The party of European socialists and the treaty of Amsterdam: Really a policy‐seeking party?1

Abstract

Amongst the recent literature on transnational parties in the European Union (EU) that has emerged, a large body of it concentrates upon viewing these organisations as policy‐seeking parties. The main weakness of this existing literature is that it does not focus on how these organisations actually construct or defend the policies they support, how these positions were arrived at, nor to what extent the member parties were able to influence these agreed positions. This article examines in more depth the claims that one transnational party, the Party of European Socialists (PES), can be seen as a policy‐seeking party by examining its ability to influence its member parties positions and that of the EU agenda. This involves comparing evidence, gathered from the outcome of the Treaty of Amsterdam to the PES position. This article concludes that the PES was able to play some role in co‐ordinating policy amongst the member parties, however, its analysis of events suggests that some authors have exaggerated the power of the PES and underestimated the strength of the factors that limit its effectiveness. It argues that domestic policy imperatives and ideological differences between the member parties hindered the development of a true policy‐seeking party.