Social democrats were always despised by communists, and vice versa.

In the run up to Germany s general election later this month, the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats have indistinguishable pro euro positions.

Ludwig Erhard s liberal economic approach worked and the socialist ideas found in the party programs of the Social Democrats and Christian Democrats were forgotten.

Elections in September 2008 further weakened both major parties (Social Democrats and People's Party) but together they still held 70 of the votes, with the Social Democrats holding slightly more than the other party.

It is amazing to watch how quickly Christian Democrats and Social Democrats have forgotten their electoral promises and agreed on a program of higher taxation.

Democratic idealism was once the domain of the left, including social democrats and liberals.

The disagreement over the Power Act led to the Social Democrats leaving the Senate.

This should be the task for social democrats but that is where the shoe pinches.

The apparent hegemony of neo social democrats began to crumble after only a few years.

From 1919 to 1932, Prussia was governed by a coalition of the Social Democrats, Catholic Centre and German Democrats from 1921 to 1925, coalition governments included the German People's Party.

But social democrats must understand why the protests developed quite independently of existing, organized, center left politics.

It is derived from the combination of the colour of the social democrats (red) and liberals (blue).

These claims began to be made by respectable conservatives, and even some social democrats, in the 1990 s.

We social democrats can no longer fight such battles, because the problem is not only ideological, but also cultural.

During that period, the deficit reduction camps within both the Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats made common cause to fend off pressures from other factions within their respective parties for a change in policy.

It took ten years to make a DPJ government possible, and only by forging a coalition with the Social Democrats.

Until The General Theory was published in 1936, social democrats did not know how to go about achieving full employment.

Nor is it clear that Spanish socialists have more in common with German social democrats than with their fellow nationals.

Dutch populists, such as Rita Verdonk or Geert Wilders, who is driven by a paranoid fear of Islamization, are putting the traditional political elites a combination of liberals, social democrats, and Christian democrats under severe pressure.

Guilty Democrats

The really big battle this November will be joined by the Social Democrats (PDSR) and by the centrist alliance Democratic Alliance.

During the 1920s and 1930s the Social Democrats had participated in several governments, including the government in power in November 1939.

Unfortunately, Merkel s campaign is off to a rocky start, and the recent entry of Oskar Lafontaine s extreme left wing party into the fray may necessitate the formation of a grand coalition between the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats.

In Poland, the Democratic Left Alliance fell apart shortly before accession, while the Czech Social Democrats came close to a similar split.

On 12 April, Christian Democrat Lothar de Maizière formed a grand coalition cabinet including six Social Democrats, among them Markus Meckel (foreign affairs), Regine Hildebrandt (social issues) and Walter Romberg (finance).

Now that the Dutch have done their duty in Afghanistan, the Social Democrats want to make sure that this does not happen again.

But now the Social Democrats in the Dutch coalition government have declared that enough is enough. The Dutch troops will have to come home.

The radicals soon discover that changing norms is not enough to change reality, while the democrats find that heightened social mobilization makes dialogue impossible.

This was naturally a disaster for communists and socialists, but also for social democrats, for they had lost an ideological basis for their idealism.

In fact, social democrats were regarded as more dangerous than hard line conservatives, because their moderate left wing talk only served to postpone the revolution.

At the same time, Blair found more sympathy for the Third Way with his Spanish conservative colleague José María Aznar than among many social democrats.

For many democrats, it was a force for peace and social justice, minimizing the power of special interests and teaching citizens about fairness and international understanding.

In Germany too, the coalition agreement between the Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats includes a provision that extends from six months to two years the trial period during which an employee can be dismissed without explanation the same duration contemplated in the Villepin s CFE law.

The Democrats Line in the Sand

But tycoons are not natural democrats.

Silence of the so called Democrats ?

Headed by a former Constitutional Court judge, Carlos Gaviria, the PAD consists of a broad range of leftists, from former Marxist guerrillas to third way social democrats.

In 1991, Swedish voters broke the reign of the Social Democrats, electing a coalition government under conservative Prime Minister Carl Bildt, who called his program the only way.

Naturally, with socialists and social democrats in power in some EU countries, and conservatives in power in others, it is difficult for Europeans to find a single voice.

Today, a group of Hong Kong activists from League of Social Democrats and Socialist Action protested outside Egypt Consulate and condemned the military over August 14 Cairo Massacre.

However, these negotiations ran aground on 1 June as the Social Democrats and the Left Alliance walked out of the talks due to strong differences on economic policies.

But the democrats are not giving up.

On the other hand, a center right coalition between the Christian Democrats and the Free Democrats could spark the ECB into action.

It voted the grand coalition out of office with a bang, consigning the Social Democrats to the political abyss. Only ruins remain of the once proud Gerhard Schröder s SPD.

During all other legislative periods, either a grand coalition of Conservatives and Social Democrats or a small coalition (one of these two and a smaller party) ruled the country.