German PDS now accepts "entrepreneurial behavior and profit-oriented interests"

["Johannes Schneider" <Johannes.Schneider@xxxxxxx>]

>From (conservative) FAZ weekly:

PDS breaks with history
The SED successor party foresakes its identity to become more than a GDR
leftover
By Kristina Merkner
The Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) adopted its new party program with
the overwhelming majority of 77.8 percent of delegates' votes at its party
conference last weekend in Chemnitz, a move that PDS Chairman Lothar Bisky
called "an important step back into politics."
Bisky himself has returned to the political front field. In April 2000 he
stepped down after leading the party for seven years when a national party
conference voted against supporting the dispatch of German troops on foreign
peacekeeping missions. This summer he came back to the fold as party
chairman.
[...]
The PDS is part of the governing coalitions in the states of Berlin and
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania but lost its official party status in the
German national parliament in the last federal election after failing to
reach the minimum of 5 percent of the total vote necessary for
representation in the Bundestag. Facing irrelevance as a national force, the
PDS has turned away from its traditional stance with the new program.
It now accepts "entrepreneurial behavior and profit-oriented interests" as a
positive and necessary part of society. It also recognizes the right of the
UN security council to use military force.

Full text:

http://makeashorterlink.com/?R28415566

On the PDS website there is the Programme of the Party of Democratic
Socialism
Revised draft
Adopted by the PDS National Executive Board on 25 August, 2003 to be
presented to the 2 nd Session of the 8 th Congress on 25-26 October, 2003 in
Chemnitz

http://www.pds-online.de/partei/international/fremdsprachige_dokumente/pdf/p
rogrammentwurf_eng.pdf

I think the final version finally adopted by the 8 th congress differs
slightly from that draft.

The final version is available only in German:
http://www.pds-online.de/programm/programm2003/index.htm



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