After the election on Saturday 24 November by MEPs from the European environmental groups, Ska Keller of Germany and Bas Eickhout of the Netherlands as co-Spitzenkandidates for the May 2019 European elections (see EUROPE 12145), the European Green Party can officially launch a campaign on the basis of political priorities and a political manifesto.
This 29th Congress of European Environmentalists was dedicated to change. From day one, the speakers who paraded on the podium had indeed expressed their willingness to bring about green and progressive changes in the European Union (see EUROPE 12144).
And it was in this spirit that the debate on Friday evening, November 23rd, was held between the three former candidates for the positions of co-Spitzenkandidate for the European elections: Bas Eickhout, Ska Keller and Belgian Petra De Sutter. The ideas they put forward were very logically in line with the points they had defended in their interviews with EUROPE (see EUROPE 12134).
In the end, the first two candidates were chosen by the national representatives of the European Environmentalist parties. As a reminder, the appointment of two representatives to defend the ecological colours is an original feature of the European Green Party, which had already entrusted this role to Ska Keller and Frenchman José Bové in 2014.
Mrs De Sutter was an outsider in this internal campaign, and the election of Mr Eickhout and Mrs Keller, already MEPs, was therefore not a major surprise.
Mrs De Sutter directly congratulated the two elected representatives. “There is no other way than Europe, and the only possible direction is a green one", she said.
As for the winners, they are already focusing on the European elections and the challenges facing the European Union. "We need to protect the planet we live on [...] we want to make Europe a social Union [...] and the EU needs to have instruments to defend civil liberties", Ms Keller told the press. “It’s now time we move to Europe on social and green", said Mr Eickhout.
This congress was an opportunity for many leaders or representatives of environmental groups from all over the continent to share their wishes for the future of the European Union. However, this was not the case for the Turkish delegates, who were prevented by their national authorities from travelling to Germany.
While recent election results in Europe have enabled environmental groups to strengthen their presence, for example in Belgium and Germany, optimism reigned in Berlin. For German Reinhard Bütikofer, co-chair of the party, the size of the Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament can increase in 2019.
The political priorities and the Manifesto approved
Several debates highlighted the political priorities of environmentalists. In addition to public exchanges, the representatives took part in thematic workshops and focused on the Political Manifesto that their movement will defend in May 2019 (see EUROPE 12139).
Political priorities, such as the Manifesto, were therefore approved by delegates, but are still being finalised before their official publication. EUROPE will come back to this.
The environmental leaders expressed their satisfaction at the end of the congress, as did Monica Frassoni, co-president of the European Green Party. "What we managed to do at this congress was to show our unity, our very pro-European and forward-looking character", she told us. (Original version in French by Lucas Tripoteau)