Interviews

Populist and radical movements are on the rise in Europe while grassroots and democratic movements also gather strength. In this interview the Green European Journal asks Gaël Brustier to reflect on the reasons behind and triggers for these developments

Green Parties in Europe have undergone astonishing growth and development over the past decades, but has the time now come to ask ‘Quo vadis’? An interview with Reinhard Bütikofer and Catherine Larrère by Michel Genet.

Before we can tell whether multiculturalism is strengthening or weakening solidarity between the people of a particular society, we need to acknowledge that there were deficits of trust and solidarity long before multicultural policies were adopted. Such policies are potential tools for overcoming the historic deficits in trust and solidarity.

The borders that criss-cross our maps, and the notions of national unity that they connote, belie the fact that within and across these neatly delineated units there are communities whose very existence is a challenge to this territorial division. The case of the Roma people, spread throughout Europe and beyond, is an apt illustration of this.

Over the past year, Europe, besides the economic crisis, has had to face another big challenge: the largest refugee flow since the Second World War.

The political Left in Europe appears to have given up on trying to put forward a positive picture of migration.

The right to asylum is not a numbers game, it is a human right.

What responses are being prescribed by Greens who hold office in places heavily affected by these developments?

In 2013, Rui Tavares, then Portuguese Member of the European Parliament among the Greens-EFA group, put forward a report that investigated the threats to fundamental rights that Orban’s government had given rise to in Hungary since 2010, and proposed mechanisms for a common European response to such actions, both in Hungary and potential future similar cases.

The response of the EU to the arrival ‘en masse’ of refugees in need of a safe haven has left much to be desired, and some leaders have used the issue of security threats as an excuse to avoid taking up their responsibilities to provide humanitarian assistance. But until European leaders and citizens join the dots between the complex but interlinked issues of migration and climate change, a secure environment will remain out of reach for all of us. An interview with Bodil Valero, Green MEP for Sweden.