Lions or toothless tigers? The parties in central office and the EU

Abstract

Chapter 6 investigates the EU’s impact upon the power dynamics within Labour, the PS and SPD in central office. It first analyses each party’s executive committee(s)’s role in the formulation of European policies. This is followed by an investigation into the parties’ international departments, which form part of the central party bureaucracy. Finally, each section also examines the party in central office’s relationship with the Party of European Socialists. The focus of the analysis lies on the party in central office’s role in the formulation of European policies and, to a much smaller extent, the selection of EU specialists. In doing so, the chapter reveals a complex picture of power dynamics between the different faces of the party. It demonstrates that the parties in central office were not ‘lions’ in the sense that they did not hold the power to formulate policies about and through the EU. At the same time they were not entirely powerless in EU matters, as the label ‘toothless tigers’ would imply. Rather, Labour, the PS and SPD in central office were ‘toothless tigers with claws’ that complemented the work of the party in public office.