UNFORTUNATLY WE HAVE HAD TO POSTPONE THIS EVENT

We will inform you as soon as we have a new date.

On Sunday 9 May, Europe Day, the EGP Supporters’ Network invites all to an international public forum debate-plus-brainstorming on military intervention and civil alternatives for bringing freedom and democracy to other parts of the world. The event takes place in the Dutch border town of Maastricht, at a stone’s throw from a Nato airbase, where the Maastricht Treaty was signed.

The event is part of a project to boost European Green thinking on the issue, in which the Network cooperates closely with the European Green Party  and the Greens/EFA in the European parliament.

Panellists: (candidate )Members of the Dutch and European Parliament for GroenLinks (asked); Juliette  Boulet, member of the Belgian federal parliament for Écolo, and representatives of the regional ngo’s  Heerlen Peace Platform and Stop Awacs.

Venue: StayOkay, Maasboulevard 101, Maastricht, Netherlands; 14 – 17 h. Contact: Lin Tabak lin@ision.nl

Almost 250 thousand Europeans are members of a Green party. Yet only some 1.100 have registered as supporters of the European Green Party, although the possibility was created in 2004. The biggest hurdle is the administration of the scheme: supporters have to register through the party of their country of residence.

The reason this option was chosen is, that it enables parties to refuse people they consider as risks.

But if most parties still haven’t opened registration, they did so for other reasons, like a lack of understanding of how the scheme should be implemented, or fear the extra administrative burden. To make life easier, EGP and Supporters’ Network are preparing a direct online registration facility  which takes away most administrative complications whilst leaving the parties’ right to say no to individuals untouched.

Click here for the proposal. Once comments from parties and EGP have been incorporated, the facility will be built and, after a try-out, put online for parties to use.

The new tool will only be a success, however, if parties advertise it widely and, better still, launch it during a suitable party event. The Network is preparing a ready to use campaign which will be ready by this Summer, and is happy to assist parties with translations and live presence.

A last step is the  adaptation of the EGP’s internal rules, which will be done through a resolution – see draft – during the council in Tallin (8-10 October).

That assessment is at the core of one of the Supporters’ Network’s new projects. Currently we are thinking of the best way to tackle the issue – here you find a draft proposal. However, we are -very much- interested in your feedback, which will be used as input for a workable agenda containing a background document, discussions, debates, opinion articles in the press and a final report that will be offered to our EGP board and the Green Group in the European Parliament. Do’nt hesitate to let us know what you miss, what emphasise you would prefer, what issues must be added, or left out – ehither by leaving a comment or by mailing to inti.suarez@gmail.com.

Is the Green New Deal just an elections slogan? Forget it! in the southern Dutch town of Breda, a local energy company–cum-housing project will see the light, which entirely relies on local energy sources like bio-fuels from the surrounding woodlands. It is part of a programme consisting of more than 50 action plans. And Breda is no exception, was the message of Breda’s Green alderman Wilbert Willems during Heerlen 8 ( on 30 January in Brussels): over a hundred local Green administrators have pooled their practice to tell the Dutch voters during the campaign for the local elections on 3 March, that on the local level ‘Green Works!’ (Groen Werkt!, as the Dutch say).

The  Greens’ answer to climate, economy and other crises and the key theme in the common European campaign, hasn’t only inspired the Dutch Greens. At least 12 parties have made their own versions – varying from election pamphlets proposing Green jobs, to elaborate programmes covering almost the whole spectre of political ecology.

The Green European Foundation will shortly issue areport that compares them. A glimpse of that was revealed during Heerlen 8, by researcher Edgar Szolc. Some plans, he said, are elaborate as books, others stronger in rhetoric than in practical measures, especially when talking about local change. The GroenLinks approach apparently is an exception. Read report.

Brussels – ‘The best way to do climate justice’, said Dutch climate researcher Frans Alkemade during a round table organised by the EGP grassroots network  in Brussels on 30 January, ‘is to avoid climate change.’ And the most efficient way to do that, is not, he added, put all your assets on ambitious CO2-reductions in Europe, but to offer China to sponsor cleaner charcoal technology.  It was one of the proposals to get the world out of the deadlock after the Climate non-summit. Surely the EU should keep its reduction ambitions high and offer substantial funds for helping the poorest countries to cope with climate change, the participants concluded, if it wants to get the initiative back and put pressure on the US. But additional strategies are called for, like a ‘coalition of the willing’ of the most ambitious states, damage control by industrialised countries sponsoring cleaner technologies in emerging economies and for develpoment countries an exemption from duties for intellectul property rights for climate technology.

Follow-up: specialists from party working groups will be invited to explore the above mentioned and other promising strategies. Read full report.