With Europe going through hard times, the right should be an easy target for socialists. June’s elections and the vote on the next president of the Commission being imminent, political commentator Ilana Bet-El wonders why in such favourable conditions the left remain apathetic, if not supine.

“We are in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the 1930s – and the socialists are nowhere,” writes Ilana Bet-El. Trailing in both EU and national polls, the left is “between disarray and possible disintegration”, bickering in France, or, as in Britain, ashamed of its radical roots. Most remarkable is that at a European level it is unable to run a candidate against incumbent President José-Manuel Barroso for the top job at the European Commission.

In EU circles, she argues, few would publicly endorse Barroso with any degree of enthusiasm. Recently attacked in the Financial Times “as among the weakest commission presidents ever” Bet-EL wonders how “out of a bloc of over 400 million people, apparently only one – acknowledged as inadequate at best” will most likely win a second term, and this with likely socialist approval. If the left cannot even agree on a candidate for one of Europe’s most influential posts, then it’s time, Bet-El urges, “for socialist parties to have a deep reckoning as to what they mean and represent.”