[pp.int.general] PPI congress - meeting

[Andrew Norton]

> But please remember that even though the conferences have been quite
> open there is no guarantee that all (or any) national parties will adopt
> any ideas or texts coming from the conference. One example is the
> Uppsala declaration (about EU-Parliament strategy) from the Uppsala
> conference that all conference participants agreed too: This text was
> strongly rejected by an EU PP that did not attend the conference.
>
Actually, if I remember correctly, it was rejected by a number of
parties, mostly because it was represented to the media as an
agreement of all parties, yet many hadn't heard of it at all, until
afterwards. This was at the same time that an actual collaborative
effort to do the same sort of thing was talked about.

Basically, the objection was that some people had made this
declaration, and presented it to the press on behalf of everyone,
without the consultation of everyone. Which hardly reflected the party
ideals of transparency and democracy. I have to also say I was one of
those that objected (in my position then as head of the US party). It
wasn't the content, it was the way the whole thing was done - I was
100% available online (IM, skype, IRC, email) throughout the entire
event, and didn't even hear a peep until a journalist contacted me
about it 2 days later.

Andrew