The European Green Movement in Times of Crisis: New Approaches

Abstract

The article traces the ideological evolution of the European Green Movement from radical opposition to political conformism and pragmatism. Two fundamentally important moments characterize the development of “green” ideology in Europe: first, reliance on civil society and, second, an emergency/crisis as a necessary condition and impetus for development. Due to the belonging of the European ecological parties to the left wing of the traditional political spectrum, there is a convergence of political positions of the “Greens” and “Leftists” in Europe: nowadays, the party programs of the “Greens” are predominantly socio-ecological in nature. They are based on the Sustainable Development concept adopted in 1992 by the states of the world, which “reconciles” the environment with the economy. On the example of the German environmental party “Union 90/Greens”– the largest and most influential ecological party in the world – one can clearly see the development vector: from an alternative (opposition) political force to the third largest party in power (following the elections to the Bundestag in 2021), which became “the progressive force of the left-center”, the stronghold of the “green bourgeoisie”. The large-scale crisis of 2019–2021 associated with the COVID-19 pandemic played into the hands of the German Greens in the sense that it significantly contributed to a shift in priorities towards “green” politics and Green Economy in Western Europe and around the world, particularly as Germany is the main mastermind and beneficiary of the Green Deal in Europe. According to this trend, all ecological parties of Western Europe benefit from the crisis and are actually becoming parties of the political mainstream.