The future of the Global Greens

The Global Greens are on the way to becoming a truly global party family. The foundations were laid in Canberra. Today, at our Second Global Congress in Sao Paulo, we need to answer a fundamental question:

What does it mean to be a green party?

When the GG were founded in 2001 in Canberra, we agreed on a comprehensive GG Charter, setting out the core of green political thinking and green policies. While in a worldwide federation like ours, especially when it is still young, there is naturally a wide range of different views, we believe that green parties who are members of the GG should to a wide extent strive for the policies laid down in the Charter. In any way, they should not be in contradiction to them.

Apart from our policies, there is another distinctive feature of green parties: our organizational principles. In the early days of the formation of the first green parties, we used to be called and called ourselves ´anti-party´ parties. While not all of our far-reaching early principles such as imperative mandate (the green office holder has under all circumstances to execute the decisions of the party instead of following his/her own consciousness) and very strict rotation system (no one allowed to candidate more than once or twice) proved to be feasible when running a party in the long run, green parties are still trying to respect green organizational principles as far as possible.

These principles are:

Grass-roots democratic internal structures and decision-making
Transparency and Accountability to its members and the public
Openness and open controversial debates
Participative and inclusive approach
Measures to restrict accumulation of power, offices and resources within the party or by the means of holding public offices
Gender balance, gender equality and strong measures to enhance female participation and representation
Meaningful participation and representation of disadvantaged, minorities and youth

We believe that green parties should cherish these principles as well as the GG Charter if they want to be members of the GG. The regional federation are supposed to examine if applicant parties are truly green, but most of them lack the capacities to do so.

We therefore suggest that a body should be created at the global level which examines in close cooperation with the regional federations if the applicant parties or other member parties about which complaints have been brought forward, respect

a)the Global Greens Charter
b)the above-mentioned principles.

If a member party is found in flagrant breach of a) or b), a dialogue should be opened by the GG Coordination in close cooperation with the regional federation. If the party persists to be in breach of green principles, it should be degraded to observer status, in grave cased expelled from the GG. The GGC should take the decision interim, until a Congress confirms or rejects the decision.

The new global structure to be decided in Sao Paulo should assign the task of facilitating dialogue amongst green parties and individuals about green organizational principles to one of its bodies, so that the above-mentioned principles can be further elaborated and if necessary amended.

Draftsperson: Janna Schoenfeld (GYG,Germany/Belgium)