40th EGP Congress in Lisbon

Text: Christa Möller-Metzger

Light drizzle, an ultra-modern train station, high-rises all around, lush Christmas decorations and blinking lights: December in Lisbon, at the 40th EGP Congress in the hall of the former Expo grounds, right on the banks of the Tejo. We Green Seniors have a stand there and want to win new member countries.

With us are Kerstin from Sweden with her deputy Vivianne, Pirkko from Finland, Irmgard from Austria, Erwin from the UK, Gaby from Luxembourg, and me, Christa from Germany.

We have a wonderful spot right next to the Federation of Young European Greens, the Global Greens, and the Committee of the Regions, with whom we’ll hold a joint workshop: Generation together – Intergenerational Fairness in Practice.

From the beginning we have a lot of visitors: Heiko Knopf, deputy party chair in Germany, Pegah Edalatian, also on the party board, Terry Reintke, co-chair of the Green group in the European Parliament, Tilly Metz, MEP from Luxembourg, Thomas Waitz, MEP from Austria, and many more. And so many interested people from different countries. A Bulgarian delegate is determined to found a senior group in Bulgaria, and a Serbian colleague wants to start one in Serbia. How great!

We brought cookies from all our countries, and that quickly made the rounds. The German chocolate gingerbread was especially popular.

At our General Assembly, we were able to welcome three new members: Robert Crivit from Belgium, who will also serve as treasurer, a representative for the Netherlands, Henk Nijmejer, and a representative from Romania, Rodica Barbuta.

Gaby and I, Christa, are now co-chairs. And Kerstin will be the deputy of Irmgard as General Secretary.

More and more Greens understand that we need to include older people—who make up a large share of the population and an even larger share of voters.

In the panel discussion at the workshop on intergenerational fairness, I warned against pitting generations against each other. I also find the term difficult, especially the term “intergenerational justice.” For us Greens, sustainability and the circular economy are top priorities. How could we possibly live at the expense of other generations? We Green Seniors have always advocated for biodiversity, against plastic pollution, for recycling. We’ve always thought about the future.

We must see all the needs of people: poverty is growing for seniors and children; fair pensions are an issue for all generations.

Everyone will grow old, even if it feels far away.

Climate change will, of course, hit the next generations extremely hard, but older women are already dying now because of the increasingly frequent heatwaves.

So please no more generational conflicts, but more solidarity.

We have a distribution problem, a tax problem, a pension problem — not a problem between generations!

The generational debate is a kind of distraction from the real issues.

We need to talk about justice in general.

And there are not the young people and the old people — education, income, and values differ far more than age.

In the group discussions that followed, many good suggestions were made, including “friendship benches” or „chatty benches“ that have been installed not only in Hamburg but also near Warsaw to counter loneliness.

On the second day, there was an action in a square right in the city center to draw attention to housing poverty. By then the sun was shining again, so it didn’t feel like winter at all. Unfortunately, the action was planned only with the Green Youth, even though the issue also affects many older people.

Afterwards, we went to lectures and then to a late communal dinner at the famous Alentejo House, richly decorated inside with beautiful old painted tiles.Green

Originally, a condolence book was supposed to be laid out for our highly esteemed president Jan Kris Fierens, who passed away far too soon. The EGP changed the plan and instead there were two short speeches in memory of Kris — one by the party’s secretary-general, Benedetta de Marte, and one that I was allowed to give. We were very thankful for that, it meant a lot to us. And we put ourselves a condolence book on our table.

You would have loved Lisbon, dear Kris. We missed you!