Social Movements

The UK’s new ‘Tarpaulin Revolution,’ led by a revived Occupy movement and featuring many Greens, hopes to capture the imaginations of people across Europe – in cities and countries also suffering the impacts of inequality, austerity and ‘democracy’ weighted to benefit the 1%.

Images of the People’s Climate March that took place in New York on September 21st have circulated around the world, along with pictures from many other cities. Yet being a part of such a massive and important mobilisation, characterised more than ever by pluralism and diversity, was a truly unique sensation.

Civil society pressure, upcoming elections, and a lack of consensus within the Popular Party led to plans for the restriction of abortion to be abandoned – and caused the resignation of the Spanish Justice Minister last week.

The following text was the basis for a speech to be delivered at the Summer University of the French Green party Europe Ecologie – Les Verts in Bordeaux in August 2014.

The EU Fifth Project is creating a network of community-based movements as part of a broader transition, starting at the local level and gaining international momentum, with the aim of building a sustainable future.

Given the current political climate, it behoves ecologists to thrust imagination, innovation and experimentation to the forefront of political action and thought. This requires a “benevolent distance” between the Green foundations and the Green parties.

The coming upheaval in our ways of living and working will require us to live an ecological lifestyle based on new forms of democratic participation that enable us to collectively and comprehensively reshape our social and physical environment.

How can we explain the shift in the prevailing attitude among the leadership of Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) and Free Trade Unions at the beginning of World War I? In the space of a few days, a position of fervent opposition was replaced by patriotic support for the government’s military ambitions, and the reasons behind this change remain the subject of debate.

The time has come to review the democratic workings of the European Union. Ideally, this should be the subject of a new Convention, but it is also possible to strengthen, here and now, European democracy.

An interview with Claude Turmes, Green MEP from Luxembourg (Die Greng).