A Supporters’ Network for the EGP

Brussels – Yesterday the EGP council agreed to install an EGP Supporters’ Network. Its main task will be to give individual Greens a cross border and European participation perspective. Only 3 parties (England & Wales, Austria and Sweden) voted against, Les Verts (Fr) voting blank. The Network will be coordinated by a team of 8 supporters (elected by Network members), 2 people nominated by the EGP committee and one representative of the EGP committee and the Green Group in the European Parliament each. 

The arrangement was the result of two years of tough negotiations, mainly between the Heerlen Group and the EGP committee. Only after a first proposal had been withdrawn from the agenda lin October, some parties and MEP’s got involved. The main problem was, how much control the EGP committee should have over the Network.

The final proposal was tabled by GroenLinks, the EGP committee and theHeerlen Group, supported by Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, Déi Gréng, Zieloni 2004 and Miljøpartiet de Grønna and the PEP’s Bart Staes (Groen!), Pierre Jonckheer (Écolo) and Jean Lambert (Green Party of England and Wales). 

The Network will be installed after the European Elections of June. It will replace the current Heerlen Group, as agreed. Because the Networks’ mission is to link crossborder initiatives, the Heerlen initiatives, tools (like this website) and people will automatically be part of it. How many members of the Heerlen coordination tam will be a formal part of the new coordination, depends on the network members who’ll elect them. It also depends on how many new parties and initiatives will be joning during the coming months.