My address’ main points:
One cannot conceive of a Left removed from ecology. It’s like advocating for a Left without labour rights. It’s a part of the Left’s DNA.
There is, indeed, the danger of the Greens exclusively occupying this space. But, if we look at the Greens’ history, from the ’80s onward, there have been in many turns, conservative policy shifts.
That is why we, as a group, must process and put forward a specific political thought and position, on what we mean when we talk about ecology, green, danger for humankind.
The most basic element of our view, as Petros Kokkalis often says, is the issue’s class dimension. The climate catastrophe doesn’t affect everyone at the same time, nor with the same severity.
To effectively put this matter forward, we must first support new movements, building on the legacy of the present ecological movements. In the Balkans, ecological movements have not yet developed meaningfully.
In the months to come, we will be inviting the Greeks of Ierissos here, in Brussels. They have been fighting for years against the El Dorado mining operation in Chalkidiki, that signaled the destruction of an entire mountain.
We must create new avenues of communicating our message to young people. We ought to update our rhetoric. This is not reformism, but simply usage of the new means and weapons in out disposal, that up to now remain untapped.
Occasionaly, here, in GUE, the national point of view comes before the general Left political outlook. The issue Sira Rego put forth, on a “symbolic abstention” from the Strasburg Pleanary, to protest the significant enviromental footprint of moving to and fro the french city, annoys us, “because we are French”. We must work past this approach and view our group and its activity, outside of the framework of national hyper-conservative interests.
