Chairing the summit in Helsinki, EPP leader Wilfried Martens pointed to the absence from the alternative forum in Athens of Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and his Portuguese colleague José Sócrates.
"I […] hope that the socialist prime ministers in the EU will be willing to consider our proposals, since most opted not to endorse [by their absence] the populist positions announced at the meeting of second-tier socialist politicians in Athens yesterday," Martens said.
The EPP summit was attended by eight EU heads of state or government, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. The EPP has in total 15 heads of state or government in the 27-member bloc.
On the PES side, George Papandreou, the host of the Athens meeting, and Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann were the only centre-left party leaders at the summit to head a government.
Representatives of all the EU institutions, meanwhile, were present in Helsinki: European Commission President José Manuel Barroso, Council President Herman Van Rompuy, European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek, and EU Council President and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
However, neither French President Nicolas Sarkozy nor François Fillon, his prime minister, attended the EPP meeting. Polish and Swedish Prime Minsters Donald Tusk and Fredrik Reinfeldt were also absent.
Both summits adopted five-point conclusions. However, they widely contrasted one another in scope, with the EPP text concentrating on issues close to the agenda of the 24-25 March summit (see 'Background'), while the PES document focused on more idealistic goals, such as job creation and delivering social progress.
The EPP leaders agreed to strengthen the European Financial Stability Mechanism, to put in place in June 2013 its permanent replacement, the European Stability Mechanism, and to adopt a legislative package on improved governance before the beginning of 2012. They also endorsed Merkel and Sarkozy's plans on a 'Pact for Competitiveness' and reinforcing the Stability and Growth Pact, including by the introduction of a clear sanction mechanism.
The centre-left summit agreed that non-euro area member states should be invited to participate in all these measures on a voluntary basis.
Alternatively, PES leaders supported the idea of competitiveness, but insisted that it could not be achieved by cutting wages and social standards. They called for a European Employment and Social Progress Pact for fair growth, designed to create "new and better jobs" and fight inequalities.
Centre-left leaders called for the creation of new fiscal instruments, such as a financial transactions tax and a carbon tax, as well as for new revenue to finance job-creating investment.
PES leaders also called for financial support packages already granted to countries in financial difficulty - such as Greece and Ireland - to be renegotiated, for interest rates on loans to be lowered and for more time to be given to repay the loans.
