Euro elections: Why you should vote for the Green Party

This the first in a series of posts written members of political parties. Irish Election contacted members of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, Labour and The Green Party who are active online and asked them to provide a post of between 600 and 1000 words on the brief “Why you should vote for X Party’s candidates in the European elections”.

I will post them in the opposite order to how we posted the party political broadcasts, two today, two tomorrow. That means the Greens are up first then Labour, Fine Gael after them and lastly Fianna Fáil. Other parties are welcome to submit posts to my personal email as seen on my website(easier keep them all together). Deadline is noon tomorrow and not a minute later. Posts must be written by party members who are not standing for election.

Written by Andrew Murphy. Andrew is based in Galway, a former chair of the Young Greens and national co-ordinator for the party.

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This week almost 400 million voters will go to the polls to take part in the biggest exercise in representative democracy after India. However, this event should not just be celebrated as an example of Europe’s peaceful transition – it should be treated as an opportunity to shape Europe, and its role on the world, in the coming years. You will not just be voting for “Ireland’s team” in Europe, you will be voting for men and women who will have a profound impact on this continent. This is not a decision to be taken lightly.

Contrary to popular perception, the European Parliament is not a powerless institution. It exercises vast powers on issues like the environment, internal market and workers’ rights – topics that will shape the ‘post-credit crunch’ society far more than anything Dáil Eireann will do. These powers will only increase if or when Lisbon is passed.

So what does Europe need? Europe needs MEPs who can stand over their record and say that they did not fall for the deregulatory madness that gripped Europe. Here, the Green Party is proud of its record, being the only party to advocate policies that would have prevented the property bubble (the Greens have been advocating a Site Valuation Tax to prevent speculation since the party’s inception) coupled with a belief that growing economic interdependence demands equivalent political interdependence on an international level.

Europe needs architects. Its economy and institutions will have to be changed, rebuilt and moved towards a Greener future. We need MEPs that know what needs to be built – a European Central Bank that is focused not just on controlling inflation but also promoting sustainable growth, institutions that can build a new green-energy future and an internal market that regulates those who hold influence over our economy, such as ratings agencies and investment banks.

Europe needs ideas. We are at risk of creating a vacuum – where criticism is plentiful but where the citizens of Europe are left without solutions. Unless progressive, positive voices emerge to offer hope we are left with the potential of growing disillusionment feeding into far-right anti-Europe extremism that marred some countries in Europe in recent years. The main parties have failed in this duty, but the Green Party is already at work filling this void. We recognise the huge potential that Europe has in creating a new energy future, recreating the link between Europe and its people by tackling the dominance of big business and using the awesome moral authority of a continent acting in unison to advance human rights across the globe.

Finally, Europe needs honesty. We need MEPs who are honest with the people – we cannot, nor should we, return to the mass consumption that marked that past decades. That era is over, and we need to move on and offer people a more positive future, one not rooted in the drive for ever more material gain.

These elections should be about the pan-European issues with which the parliament will deal with. It has not been, and shows no sign of turning to the issues at this late stage of the debate. The future of the Common Agricultural Policy will be shaped by this parliament. Is it realistic to demand that we should continue to subsidise the dumping of European agricultural products on the markets of third world countries while retaining sky high tariffs on their products, all the while proclaiming our moral virtue in setting the “challenging” target of 0.7% GNP aid by 2012? European, not to mention Irish fisheries stocks continue to edge towards devastating depletion, and yet our MEPs have not taken a stand. Europe bears the largest historic responsibility for potentially devastating climate change and must take the lead role in defining our collective response. This is the context within which we must decide who represents the people of Ireland in Europe.

Ireland has not been well served by its MEPs, who are the weakest link in our relationship with Europe. No effort has been made to explain the complexity of the European project to an apathetic public. Europe has been blamed for decisions taken by successive governments while claiming credit for the monies flowing in. Those days are gone, and we need representatives who do not exploit the complexity of the European project, resorting to populist sound-bytes. Europe is too important a project to be led by career politicians or the remnants of some political dynasty.

In Déirdre de Búrca and Dan Boyle you will find two articulate advocates for Europe, providing real contributions to the debate on the future of Europe. Now is not the time for mediocrity, or for parties that have been blind sided by this economic crisis. Now more than ever we need to elect people with vision and ideas to confront the crisis that we face.