Twenty Years of European Greens
1984 - 2004
edited by Arnold Cassola & Per Gahrton
Catherine Grèze
Les Verts (France)
- EFGP Committee Member 1997-to date
At the very moment I am writing these lines, just as the May 2003 Malta Council is over, the Green European Party is born! And it has kept its pan-European dimension!
This very moment also makes me one of the two persons who has been elected on the Committee for the longest period of time. What I have witnessed in these past seven years is the major change of the Federation from a network of parties to a political body.
The key dates, in my opinion, were those that the marked the participation of Greens in governments, making them evolve from contestatory to propositional movements, thus making them gain more credibility on the political scene. The political “profile” of our delegates kept rising and quite a few of them became Ministers.
For me, the illustration of this turning point was the 1999 Congress in Paris, when 1400 Greens could witness all their heads of lists for the European Elections all gathered together, giving us all already a European dimension!
This period has also witnessed the birth of political ecology in Africa, with people like Ram Ouedraogo and Wangari Maathai paving the way for further political developments, along with high standing figures like Ingrid Betancourt in South America or Bob Brown in Australia.
The Green awareness reached its climax at the first Global Green Congress in Canberra in 2001. During this congress we expressed in the Global Green Charter our values and our sense of responsibility towards the future of the planet.
20 years of European Greens may not be yet enough to be recorded in History but it is definitely appropriate to say that we now have a history and certainly a future, that I really believe in!
