Twenty Years of European Greens
1984 - 2004
edited by Arnold Cassola & Per Gahrton
Manuela Cunha Os Verdes (Portugal)
- EGC delegate in Mayvik, Finland 1993
When, in June 1993, Isabel Castro and I flew from Lisbon to Helsinki to participate, as delegates of the Portuguese Greens, in one more meeting of the Co-ordination of Green Parties, we hoped to attend the creation of the European Federation of Green Parties.
At that time, “Os Verdes” considered the creation of the Federation an important step to strengthen the bonds among green parties and thus to contribute to the growth and strengthening of the Green Movement in Europe.
With this qualitative jump in the co-operation among Green Parties we expected a great improvement in the exchange of information and work experiences among all. We believed that networking was an important support tool to assist green parties in improving their national and regional actions. Such tool would be especially significant in the areas where the Green movement was still fragile, as in the South of Europe.
And, undoubtedly, we had the hope that the Federation would become a forum for thought and reflection on European and World-wide issues. We hoped that the Federation would constitute a solid basis for the support of an ecologist intervention that aims to give an active contribution to the construction of a Europe and a World that are more just, show more solidarity and more respect for freedom and for human and environmental rights. A peaceful Europe and a peaceful World filled with richness and diversity, whether environmental, cultural or other.
We hoped, and still hope, that the European Federation of Green Parties would be a forum for the “discovery”, analysis and understanding of each reality. Not a Mega Organization with rigid features, where “prêt-a-porter” models from some parties are imposed on others. Instead, we aim to have a Federation where the Green Parties’ answers to different challenges converge, allowing the use of different concepts and approaches to do so. We aim for a Federation that encompasses the different realities and contexts that each party has to work in, from one country to other, from one region to other.
The European Federation of Green Parties must be something new and not a just a mere reproduction of the old faded political models.
