German MEP Terry Reintke, 36, and Dutch MEP Bas Eickhout, 47, have been elected because the European Greens’ high candidates for the June EU elections at a three-day congress within the French metropolis of Lyon (2-4 February), which despatched out a transparent message: they won’t make a pact with the far proper.
”These elections are going to be extraordinarily vital: our planet is quickly heating up, a grotesque conflict is being fought on our borders and inequality is rising,” Eickhout informed the viewers after being picked.
Reintke is the present co-president of the Greens/EFA group within the European Parliament (EP), whereas Eickhout is vice-chair of the parliament’s setting committee — and has already been elected as a high candidate for the 2019 elections, together with fellow German Ska Keller.
The Greens/EFA are presently the fourth-largest group within the EP, though latest polls predict decrease help within the subsequent elections, scheduled for 6-9 June 2024.
The group holds 72 seats, and whereas new members might be part of their group (such because the Spanish left-wing get together Sumar), predictions are that they may lose 10 seats.
This could make them the sixth power within the chamber, shedding some agenda-setting energy to the rise of anti-EU populist events — predictions that don’t discourage the Greens, who’ve made the phrase ”braveness” their emblem for this marketing campaign and are assured that they will ”turn out to be even larger”, they informed journalists in Lyon.
”If we quit now, we’re going to lose,” Reintke mentioned, including: ”If we stand as much as the surge of the far proper as hundreds of thousands of individuals are doing throughout Europe already, then it’s completely clear that we are able to flip this round”.
The parliament is predicted to shift sharply to the appropriate, with the far-right ID group more likely to turn out to be the third energy within the meeting and the right-wing ECR group the fifth — a change that can even have an effect on coalition patterns and have coverage implications, most definitely on environmental coverage.
For the Greens, this is able to make it unattainable to help a second time period for European Fee president Ursula von der Leyen — though it’s not but identified whether or not she is going to stand once more.
”If there may be going to be no continuation of the Inexperienced Deal or perhaps a reversion of what we’ve got achieved to date, we’re not going to be a part of it,” Reintke mentioned.
The message to von der Leyen’s centre proper EPP group was additionally clear: the Greens won’t be part of any coalition with far-right events.
”They want to choose: do they [the EPP] wish to go and look to their proper, or do they wish to look to their left?”, Eickhout requested.
A Inexperienced Deal below strain
The Inexperienced congress takes place simply in the future after a main protest by European farmers, who surrounded the EU quarter in Brussels with over 1,000 tractors, demanding ”honest costs”, much less pink tape, and extra subsidies to decide to a inexperienced transition.
The farmers began numerous fires and induced some chaos exterior the EP, prompting political reactions, as with comparable protests in different member states, together with France.
In response to indignant farmers, French prime minister Gabriel Attal just lately mentioned that France would tighten import controls and cease imposing stricter laws on its farmers than these required by the EU.
”It is unnecessary to ban pesticides in France earlier than such selections are taken on an EU stage. We are going to finish this observe,” Attal mentioned throughout a press convention.
Belgian PM Alexandre De Croo additionally addressed the ”reliable” issues of the farmers throughout the EU summit on Thursday, the place he mentioned they had been going through a ”lasagna impact” because of the administrative burden coming from Inexperienced Deal, the character restoration laws, and pesticide proposals.
”We additionally have to be sure that they will get the appropriate value for the product they supply, and that the executive burden that they’ve stays cheap,” he informed reporters.
However for the Inexperienced high candidates, what farmers wanted was extra readability and a mannequin that assured them an trustworthy earnings, and that meant altering the system that gave 80 p.c of subsidies to only 20 p.c of farmers who owned the largest farms.
”Get out of the Brussels bubble and actually speak to the farmers,” mentioned Eikhout, referring to these right-wing politicians who hearken to the farmers’ foyer Copa-Cogeca.
Latvian MEP Elina Pinto and Italian Benedetta Scuderi had been additionally within the operating for the highest job, which was determined in two rounds of voting, through which delegates from all EU Inexperienced events first voted for a feminine candidate after which for Eikhout, who gained 57 p.c of the entire votes.