Brussels, 14/09/2006 (Agence Europe) - The European Green Party has ambitions for its first Congress in Geneva on 13 and 14 October. The Congress will be a platform for reflection that is both federating and rallying for all Green parties of Europe for the next national elections and the European elections in 2009, and will give fresh impetus to the debate on the future of Europe. Organised two years after the party's founding congress in 2004, in Rome, the Geneva congress comes at a key time when the Greens are disappearing from European government and when debates on the future of Europe are becoming bogged down. The 228 delegates of the national parties will be invited to vote on a new Charter for the European Greens defining their reformist identity and putting together a series of renewed guidelines to be respected by each party. The main part of the work, however, will be the vote on a resolution entitled “A Green Future for Europe”. Now that the direction to be taken has been decided, the debate may continue within the parties.
During a press conference on 14 September in Brussels, the Greens/EFA at the European Parliament set out new political proposals for this draft resolution geared in particular to the future of the European Constitution, the European social model, Europe faced with globalisation and as a player on the international scene, and sustainable European energy and environmental policies. Monica Frassoni, Co-President of the Greens/EFA Group, said that cooperation between all Green parties is crucial when Europe is going through a difficult period. After the Congress in Rome, that in Geneva will develop the following chapter to give concrete substance to the European Green Party through reflection on topical European themes, she said. Her wish was that they might play a considerable role in the debate on the future of Europe, the Constitution and on what lies ahead for the EU. An overall Green party is becoming stronger to face up to global challenges, she said. Deploring the “intellectual lethargy” of the current Parliament in the run-up to elections, Ms Frassoni stressed the need to prepare for being a “driving force” rather than simply being resigned to having a “siesta”. One might ask why the Congress is being held in Geneva. This, explained Ulrike Lunacek, Austrian spokeswoman for the European Greens party, is because Europe is more than the EU, although the EU is the driving element for integration and peace in Europe. The Green parties that do not belong to the EU, such as the Swiss Green Party, belong to the Green family made up of 35 parties in 31 countries, she explained.
The resolution, “A green future for Europe”, gives the Greens' response on the enhancement of the European social model, ways of making the economy “green”, the role of the EU in making globalisation fair, women's rights and diversity. And they add, “Europe needs strong Greens. We are the only ones with strong answers to various question, such as energy - we are the only ones never to have changed our opinion on nuclear energy”, stressing that the recent nuclear accident in Sweden showed the Greens had been right to question the safety guarantees of technologies that were supposed to be sure. Ms Lunacek opined that the French interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy's stance on the future of Europe had the merit of relaunching the debate, but she regretted his shutting the door on Turkey, which she found unacceptable. She regretted too his desire to postpone the idea of a new Constitution until after 2009. She said that a Convention had to be set up at the end of the German Presidency, before the 2009 European elections and after the French elections, with strong parliamentary involvement, a Convention that would confront the social issues. The idea of a European Constitution united 98% of Greens, she said. As for European lists for the EP, as advanced by Mr Sarkozy, Ms Lunacek felt that this was not the right way to go, preferring the option of 10% of lists being cross-border.
Is there still a place for the Greens on the European political scene?, wondered Belgian MEP Philippe Lamberts, European Green Party spokesman, speaking of the “end of the first chapter of Green participation in the government in Belgium, Italy, France and Sweden”. His response was yes. He felt that the Greens had to look now to the next stage: “between now and the 2009 European elections”, making sure to bring added value to national elections in the meantime. “The test will be to know if the European Green Party can improve on the results of Green Parties throughout Europe, in Western Europe and in Eastern and Southern Europe where things have been difficult up until now. But the results of the Czech Green party are encouraging,” he felt. (The European Green Party draft resolution can be consulted at the following address: http: //http://www.genevacongress.eurogreens.org.cms/default/rubrik/8/8141;htm ).