PES President Poul Nyrup Rasmussen has accused the European Commission of complacency over the economic crisis saying “A new, updated Recovery Plan is needed now, otherwise there will be 25 million unemployed in 2010”. The PES will present its own recovery plan with key demands for the EU Summit on 19 March.

The Party of European Socialists and its member parties are highlighting their commitment to women’s equality by celebrating International Women’s Day. The PES has designated the weekend March 7-8 as its first ‘European Day of Action’ for the 2009 European elections. You can follow reports from PES member party International Women’s Day events on the PES website on Saturday 7 March and Sunday 8 March.

PES President Poul Nyrup Rasmussen warned that workers are beginning to turn against the freedom of movement because the European Commission has done nothing to stop it from being exploited to drive down wages, despite repeated warnings.

The PES is the only mainstream European party to care about women’s rights! While the PES’ manifesto includes a chapter on ‘championing gender equality’, the manifestos of the Conservative EPP and Liberal ELDR do not mention gender equality, and the Liberals do not refer to women at all!

The PES has launched its new campaign website with loads of materials for you to use, and plenty of information that you can watch, read and hear! Check it out! And it’s fully interactive including a blog where you can post or comment.

The new campaign website lists all PES candidates for the European elections covering all EU member states.

Download or read online our manifesto. Currently available in English, French, German and Spanish it will soon be in other EU languages too.

Watch our manifesto movie – you’d never believe so much politics could be packed into two and a half minutes.

We’ve a manifesto, a movie and now a unique winning symbol for our common political programme for Europe – a cube! It’s this year’s must have! Download your own cube and make it yourself – in your EU language of choice.

Fun photo action and competition: take a photo of yourself with the manifesto cube in front of a local landmark or with a local personality! It’s our way of showing our manifesto reaching every corner of Europe.

Socialist MEPs are recording talking versions of the manifesto for the blind. Currently available in English, MEPs from many other countries have agreed to record talking versions in the coming weeks.

The PES manifesto puts forward a plan to tackle unemployment and get Europe out of the crisis. Instead the Conservative EPP want to reduce the overall tax burden! The phrase most frequently featuring in the Liberals manifesto is the single market. While others place their faith in the market or seek old-fashioned tax cuts, the PES is putting its energy into pressing for more EU action to create new jobs.

While job losses soar, Czech conservatives in charge of the EU Presidency tried to open a debate about abandoning EU policy to increase child care! Swift action by the PES led by PES Women President Zita Gurmai seems to have put a stop to this anti-social proposal.

8 March – PES marks International Women’s Day across Europe including special event in Budapest
19 March – PES Leaders and Prime Ministers meeting – Brussels
2-3 April – Global Progressive Forum – Brussels, with Howard Dean, Pascal Lamy, Dominique Strauss-Kahn and many others
24 April – PES Campaign Launch with Party Leaders and Heads of List – France