THERE ARE 518 MEMBERS OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT(MEPs). Each of the twelve member states of the EuropeanCommunity (EC) has a specific number of MEPs, based onpopulation. As one of the larger member states, the UnitedKingdom, along with France, Germany, and Italy, has 81repre sent at ives.

European Parliament (EP) elections are held every five yearsfor a fixed term. The Parliament is organized into blocs ofrepresentatives, which, in the traditional manner of multi-partyparliaments, span the ideological spectrum from left to right.There are continual adjustments in these coalitions, but generallythe 5 18 MEPs are divided into approximately ten groupings. The EP holds its plenary sessions in Strasbourg, and itsSecretariat is in Luxembourg. However, most of its substantivedeliberations are done by committees, which hold their sessions inBrussels. This, together with the ease of commuting andinherently greater appeal of Brussels, has made the Belgiancapital the usual reference point for the European Parliament,although the EP continues to have something akin to ageographical split personality.

STRANGE AS IT MAY SEEM, ARGENTINIANS ARE SLOWLY getting accustomed to stability, both economic and political, and to a guarded optimism about their future. Not that optimism is difficult to come by in these shores. On the contrary, despite melancholy tango lyrics, national spirits are quite ready to rocket to the skies, only to fall with greater momentum from those heights at the next difficulty. What is new is not optimism, but its guarded, and I would say for once justified nature.

WELFARE STATES ARE NATIONAL STATES, AND IN EVERY country welfare is a national concern, circumscribed by the nation's borders and reserved for its residents alone. In the course of centuries, these states have emerged from and against one another, in mutual competition, and in the past century this process of state formation in the West went in tandem with the collectivization of care. The welfare state is the national state in its latest phase. It may be succeeded by another stage which we may eventually see.

DURING ONE OF MY RECENT TALKS ABOUT THE MAIN problems in Hungary to foreign businessmen in the autumn of 1991, I was asked by a Japanese banker to enumerate the five most important issues that unite and divide Hungarians. It sounded like a simple assignment, and yet when I started to answer I came to realize that it was, in fact, a very difficult one. This was not because I was unable to list even ten issues; indeed, my problem was of a different sort. It was easy to talk about issues that were dividing the population, like Hungary's policies with respect to the market system, to privatization, to compensation for former property owners, and so forth. On the other hand, however, those issues which ostensibly unite the great majority of Hungarians — like democratization, freedom, national integrity, and human rights — are not necessarily understood by all to mean the same thing. There are stark differences of opinion on these issues; however, I added that this seemed quite normal and that it has not resulted in any sharp or violent confrontation.

THE PRINCIPLE OF ‘SOLIDARITY’ IN FRANCE HAS COME TO stand for a justification of social policy in terms of the protection of mutual interests. In the literature of social policy, ‘solidarity’ refers to the establishment of collective action and recognition of mutual responsibility. The principle is often related to egalitarian policies; but the prescriptions of ‘solidarity’ may tend in a very different direction to policies which pursue equality. Equality and solidarity are not necessarily incompatible objectives, but as commonly understood, there is a tension between them which means that each might undermine the other.

It is difficult in any pluralistic society to gauge the influence on governments or administrations of organizations which engage in policy studies even when those studies are the product of parliamentary bodies like select committees or other agencies. It is particularly difficult in the United Kingdom for example, where Parliament is, in practice if not in theory under the constitution, the unequal partner of the executive. Even where policy recommendations are followed by government there is often no way of telling whether or not they would have been pursued in any event, on the government's own initiative.