Twenty Years of European Greens
1984 - 2004
edited by Arnold Cassola & Per Gahrton
Sara Parkin
Green Party UK
- Coordination Secretariat Member 1985 - 1990
In the beginning was the Co-ordination of the European Green and Radical Parties. It was founded (informally) on 17th July 1979, shortly after the first direct election to the European Parliament. The parties involved (see Box 1) had come together with considerable enthusiasm reassured to find like-minded parties in other countries. Some were basking in impressive results at the elections (4,7% of the vote in France, 3,2% in Germany, 3,7% in Italy). Because of different electoral rules, only the Italians obtained seats.
The aims of the Co-ordination were agreed to be:
i. the exchange of information between member parites, including policy ideas
ii. the support of each other's campaigns
iii. joint actions and press statements on European issues
iv. the holding of seminars and the development of policies on European and other international issues
v. the development of a common statement or manifesto
The first act of the Co-ordination was to stage a protest, in the European parliament, against the unfairness of the electoral system. Petra Kelly (Germany) and Solange Fernex (France) smuggled banners into the public gallery and hung them over the parliamentarians' meeting below.
In the beginning (17th July 1979) the Co-ordination of European Greens and Radical Parties was made up of:
Die Grünen West Germany
Agalev Belgium
Ecolo Belgium
Ecology Party United Kingdom
Movement d'Ecologie France
Politieke Partij Radikalen Netherlands
Partito Radicale Italy
By 1st April 1984 we had the European Greens, made up of:
Die Grünen West Germany
Agalev Belgium
Ecolo Belgium
Ecology Party United Kingdom
Movement d'Ecologie France
Politieke Partij Radikalen Netherlands
Partito Radicale Italy
The challenge of fundraising and a clear split between the aims and style of the two radical parties took up most of the early meetings. As a result, when the Co-ordination firmed up its constitution in preparation for the 1984 elections to the European parliament, it left the radical parties behind. The arrangement kept the original aims, changed its name to "The European Greens", and agreed a Joint Declation of Aims. The declaration covered a far reaching political agenda (very radical then; much of it is very mainstream today!) and was quite a triumph with regards to international collaboration. It was launched at the First Conference of the European Greens in Liège, Belgium on 31st March/1st April 1984.
The European Greens went to the 1984 elections in a 'technical agreement' signed in Paris on the 28th April 1984 with Déi Gréng Alternativ from Luxembourg and a coalition called the Green Progressive Accord from the Netherlands. This arrangement entitled the group to be reimbursed for expenses incurred during the election campaign.
At the elections, the Dutch Accord won 2 seats, the German greens 7, and the Belgian Parties one seat each. The Greens entered the European parliament in a 'Rainbow Coalition' with other parties - an arrangement set up for two reasons: one to access the facilities available to larger groups, the other to incorporate the various views amongst Green Parties at that time, mainly whether the Greens should collaborate closely or not with the left, basically the socialist or communist parties.
In the meantime, a second Conference of the European Greens was held in Dover, England on 22-24 March 1985 and attracted over 700 delegates from around 20 countries from all over the world. The European Greens were beginning to go global.
By the time the first seats were gained by greens in national parliaments, however, (1 in Switzerland in October 1979; a total of 9 seats (parliament and Senate) in Belgium in November 1981; 2 in Finland and 27 in Germany in March 1983) a reverse flow in influence was taking place. The explosion of the German greens in the national political life of West Germany made headlines world-wide and the European Greens began to develop a global network of contacts with new and emerging green political initiatives, most notably during that period, with movements from Eastern Europe.
A major European Green campaign for International Peace year in 1986, entitled Beyond the Blocs, was taken over on the day of its launch by the announcement to European Green members campaigning outside the Russian Embassy in Brussels of the nuclear accident at Chernobyl. Over the following months of confusing information, the Greens in several countries gained public respect for the quality of their information and advice.
As the 1980s drew to a close, the European Greens consolidated. More parties joined the group: from Switzerland, Finland, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and some other geographical sub-clusters (e.g. the Nordic or South European greens). More congresses were held in Stockholm in August 1987 (Green Thinking for Global Linking); Antwerp, in April 1988 (Local Green Politics); Paris in 1989. Green Parties from further afield were now regular guests. In the world of politics external to the Green Parties their ideas were beginning to take hold. Other parties were prompted to take notice by the competition for seats in national and local governments, but the real campaigner for Green ideas during this period was the evidence that environmental degradation was increasing at an alarming rate and, despite greater wealth than ever worldwide, levels of poverty and injustice remained unacceptably high.
Also during the 1980s, relationships with the nascent democracy movements were developing in East Europe. In Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia in particular, but also with Bulgaria, Latvia and Lithuania, Albania and, of course, East Germany. European Greens played an important role, for example, in 1987 at the first public protest meeting (about the dams on the Danube) held in Hungary since 1956. Also, they helped to smuggle to activists in Poland and East Germany scientific papers and even photocopiers as a small contribution to amazing feats of organisation in unimaginably difficult circumstances. Meetings of solidarity and information exchange took place in what Petra Kelly, a founder of both the German Green Party and the European Greens, dubbed 'the subversive kitchens'.
The European Green parties campaigned for the June 1989 elections to the European parliament, optimistic and with a common manifesto and obtained their highest scores to date. Then, on 9th November 1989, came the historic breach of the Berlin Wall and the velvet revolutions in Eastern Europe.
For Europe and European Greens a new era had begun.
