Greens berate EU centre-right on values, vote with them anyway

Between 5 December and 7 December, the European Greens met in Lisbon to strategise about the next months and years.

While the party's own shift in focus was visible, speakers at the conference pointed to Europe's centre-right parties, and especially the European People's Party (EPP) group leader Manfred Weber, as the main obstacle to achieving their goals.

"Free, free Palestine", echoed through the halls, videos of demonstrations in Serbia and pictures from the forbidden Pride Parade in Budapest flickered on screens. Usually so prominent, climate change seemed to have faded in the background. The greens are focusing on safeguarding democracy and human rights.

According to Vula Tsetsi, co-chair of the European Greens, the party is not executing a change of heart because: "All these things are related to climate, are related to the environment, are related to the environment that it is around us. It is us. So, I will never make a distinction between climate justice and social justice anymore."

The last year saw some hard losses for the European Greens, including dropping out of the German government.

Now they want to position themselves as the last stand to fight against democratic backsliding in Europe, because the European Peoples Party is working together with the far-right parties more and more.

Officially, the greens are not part of a loose coalition in the European parliament, formed of the conservative EPP, the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) and the liberal Renew, but the green group has voted together with them in support of certain legislative proposals.

Tsetsi told journalists during a press conference: "For me, they [the EPP] have already crossed the line. Because if you sit at the table to negotiate with the fascists and with the extreme right, if you make deals with [André] Ventura [presidential candidate, Portugal], with [Marine] Le Pen [far-right politician from France], with [Viktor] Orbán [prime minister of Hungary], in order to achieve what you want, you already crossed the line of democracy."

While Tsetsi said that the EPP is going in the wrong direction, right now she and the green party want to step up efforts in the parliament.

"You cannot only vote against. You need, as a co-legislator, to do your work. You need to try to improve the text. And therefore, you cannot just say, I'm not cooperating at all. This is a parliament", she told EUobserver.

But the Greens' willingness to continue working with the EPP may stem from more than just parliamentary pragmatism - it may also reflect concerns about their own political standing.

Slovenian deputy prime minister Luka Mesec from a leftwing party, who also attended the Lisbon conference, noted how important that was, because, in his eyes, the greens had a credibility problem.

"When European institutions started to grasp the green agenda, it quickly became unpopular because it was more or less understood as regulations and restrictions," he said.

To change the narrative of being a party of prohibition and always being against, keeping up working with the EPP can be understandable.

According to MEP Thomas Waitz from Austria, it is the responsible way of doing it: "Although the European People's Party has always done things together with the extreme right, we have always kept a pro-European course in decisive votes. It does not help the interest in European cooperation, the importance of the cohesion of Europe, to sacrifice a small, political war in the European Parliament".

For now, the Greens have chosen to stay at the table, even as they condemn those sitting across from them.

The European Greens paid for flight and hotel fees that partly allowed this kind of reporting.

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