PDSR shakes hands with Hungarian socialists

The Party of Social Democracy (PDSR), now led by Adrian Nastase, took a 180 degree turn in its political strategy, but mainly its PR strategy, dropping topics such as the concession to the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR) which would have given this party the chills not so long ago.

The stake is extremely important: the integration in the good family of the Socialist International, for which the governing party requested the socialists in Budapest to lend a helping hand.

PDSR’s wish to affiliate to the Socialist International, which it did not hesitate to publicly announce ever since 1993, is assuming shape, given that the party run by Adrian Nastase enjoys the support of two prominent members of the organisation: the Socialist Hungarian Party and the Social-Democrat Party from Germany.

A PDSR delegation was in Budapest yesterday to work out the final draft of a co-operation protocol between the governing party and the Socialist Party from Hungary run by Laszlo Kovacs.

The protocol will be signed by the two party leaders some time soon. It stipulates, among others, that the Hungarian socialists will support PDSR’s actions for accession to the Socialist International and to the European socialists group within the Council of Europe.

According to the chairman of the Foreign Policy Committee within the Senate, PDSR Senator Ghiorghi Prisecaru, the protocol text has been negotiated for quite some time, and PDSR’s action is an effort made with a view to international acknowledgement.

Apart from generalities such as “the two parties will keep each other informed” or “(the two parties) will organise joint actions,” the protocol also includes a commitment of the Hungarian party to support PDSR’s candidacy when its application to Socialist International accession is considered.

Vilmos Szabo, head of the International Secretariat of the Hungarian Socialist Party (PSU), yesterday confirmed the presence of the PDSR delegation in Budapest, but declined to specify whether the protocol text to be signed by the two parties stipulated PSU support for PDSR accession to the International. “These are things currently under debate,” Vilmos said, without providing further explanations.

Even though the protocol does not stipulate it, PDSR had to meet another requirement, that is changing the party’s somewhat nationalistic stand towards UDMR, which party, through its president Marko Bela, can have a say in Budapest today.

Of all Opposition parties, UDMR is the one with the most stable relation with PDSR at the moment, given that the protocol with the Liberals was terminated and the agreement with the Democrats has never actually worked.