Twenty Years of European Greens
1984 - 2004
edited by Arnold Cassola & Per Gahrton
Karin Müntzing
Miljöpartiet de Gröna (Sweden)
- International Secretary, Miljöpartiet de Grona 1981 - 1985
Try to find out which of the new green parties in Europe are the real greens! -
That was the easy task assigned to us by our Swedish party, Miljöpartiet de Gröna, nearly 20 years ago.
At that time our party was a member in an association called “European Greens”, that besides providing possibilities of co-operation amongst its members, also gave them a kind of legitimacy. As a member you had the responsibility to vote in new member parties. Our representatives in the Europeans Greens needed facts to base their decisions on before the new member could be a part of the organisation. It was our task to find these background facts.
We were only a handful of enthusiasts but we were more knowledgeable in languages than in political experience. We studied party programs and other documents that our party had obtained from the parties aspiring to become members. Sometimes we had the opportunity to hear a representative from one of the new parties talk about their party’s history and political ideas.
The Netherlands seemed rather particular from our perspective. I remember this fact as there were new green parties being founded all the time. New alliances got together and others split. Many of them had letter combinations as part of their name and we got a bit confused and realised that our task was not so easy.
Some of us met the Spanish greens, who stressed with emphasis that they were socialists. After some time we realised that the socialist element meant that they didn’t share Franco’s ideas. In another country we met persons who claimed that they were representatives of a specific party but later on it turned out that this was not the case. We got more and more confused and realised that we had been naive.
When we sum up our experience we can detect a clear pattern. Firstly, all party representatives thought that they represented the real green party of their country and looked upon other green fractions as less green, pseudo-green or not green at all. Secondly, we realised that every green party had to be seen as a part of its time and political background. Or, said differently, how green you are will always depend on the context. Thirdly, when it came to finding the real greens, we had to admit that our work got us as confused as only the really naive could be. The task we got was neither easy nor hard - it was impossible and stupid - but turned out to be a very good learning experience.
This happened nearly 20 years ago but I write from my perspectives here and now. And it is quite an experience to recall that period.
