- EGC delegate in Majvik, Finland 1993
- EFGP Committee Member 1997 - 1999
- EFGP Secretary General 1999 - to date
My first participation in a European Greens event was in 1990, when the European Green Coordination was meeting in Budapest. We had founded our Green Party in Malta only a few months before, in October 1989, with the intent of contributing to the democratisation and “greening” of the political and institutional structures of our country which, at that time, were quite a closed shop.
I remember feeling a bit lost amongst so many different and unknown faces, quite a number of whom were coming from Central and Eastern European Green Parties. But then I listened to the speech of one participant who simply enchanted me with the profoundity, and simplicity at the same time, of the political thoughts he was expounding upon. This same man was to give me a lift in his rented car from Budapest to Vienna on the Sunday afternoon. The three and a half hour trip cemented my respect and admiration for this politician, whom I had never met before. That Coordination meeting, but in particular the three and a half hour car ride, were to have an everlasting impact on my political thought .... and life!
The man in the car who left such an imprint on me was Alexander Langer.
Three years later we were all in Majvik. It was the birth of the Federation under the sunlit Finnish midnight sky, the sauna, the lakes, the wood. It was a particular atmosphere. But some political debates turned out to be hot. I was the protagonist of one such particular debate. For one hour I held up the works trying to convince the others that for us Maltese it was impossible to accept the concept of abortion. However, it was a useless task for me to try to make the representatives of the other twenty two Green parties understand the religious, cultural and historical background of my Mediterranean country! Finally, it was Helmut Lippelt who came up with the solution: at the ratification of the “Guiding Principles”, the Malta Greens would not adhere to the paragraph on abortion.
And in the evening we could then all celebrate and sing “Che sarà”!
Ten years have passed since then: we greens have entered many national parliaments; we have been in and out of National governments; the EU’s biggest country has a Green Foreign Minister; we have a Green Commissioner ...... and the lost man in Budapest in 1990 is today the Secretary General of a Federation that is on the verge of becoming a European Political Party.
Today, we still sing “Che Sarà” (“what will be?”) at our meetings. But, unlike the uncertainty of the title of the song, I am personally certain that for us Greens the present and future are really bright.
