Progressive Socialist Organizations of the Mediterranean

The Progressive Socialist Organizations of the Mediterranean (PSOM), also known as the Mediterranean Socialist Conference, was a bloc and gathering of socialist parties and movements of the Mediterranean region, conceived and planned by Andreas Papandreou of Greece and Dom Mintoff of Malta and mostly funded by Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya.

PSOM aimed to function as an alternative to the Socialist International (SI), which, PSOM members felt, was under the negative influence and hegemony of the West German SPD, which was considered an “almost conservative” party, and this despite the personal friendship of Willy Brandt and Papandreou. Dislike towards the SPD had mainly to do with its embrace of what PSOM members felt was West Germany’s “subservience” regarding NATO’s “inordinate hostility” towards the Soviet Union and anti-colonial left-wing movements.

PSOM was also notable for bringing together mutually hostile parties and trying to bridge their differences, such as with the case of the Syrian Baath of Hafez al-Assad and the Iraqi Baath of Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and Saddam Hussein, or the Syrian Baath and Yasser Arafat’s Fatah, that presided over the PLO, despite Syrian and Libyan opposition. The generally moderate ruling party of Tunisia (Socialist Destourian Party) also participated, and, after Hosni Mubarak rose to power in Egypt in 1981, he made sure to maintain some contacts with PSOM, but without officially joining. Andreas Papandreou eventually convinced François Mitterrand, Bettino Craxi and Felipe González to also join PSOM.