Jean Lambert MEP: It’s important we practice what we preach about democracy & involvement

Jean Lambert is among the most active MEP’s who support the EGP’s promise to become the first truly European Party. She was the first elected Green Party Member of the European Parliament for London/UK. She was voted MEP of the Year 2005 in the field of Justice and Human Rights. In this legislature, Jean is the Greens/EFA Coordinator in the E.P.s’ Committee on Employment and Social Affairs. Herleen Group’s coordination team member Georg Schedereit asked her whether she is as cautious as many other national Green leaders on the question of individual membership as opposed to supportership?

Jean LAMBERT: No, I am not cautious on that. I think that’s very important, that people who feel they’ve a European identity, who want to work across borders, can express themselves as individual members of a EGP. That’s not to say they make all the decisions, but it’s to say they want to demonstrate an active engagement and to really be involved in creating a new European politics.

G.Sch: The EGP’s paper on „The future of Europe“ contains frequent criticism of what appears as a deficit of democracy in the EU’s institutional life. But has this supposedly first real European Party herself really come to life yet, or is it still rather just one more of those good old European federations of many national parties?

Jean LAMBERT: I think it’s important that Greens find a way to practice what they preach, about democracy, about involvement. And also that when you are making decisions you consult with the people who are going to be affected by your decisions, and obviously as party members of Green Parties, we ARE affected by the decisions our party leadership takes at the international level. So we need to be consulted, we need to be part of that decision-making process. If what we are really creating is a Green politics which has depth, not just an identity on a poster, but which has a living reality that we feel part of as Green members, than you realize why it’s important to really begin to develop this individual membership.

G.Sch: Without such a drive towards individual membership, what would be lost in your view?

Jean LAMBERT: I suppose the spirit of the Greens which comes from the grass-roots up to the center. Yes, leadership IS important. But it’s also important to involve those who are implicated in that leadership. For me as a Green MEP it is important to give a depth to Green politics, to really make it live as a reality throughout Europe, with a European dimension, not simply through our national party boards. We don’t think this is the way it should happen for the EU. I don’t think it’s the way it should happen for our party.

(verbatim transcript of an interview recorded on dvd at The Herleen Group’s fringe meeting on individual supportership at the 2nd EGP Congress Geneva on the 13th October 2006)