He was speaking in a giant congress hall in EUR, a neighbourhood in the south of Rome. It is one of those places where everything human appears critically endangered.

Initially planned by Italy’s fascist leader Benito Mussolini as the site to celebrate fascism, EUR is now a business district where modern office buildings are nestled into arcade-lined imperial Roman building blocks — an impenetrable monotone interspersed only by gaping motorways or the incidental straggler.

It was a grim place to offer a celebration of social democracy. But Peppe Provenzano, a member of the Italian Democratic Party, said it was to remind people of the dangers of fascism and “what could happen if the centre-right legitimises the far-right.”

Hope

Polling suggests the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) will remain the second-largest political party in the European Parliament after the elections. But the distance to the centre-right Europe’s People’s Party (EPP) is expected to grow, and far-right parties are projected to increase their vote share.

However, party leaders hope that the old-fashioned brand of socialism embodied by Schmit can defeat the far-right, which has solidified around anti-green, anti-immigrant sentiment.

“Ohne Sicherheit ist alles nichts. Without security, nothing holds,” Schmit said, citing his party colleague, German chancellor Olaf Scholz, sitting in the front row.

Security was “not just about defending Ukraine but about the survival of democracy,” he said, which, as the socialists see it, is firmly rooted in the welfare state.

The welfare state “saved us” during the pandemic, Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez said during his speech in a hat tip to Schmit who “saved millions of jobs.”

The grand coalition between the EPP and S&D that existed in the first years of this EU commission’s term made the Green Deal possible, many in Rome agreed.

It also allowed for the creation of Europe’s €723bn pandemic emergency fund and a social safety net for workers.

Among Schmit’s most notable achievements as commissioner was the so-called Sure mechanism, a €100bn programme to support workers during the lockdowns.

“It was on the back of these ideas that we saved 30 million European jobs,” said Schmit.

According to the speakers, what distinguishes the socialists from their main political opponents in the centre, the EPP and the liberal Renew party, is their commitment to preserving the Green Deal from being dismantled.

“Please remember it is up to us to defend the green deal,” economy commissioner Paolo Gentiloni told his party “comrades.”

Blame game

Commission president Ursula von der Leyen will officially be nominated as the Spitzenkandidat (lead candidate) this week at the EPP congress in Bucharest, but needed the support of the conservative wing in her party.

Top socialists have accused von der Leyen of going too far in appeasing the far-right, allowing central parts of the Green Deal to be taken apart.

“You cannot be pro-European and deal with fundamentally anti-European parties,” said Stefan Löfven, the president of the Party of European Socialists.

“We will never do business with the ECR, the ID,” he said, referring to the eurosceptic European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and far-right Identity and Democracy (ID).

Whether shaming the EPP for their dealmaking with the right will make them more amenable to restoring a centre-left “pro-European” coalition after the elections remains to be seen.

The blame game also papers over internal divisions that could distract from the core economic message they hope to attract voters with.

Frugal socialism

While the PES manifesto puts social security front and centre, some members are deviating from the official party line.

In an interview last week, Danish PM Mette Frederiksen called on European capitals to increase defence spending and, if needed, sacrifice welfare spending to afford it.

“I think we as social democrats can allow ourselves to be a little bit more radical when it comes to defending the welfare state,” S&D MEP Mohammed Chahim told EUobserver.

“Defence spending should not come at the expense of the welfare state. Europe is rich enough to do both,” he added.

Although Frederiksen, who also gave a speech on Saturday, did not reiterate the calls for welfare spending cuts, she emphasised that tough times lay ahead.

“I sense the dawn of a new era, unfortunately, with an extreme Russia at our doorstep,” she said. “Navigating this will be a challenge. Therefore, we need balanced solutions.”

But one party insider speaking anonymously expressed apprehension that Frederiksen’s call for welfare cuts and firm stance on immigration could become indistinguishable from what right-wing parties are offering.

Follow the Lindner

Her calls for welfare spending cuts are rare but sit uncomfortably with the fact that Scholz’s coalition allowed liberal finance minister Christian Lindner the leeway to negotiate stricter fiscal rules, which kicked into force on 1 January.

Although less austerity-focused than the old rules, the current compromise will require member states to cut their budgets by tens of billions this year and is known to be disliked by other socialist governments in Portugal and, to a lesser extent, Spain.

Lindner is reportedly pushing for across-the-board spending cuts worth up to €30bn in 2025, which will do little to boost Scholz’s socialist credentials at home, where polling suggests the German social democrats will be soundly defeated at the next election.

In a sign of the challenges facing Europe’s socialists, the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), an organisation representing 45 million members in Europe, many of them belonging to the S&D’s traditional voter base, has come out forcefully against the fiscal rules, warning it will bring back the “darkest days of austerity.”

“Governments should be honest about what this will mean for their citizens: a huge number of job cuts, lower wages and worse working conditions,” ETUC general secretary Esther Lynch said recently.

Inequality Reduction Act

Many top socialists, including Spain’s Sanchez, Schmit, Gentiloni and S&D president in parliament Iraxte Pérez, speaking in Rome this weekend, called for a successor to the pandemic reconstruction fund.

The fund, backed by EU member states, would support socialist goals such as reducing inequality between member states and invest in common goals such as defence and the green transition.

To help Europe’s poorest, Gentiloni even called for an ‘Inequality Reduction Act,’ named after the US Inflation Reduction Act — a tax and spending mechanism that includes €720bn in climate and energy investments.

Although such a plan may seem unlikely, von der Leyen, who will likely win a second term, also strongly supports a common EU fund for green and technological investments.

This indicates that a compromise might still be within reach.

However, rifts in economic thinking within the party may be an obstacle. Scholz, known to be reluctant to agree to joint EU debt, noticeably did not go along with other leaders in their calls for joint EU financing in his speech.

This suggests that, despite Schmit’s opposition to austerity, one of the primary challenges confronting the centre-left’s economic agenda could be the strand of frugal socialism favoured by influential members within the party’s ranks.