Greens in the EP (Re: I wouldn't steal)

[Ciaran O'Riordan]

David Picón Álvarez <eleuteri at myrealbox.com> writes:
> I generally don't find myself sympathetic to the greens

FWIW, at the EU level, I greatly admire the work of the Greens.  As well as
supporting most of our positions, I think they have an excellent grasp on
how to work effectively in their situation.

Their situation is that they don't have a big voting weight, and the EP's
"Not in house" attitude makes it difficult for them to get their proposals
adopted by the big parties.  Thus, voting correctly is not enough to achieve
their aims.

To their benefit, a lot of their policies are shared by civil society, so
the Greens put a lot of work into helping civil society to lobby the larger
parties.  They do this by explaining the procedures, explaining the dynamics
of getting multi-party support, pointing out relationships, providing
computers/network access, use of photocopiers, providing physical access to
the parliament, etc.

Lastly, they know that public cooperation with the Greens can sometimes
hinder the work of civil society lobby groups (a conservative MEP might
disregard a proposal if they see it came from, or is supported by, the
Greens).  So they often agree or suggest that their help should not be
publicly acknowledged.  So the people who see this good work usually don't
talk about it.

Without the help of the Greens, the anti-swpat campaign would have been very
different.

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