Despite the headwinds, revived by the crisis in the agricultural world, the continent’s Greens adopted a manifesto on Sunday defending a European Green Deal combining greater social justice with a view to the European elections.
In the midst of a crisis in the agricultural world, with strong winds against the European Green Deal, the continent’s ecologists validated their program for the European elections this Sunday in Lyon.
The approximately 1,000 members of the 36 national environmental parties making up the European Green Party have approved a manifesto which will serve as their guideline.
A road map also for the next five years in the European Parliament, with priority given to strengthening of the “European Green Deal” coupled with greater social justice.
Mélanie Vogel, co-president of the European Green Party and French senator: “The first chapter is a chapter which calls for a green and social pact. And it is a way of explaining why, while some try to make people believe that ecology is the enemy of social justice, we demonstrate that, on the contrary, not only is it not the enemy but it is the only credible solution to bring about social justice today, and respond to the purchasing power crisis which is the major concern of Europeans today.
Another priority for the Greens: defending democracy and the rule of law within the Union. Finally, the environmental movement wants to provide answers to geopolitical tensions.
The Greens have been working on this manifesto for almost a year. Beyond the national parties, they also spoke with civil society and the professional world. From this work, the party ensures that environmentalist discourse has its place despite calls in Europe for a pause in the climate effort.
Rasmus Nordqvist, European Green Party (committee member):“What I hear from both (sides) – NGOs and businesses – is actually: ‘let’s make an ambitious green transition. And if we do it together, if we really choose to do it, let it be presented in the form of a plan, the private sector’. But what I’m hearing right now is the right saying: ‘let’s put an end to the Green Deal, let’s stop all the talk about the transition’. But that’s not what I hear when I talk to civil society or the private sector. I really want to a plan that looks forward, not backwards“.
It is therefore this program that the two heads of the environmentalist list will have to defend: the German Terry Reintke38 years old and Dutch Bas Eickhout36 years old, elected on Saturday.
The two spokespersons of the campaign hope to be able to defy the polls which nevertheless announce a difficult vote for environmentalists. While in 2019, the green vote had great success, particularly among young people, according to the latest projections from Europe Elects, the Greens would only obtain 51 seats, or around twenty fewer than today in the Parliament of Strasbourg.
