićević (Faculty of Political Sciences, Belgrade University) as guest speaker, who discussed social democracy versus monitory democracy. In a monitory democracy the elected people’s representatives are monitored by the actors of civil society, civilians, media and the society as a network throughout their whole period in office. If social democratic political parties want to play an important role in the future political landscape, they should accept the fact that the power of the parties will decrease as we will see a shift from a representative democracy towards a monitory democracy, Pavićević said. Naturally the established ruling elite will try to preserve their power. Finally, Pavićević argued that social democracy as a progressive force should take a lead in this shift towards a monitory democracy which is inevitable due to the information society we live in.

This presentation was followed by a presentation Sebastjan Jeretić (Social Democrats (SD) Slovenia, PR expert) who discussed the future and current challenges for social democracy. Jeretić argued that one of the biggest problems social democrats in the region face it that they do not win elections, are unable to remain in power and therefore, can not implement their policies. In order to tackle this problem social democrats should learn from others, cooperate better with each other and develop better (modern, effective and emotional) campaigns.

Conclusions and recommendations
The atmosphere in the group was good from the start. The sessions were attended by all invited participants, who were eager to learn from each other, trainers and lecturers.

At the evaluation it became clear that all participants enjoyed the interactive method of presentation followed by workshops. Furthermore, the developed modules for the seminar were positively evaluated, some being not very difficult whilst others being challenging. In addition, according to the participants, the trainers succeeded in making the somewhat boring theory very interesting. They all stated that the young people form the region with the same political orientation, combined with a good programme and organisation made the seminar a great success. The creation of a network between the participants was one of the main goals of the course and the good atmosphere in the group witnessed this achievement.

The second seminar will be held in October in Croatia and will deal with media relations and communication skills. The third and final seminar will be held in November in Ljubljana and will discuss negotiation skills and the European Union integration of the region