31st Council - online

31st Council of the European Green Party: a resilient future is a Green future

We are delighted to welcome you to the 31st European Green Party Council, from 10 to 13 June 2020, which will take place for the first time ever online! 

In these unique circumstances, the European Green Party is taking all necessary steps to ensure its events and projects can continue while ensuring the highest measures for public health. We have therefore decided to organise our next Council fully online. We want to thank our friends from DOM - the Greens from North Macedonia for the preparation work done until now, and we want to reiterate our support to a clear European future for North Macedonia and the Western Balkans.

The Coronavirus crisis is already being labeled as the most significant global event since World War 2. As we are slowly exiting the most acute part of the health crisis and starting to understand the depth of the economic aftermath, more than ever the Green movement must reflect on how we can successfully lead the way towards a more resilient future and a more resilient Europe.

The task at hand is monumental. Unlike the 2008 financial crash, this unprecedented crisis has impacted not primarily the financial but also the real economy, creating a lasting impact and clearly indicating that our recovery cannot simply be a return to "business-as-usual’’. The economic recovery should lead to a fairer, more just, more inclusive, more sustainable and above all, a more resilient Europe. The crisis has exposed the weaknesses and fragilities of our globalised societies, but also, more than ever, our interdependence. Resilience thinking, the ability to adapt to change and to bounce back from shocks and crises, must be embedded in our answers on our path to recovery. The Council will allow us, as the European Green Party and its member parties, and the Green extended family to develop proposals for a resilient recovery.

The European project has also been badly wounded through the crisis. Despite the EU and its Member States have failed to demonstrate the necessary level of solidarity during crucial moments of the crisis, we Greens, as an eminently pro-European political force, have been calling for concrete solidarity since the beginning of the crisis. Commonly reaffirming our pro-European engagement by advocating for a shared recovery from the crisis is another challenge we will address together during the Council.

Scientists are overwhelmingly warning us: should we fail to act, the effects of the climate crisis will be much more dire than what we are currently experiencing. The Climate Emergency must remain a political priority in the aftermath of the corona crisis. Greens in Europe must be at the forefront to continue designing and promoting solutions that will answer both the need for an economic recovery for all, and the long-term need for ambitious climate action, and above all, the Green and Just transition. The Council will provide the opportunity to continue developing answers that work and ensure we address these emergencies.

2020 was meant to be a turning point for climate action. It will be much more: a crossroad for the whole of Europe, the world and the climate. Building resilient societies, ensuring a fair, just and sustainable economic recovery, and mending the wounds to the European project from the lack of solidarity during the crisis - the European Green Party and the Green family at large will not be short of battles to choose. We encourage all delegates to join us from 10 to 13 June 2020 to ensure you and your party are fully engaged in building the momentum of the Green Wave that will provide solutions to the challenges ahead.