Twenty Years of European Greens
1984 - 2004
edited by Arnold Cassola & Per Gahrton
Grazia Francescato I Verdi (Italy)
- EFGP Spokesperson, 2003 to date
The future is Green, reads one of our favourite slogans. As far as I am concerned, and as long as I can remember, my past has always been green, too. Born in a small village on Lake Maggiore (North of Italy) where the trees are taller than houses, the child of a peasant family, my love for nature was ...just natural. The global dimension was added thanks to an international scholarship that allowed me to spend one year, when I was seventeen, in an American family and high school, together with many other foreign students.
Rooted in my native land, but feeling at home everywhere on the planet, I strengthened my global role through three decades of involvement with WWF international and the world’s women movement. In 1985 I got in touch with the newly born Italian Green Party and in the following years got to know some of the European Greens. But I became directly involved only in 1999, when I was elected President of the Italian Greens, although I had taken part in the national elections in 1987 and in European elections in 1989 (together with the never forgotten Alex Langer).
Deeply convinced that green issues -summed up in the concept of sustainable development, that I call “the marriage between ecology and economy”-can be pursued only if Greens are both global and diverse, I believe our main present and future task will be to build a truly united yet flexible European Green Party. Starting with a common campaign in the coming 2004 elections. There is no other way to make a difference in Europe and to contribute to a new global governance for peace and the environment. That’s the ‘natural’ way to go...Let’s go!
