Lamberts: Greens 'first' political party with EU-wide campaign 

Philippe Lamberts is the co-spokesperson of the European Green Party (EGP). 

To read a shortened version of this interview, please click here. 

What does the European Green Party have in preparation for the 2009 European elections? 

In 2004, for the previous elections, we were the first political family to do a common campaign based on written materials and posters and such like, which was used by a dozen parties across Europe. This time we are much more ambitious. It is likely going to be a campaign that will be driven by common events which we are going to do across Europe. So obviously we are going to have a common political platform. 

This common platform is something we have to stress because it distinguishes us from our competitors. Although our competitors tend to have a common platform as well, they do not vote consistently when it comes to voting in the Parliament. As one can see from our track record, the Greens already tend to speak with one voice in the Parliament. 

This time, the focus will be on doing things together. In general, we are doing more and more things together in various places across Europe. This will happen in different forms, which you will discover over time until the elections. 

We will also make a stronger use of the web to bring people together in various capitals such as Rome and Prague and big cities across Europe so that you will really feel that the Greens are acting together rather than just speaking together. This will probably be the biggest difference between the 2004 and the 2009 campaigns. 

How does the European party deal with diversity of its member parties at the national level? 

It is a matter of perspective. We know that European elections are in fact a set of national elections and that in certain countries, the focus on Europe is not that big because there are other elections that are taking place at the same time - as is the case for example in my country, Belgium. We have to take this into account but this is left to the national parties. Each party remains free to wage its own campaign. 

Does that mean that there will be common campaign themes that are followed by every single national affiliate? 

Yes. If you see it from a national perspective, the common campaign is part of the whole campaign. In some countries, the common campaign will be 99% of the campaign because they do not want to add a national touch to it, whereas in other countries the common campaign might only make up 15% of the overall campaign. 

So we do focus on those things that really unite Greens without any discussion, things that we all agree upon, such as climate change, the future of Europe or social policies. These are going to be the themes upon we will base our campaign. We would like to have an event-driven rather than a material-driven campaign and we will try to speak with one voice on all of these topics. 

To sum it up, one can say that we will be providing the core of the campaign while the national parties will add their own flavour. The aim is that the core is shared by all. 

Can you provide examples of specific national disparities? 

Where we have experienced differences in the past was when the Swedish party or the British one took – back in time – stronger anti-European stances. We have to recognise that, although they represent a minority within the Green party. This strong anti-European stance, of course, made it difficult for them to participate in a common European campaign. But we respect that. Even if we share many things, we would never force any member party to take part. 

What we do observe is that when we have started setting up the common campaign, the Swedes said that they wanted to be part of the team and not outside. We are not forcing anything but they really want to go as far as possible in a common perspective. As time passes, I see more and more convergence among the Greens. 

But again, every party will want to stress its own aspects. In Germany, we will have interesting constellations since we will have the European elections in June and then the national elections in September or October. So there, the European campaign will actually be the first step of the national campaign, which will have a different perspective. I am sure that the German Greens will then give it a specific flavour because they will have to position themselves as part of the coalition succeeding Merkel, in case she is replaced. 

Regarding the French Greens: They have been notoriously divided and could not even agree on a common front at national level for the 2007 Presidential election. How could they possibly deal with an extra level, namely the European one? 

I have to recognise that the internal divisions among the French Greens have been a sore point for us. We have been disappointed by that for years. But what we are observing – without being overly optimistic about it – is that they are converging as well and starting to speak with one voice. 

Is this development due to the European campaign? 

This is hard to say. I would not claim that this positive development is due to the European Green Party (EGP). But what we do see is that they have now decided to play their full role within the EGP while before they happened to participate with lower-rank people. You now actually see the party leadership actively participating in building the campaign. This is a really positive development. It is hard to say what is the cause and what is the effect. But we do see more involvement there. 

One sees that there is a convergence on the key things that have been dividing them, which has been the strategy towards the Socialist Party – should they align with the Socialists or rather be independent? They decided rather to choose the latter.

In addition, I think that the presidential campaign has brought a lot of clarification: Whoever tended to side with the extreme left parties has gone that way. Whoever tended to side with Centrist parties has gone that way – with known success. This allows more cohesion. We can then build upon the Greens as they are today. It is going to be a long process. But frankly speaking I see more unity there than with the Socialist Party in France. I am not ashamed. Not at all. 

What is the situation in other member countries? 

Unfortunately, by now, we do not have any Green MEPs from the new member countries. This is kind of difficult for us because we as Greens were the ones supporting enlargement so much. So a great part of our work as EGP committee is to get some Green MEPs elected from the new member countries. We are particularly going to focus on countries where this is possible, such as Malta (which missed out very narrowly last time), Slovenia, Czech Republic and Estonia, where the Greens just recently have re-entered parliament. 

In addition, we also have to maximise the outcome from countries which chose to send a large number of MEPs but have not done so, notably France and Ireland. In Belgium, we have to secure what we have. We are also going to do some electoral work in Poland, where the party is not very strong. 

When can we expect the big starting point in the European campaign? 

You can look at it in two ways. One way is the common actions we have already been executing. We have started doing it a year ago with a joint demonstration in various capitals in front of the Russian embassies to protest against the murder of Anna Politkovskaya.

This year we have actually done two. One related to the Bali conference and one on human rights, protesting against arresting immigrants in Europe and sending them back to their home countries. We will do more of the joint actions and you can see that as a run-up to the common campaign. 

The big starting point of the campaign, however, is likely to be the campaign congress which will take place in March 2009. This congress will herald the 'hot' phase of the campaign. But there will certainly be several other events in between.