EUROPEAN GREEN PARTY CONVENTION
Today we are here to declare loud and clear that we are ready to compete for the future of Europe. We are sure of our capacity to give answers, to offer people voices to carry change in Europe and make it Green.
We stand united and confirm the pledge of ten years ago - we are a relevant, independent European political family. We can say today, after all the good work and the quality of our proposals over the years and on the Common Manifesto, that we are even more convinced of the solid ground of the project we present today for Europeans to vote on.
the Green New Deal, the ecological transformation of the EU economy and society, as a way to help Europeans regain their confidence in the future;
the conviction that we need more Europe, a better Europe, not more borders – and that openness and freedom can thrive even in times of crisis and fear. In the streets of Ukraine we see today that 'Europe' and 'democracy' are not empty words. Our Common Manifesto commits those who will be elected at the EP to give this freedom a central role. I hope that during the next legislative period, it will also be possible for the Greens to use article 48 to start a debate and to propose new democratic reforms – to use it to avoid travelling to Strasbourg was certainly a good idea, but I hope we can do better than that.
We are also conscious of being a strong part of a democratic front that goes beyond political coalitions and aims to find alliances and the strength in the liveliest parts of civil society, in order to to really have an impact on the direction Europe will go in.
This will be the real challenge in the next few months. Because we are convinced of the solidity of our proposals, we have to be more convincing ourselves. And we have to, to put it simply, get more people to vote for us.
People in the streets are hungry for solutions and not for words, and they are weary of the old speeches. But a lot of them are also fearful of radical change, even if it is Green change. They will not be easily convinced that the core values of Europe, like freedom of movement or solidarity, are not just nice words, but are really a part of a common solution to the current crisis.
But is this just a crisis, or are we dealing with multiple crises? Or it is a mutation, a revolution that absolutely needs to go into the right direction? And can't we say this is already the case? I believe that in understanding what is actually going on, the Greens have grown wise and evolved over the last few years. We are not labelling the expressions of fear from citizens as tedious populist noise. We believe that the EU is losing its ability to represent hope and to protect against decline and poverty. We have to get that back as well.
A hundred years after the beginning of the First World War, and keeping in mind the hundreds of thousands of victims in Syria and the Middle East, and more recently the unacceptable images of the crushing of the peaceful demonstrations and dissent in Ukraine (but also remembering the thousands that perished in the Mediterranean Sea and the other direct or indirect victims of Europe’s impotence), we still believe it is peace, freedom, welfare, protection against poverty and discrimination, and more recently the need for a Green revolution, that are the drivers of the European dream.
Of that European dream, we are the stubborn advocates.
A European dream shattered by incompetence, a lack of vision, and a lack of empathy and compassion for the consequences of a blind agenda of “reforms” have become the only face of the EU for many people.
A face that brought back images we thought were forgotten forever, like the burning of German flags or disrespectful remarks towards entire European peoples.
We want to change that face by changing the faces at the top and and by changing their policies.
What we have in front of us are three full months during which we will have the opportunity to show that those who think that the Greens are on the losing side, because our proposals are too difficult or are only valid for rich northerners or can’t beat the ongoing attraction of magic words like 'Down with the State,' 'market', 'competition' or 'liberalisation', are wrong.
Our project is for all Europeans, the old and the new. Not only for those now in tragic misery and poverty, unknown to this generation until now. Not only for those who have no empathy for the distress of others. We believe that dealing with climate change and the ongoing threats to biodiversity is to talk about finding ways out of the crisis by creating new jobs and supporting welfare.
We also want to defeat another self-fulfilling prophecy: the alleged victory of anti-European forces. This is repeated over and over again, as if it were a fact of life. It is not. Because the campaign is not over. And because their analysis is easy but false. They bring no solutions. They are helped by the media that repeats their slogans without any real debate or opposition.
We Greens decided to challenge this self-fulfilling prophecy by starting our own common campaign based on clearly pro-European, yet alternative policies to austerity and by experimenting with e-democracy.
I salute here all those who with enthusiasm and faith embraced the totally new and risky idea of launching the Green Primaries.
I am personally proud of having had the chance and the honour of being a contender and on behalf of all of you I want to congratulate Ska and José and wish them good luck . We have shown that it is possible to make a EU-wide campaign. No one else has done that before. And I am sure that, in the future, we will learn from our mistakes and shortcomings, including the temptation of reverting to power games, which probably weren't all that necessary given the context. But we can say we broke new ground and the research for new and vanguard ideas should always be a feature of the Greens.
There is an alternative for Europe and we think we are a part of it. No more Troika, but a Green New Deal, a more democratic and “European” decision-making process at EU level and the building of a democratic front over the next few months that will face the dangers of the extreme right propaganda.
These are our proposals. And now it is up to all of us to go out and win.
Monica
Bruxelles, February 22