Еuropean “Greens”: From the European parliament elections to the coronavirus challenge

Abstract

The article is dedicated to a new phase of the political uprise of “green” parties in Europe through the prism of the success of the environmental movement in the elections to the European Parliament in May 2019. The authors explore the root causes of the current “green wave” in Europe, analyze the election campaign of the European Green Party, highlighting the specifics of the political strategy of modern "greens". Given the strong geographical and ideological and political differentiation within the EGP, the authors focus on examples of the most successful environmental parties based on the results of the European elections and highlight the general features of the modern “green” movement in the EU and its specifics. The authors conclude that the most influential “green” parties of the EU belong to the left or center-left political flank, which consequently makes the EGP the only left-wing European party that succeeded in the 2019 European elections. The article benefited from the political sources of the EGP and the national “green” parties. Concluding the article, the co-authors assess the results of environmentalists’ activities and touch upon the problems of forecasting the role and place of the European “greens” in the context of their objectively strengthened positions at the EU level. The article also shows the reaction of European environmentalists to the coronavirus pandemic. Given the low interest of domestic researchers towards the activities of European "greens", the practical significance of this research is obvious.