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EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Green parties from across Europe have launched their campaign and manifesto for the 2009 European elections in June, calling for a 'Green New Deal for Europe' and accusing EU politicians of ‘greenwashing' their current, too-small stimulus packages.
Referencing the vast Keynesian stimulus measures marshalled by US President Franklin Roosevelt in an attempt to pull his country out of the Great Depression, Europe's Greens argue that a similar move is needed today to pull the continent out of what could turn into its second great depression.
At their third annual congress, which took place on Friday and Saturday (27-28 March) in the European Parliament in Brussels, some 450 delegates from the EU's 27 member states described the EU's current stimulus package of around €200 billion as not big enough and not green enough, calling instead for investments amounting to €500 billion, which, they argue, would create 5 million jobs over the next five years.
"There is a real risk that, instead of stimulating future-oriented green tech sectors that will be the foundations of our economic revival, EU politicians are simply trying to greenwash their stimulus packages while supporting so-called sunset industries," reads the proposal.
The parties accuse current leaders of "Giving direct aid to outdated, unsustainable industries and trying to label it ‘green'."
The Greens note that the United Nations Environment Programme has called for world governments to allocate at least 33 percent of their fiscal packages, amounting to an estimated €1.5-2.25 trillion over the next two years, to green sectors.
At the same time, they say that South Korea is the real example to be emulated, with a larger stimulus package than that of France (€27 billion versus €26 billion) in which more than 80 percent of the spending is on green measures such as expanding public transit and railroads, village and school energy conservation, fuel-efficient vehicles, river and forest restoration, water management and fuel-from-waste recycling.
In Europe, the Greens say they will fight for a "super, smart electricity grid to connect up Europe [to] ... the enormous potential of offshore wind power hubs, like in the North Sea, or solar power hubs in the Mediterranean and North Africa."
The parties also want to see the EU commit to a binding target of 20 percent reduction in energy consumption by 2020, particularly by renovating homes to reduce wasted heat energy.
Focus should also be on shifting goods transport from road to electrified rail and expanding public transit, they say.
The Greens would also try do achieve a increase in organic farming from around five percent of EU production today to 20 percent.