Jamila Schaefer, Deputy leader and the international secretary of the German party The Greens, spoke to N1's Foreign Affairs editor Ivana Dragicevic last week about combating climate change as one of the priorities of the new European Commission, as well as the space green policies will occupy during the upcoming Croatian and German presidencies of the Council of the European Union.
Croatia is set to take over the six-month rotating presidency of the EU Council from Finland in January 2020, with Germany taking up the mantle in July. Green policy is not heavily featured in Croatia’s programme during its presidency.
“The Croatian government proposed ‘Europe that protects’ as one priority of the presidency of the EU Council, and of course, as a Green person, I hope that means Europe that protects the environment, because we can see that the time is running out,” Schaefer said.
The Greens, founded in 1993, promotes energy sustainability and environmental protection. In 2017 federal elections in Germany, the Greens came sixth with 8.9 percent of votes, winning 67 seats in the 709-seat Bundestag.
Green parties across Europe are seeing a surge in popularity as well. In the European Parliament (EP) election held in late May this year, green parties in Germany won historic 21 seats, more than in any other European country, coming in only second after the centre-right CDU/CSU alliance.
“We need to deliver, and that means, for example, huge investments in the clean energy infrastructure, and not investing in the past by putting money in the fossil fuel industry,” Schaefer said.
However, eastern Europe still does not have strong Green political parties: Greens from the majority of eastern European countries did not win any seats in the May EP election. Asked why that is so, Schaefer said that changes the region has been through in the past may have exhausted the people, but that the changes that will come from failure to manage the climate crisis will be out of people’s control.
“We have to look at the truth, and the truth is that if we do not go for clean energy, soon it will be very hard to have the basis for other political questions,” Schaefer added.
Watch the full interview below:
