The European Green Party (EGP) launched, on Wednesday 6 March in Brussels, its campaign for the European elections, which will take place from 23 to 26 May.
The two main speakers at this event were environmental MEPs Bas Eickhout (Netherlands) and Ska Keller (Germany), elected at the end of November as co-Spitzenkandidaten of green political families for these European elections (see EUROPE 12145).
“These European elections are really to be crucial, probably the most important”, said Mrs Keller, referring to the radically different approaches taken by political families in advance of these elections.
Taking up the rhetoric used at the Berlin Greens’ Council in November (see EUROPE 12146), Mr Eickhout recalled two key points for his current: “We need a more social Europe, we need a green Europe”, he said.
Among the twelve priorities identified by the European Green Party (see EUROPE 12147, 12139), three seem to stand out as particularly fundamental for the co-Spitzenkandidaten: the climate and environmental crisis, social issues and the protection of democracy and the rule of law in the Union.
Asked by EUROPE about the number of seats the European environmentalist family could claim in the next Parliament, Reinhard Bütikofer (Germany), co-president of the European Party, listed different national situations.
Thus, according to him, the Green Parties should achieve results similar to those of 2014 in eight Member States and they have a good chance of achieving better results in seven States, notably Bulgaria and Poland. He expected the results to be lower in Sweden and Austria. On the other hand, he expressed great confidence that they will be better in nine Member States, including Germany, France, Portugal or even the Czech Republic.
Keller said she was “optimistic” about an increase in the number of Green MEPs in the next European Parliament, despite the possible loss of six British MEPs due to Brexit.
Finally, the Green leaders were rather doubtful about the article published by Emmanuel Macron, the French President, in editorial offices all over Europe on 5 March (see EUROPE 12207).
“Macron's initiative is a campaign move, which is fine, but it is unclear how much it will indeed be helpful to achieve the proclaimed goals.” said Mr Bütikofer and Monica Frassoni, also co-chair of the EGP. They criticised it, among other things, for its overly intergovernmental approach. (Original version in French by Lucas Tripoteau)