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Edouard Gaudot is a historian and political scientist. A trainer, marketing consultant and author, he has labored on the Faculty of Europe in Natolin (Poland) and on the European Parliament. He co-founded the journal Inexperienced European Journal. His newest ebook is Les 7 Piliers de la Cité (Plon, 2022).
Voxeurop: How can we clarify this disappointing consequence for Europe’s ecologist events, specifically in France, Germany and Belgium?
Edouard Gaudot: In case you take a look at the map of Europe and the Greens, there are some nice surprises. You’ve gotten Greens who’ve been elected in locations the place that they had little or no presence. For instance, Croatia, Slovenia, and Romania. Admittedly, these are small international locations, so it isn’t as vital as [the failure of the Greens] in giant international locations, which can have huge repercussions within the European Parliament.
The outcomes are unhealthy in two giant international locations the place they have been good within the earlier election. Secondly, the Greens are in energy in Germany and Belgium. If you’re in cost, you all the time pay the worth for the choices you’re taking, irrespective of the federal government, the political color or the circumstances. And the worth shall be even increased in an election the place folks see the dearth of a working majority is much less vital. In Germany specifically, the ruling coalition is discredited, due its longstanding inside contradictions and its consequent impotence. In Belgium, it is the identical factor: there’s a energy vacuum.
The Greens are additionally paying a heavy worth for the rejection of the final 5 years’ transformational inexperienced insurance policies. The primary motive is that these insurance policies weren’t all the time correctly thought-about past their technical facets: their social dimension has typically been ignored. Sure, a fund has been set as much as assist miners who’re set to lose their jobs in Poland or Romania, however there is no such thing as a such compensation for all these individuals who will discover themselves with out of date combustion-engined autos. Typically these autos symbolize a serious asset for them, and generally they’re an indispensable working instrument. This generates uncovered prices, in addition to anxiousness in regards to the future.
