THE HAGUE, 27/11/03 - Labour (PvdA) party leader Wouter Bos is unhappy with the pace at which the modernization of his party is proceeding. He has "the uncomfortable feeling that the feeling of urgency for change is dissipating. "

"Many PvdA party meetings are beginning to look like those from before 2002 again. It would be a pity if that should continue; it would mean that we think 2002 was an accident and there is no reason to permanently operate differently," Bos wrote yesterday in a personal newsletter, in which he looks back on one year as party leader.

The PvdA of its then leader Ad Melkert was halved in the elections of 15 May last year posthumously by Pim Fortuyn - murdered nine days earlier - from 45 to 23 seats in the 150 seat Lower House. After the collapse of the leaderless Pim Fortuyn List (LPF) brought down the government, the PvdA rebounded to 42 seats in the 22 January elections under the leadership of Bos, who promised to listen more to the public.

On his MPs, who again "have their feet in society", Bos is happy, but little has come of the substantive modernization and other aims from the 10-point plan with which he persuaded PvdA members to vote for him last year, he acknowledges. Bos particularly regrets that his party "only this week" began big internal debates on the basic principles of the PvdA, healthcare, administrative renewal and integration and immigration.

Recently, criticisms of Bos emerged within the PvdA for the first time. Some MPs consider that he himself is making too little progress with the party's modernization. In an interview with weekly magazine Nieuwe Revu, Bos recently hinted at a possible departure from politics after the next elections.