30 years after the Manifesto of Tenerife…
GANDIA MANIFESTO OF THE CONFEDERATION OF SPANISH GREENS
Greens and rebels
In the late spring of 1983, a group of spanish enviromental activists met with Petra Kelly in Puerto de la Cruz (Tenerife) in Second II the Ecological and Nature Film Festival and wrote what we consider founding manifesto of the Greens, that would build, the following year, in the constitution of the Confederation of the Greens as a political party. 30 years after that manifesto, the Confederation of Spanish Greens ratifiy, fully, on the need for the existence of a Green political organization that unites and drives in a unified and coordinated throughout the Spanish State and the within the European Union, alternative programs and green parties which work, day after day, in municipalities and regions.
The Greens were born green and confederal, sharing Petra Kelly’s hope and fraternal encouragement, and for 30 years we have been working on alternative policy in each of the municipalities where we have representation and advocating and acting with our lefty environmental policy in the CCAA and the whole state. Undoubtedly, despite many difficulties, already sensed at the time of our birth as a political party, to make way for environmental and social alternatives in the Spanish electoral legislative framework that was intended to impose a two-party system today, we can say that the presence of the Greens is an undeniable reality in many municipalities and that our name and our proposals are present in the political life of our country. Today, the Greens have responsibilities of government and opposition in many municipalities and we share alternative policies with other left forces in Parliament and in the European Parliament. Our work, for 30 years, our proposals from political ecology, our initiatives and actions have not fallen on deaf ears, have been carried out in many locations and have positively influenced the programs of other political forces, reaching our current legislation.
Our way has not been easy. The Greens represent the most compelling and transformative alternative to a neoliberal political and economic systems, unjust, antisocial and predatory of natural resources and living species of land and indigenous cultures, so it was not expected support or aid, but “rather the opposite” for our consolidation and extension. There have been many efforts to weaken us, to divide us, to usurp our acronym to confuse the electorate, selfishly, to supplant us. But as green awareness within Spanish society makes progress, when it has become increasingly clear that the economic and social crisis of late capitalism is intimately linked to the environmental crisis, when it becomes clearer every day that unemployment and climate change are two consequences of the outdated and unfair system that refuses to die, today, more than ever, we need the active presence of the Greens in politics, social movements and institutions to exit the crisis from a new political, economic and social framework demanded by millions of citizens.
The Greens, as a Confederation of regional parties we are, we aim to promote a social project based on the environmentalist, pacifist, non-violent, feminist, egalitarian, republican, radical pragmatic libertarian philosophy, defender of the rights of peoples and universalist, we encourage social structure and political intervention in accordance with the principles and assembly-based democracy, we agree with the desires and demands of a large part of the citizenry outraged and mobilized against unemployment and antisocial measures promoted by conservative governments of Spain and EU. The outrage and social mobilization are to become unitary political alternative, must necessarily converge joint proposals, in solidarity and coordinated effort to enable institutions actually reflect the opinion and the will of a citizen tired of this two-party system and its policies.
The Greens, on our behalf, and from our principles, precisely because they are linked, together, to the broad social movement that has generated alternative within Spanish society, we value positively the process of political convergence with the United Left and other political social and cooperative organizations in the general elections, and was a first electoral breakthrough. Today, the harsh and predatory neoliberal policies of Rajoy’s PP, which has led to unemployment reaching historic figures, social cuts, a new impetus to nuclear energy, privatization of the coast and health, a deepening of the hydrocarbon policy and fracking offshore exploration and, to a national- Catholic and classist education… makes even more necessary and even broader Left and Green Front, social and political, without exclusion principle that addresses the institutions and, on the street, the attack on the social, environmental and political aspects of Spanish society from the PP, perfect follower of orders of banking and international financial groups.
The current economic, environmental, political and social situation in the whole state, immersed in a global crisis of financial capitalism and deepening EU climate change and its adverse impact on the balance of the planet, requires a sustained political strategy to reaffirm our ideological and programmatic principles that have been successful in their forecasts, while a unitary action with all those political, social and environmental to face the authoritarian neoliberal attack of PP against the social, democratic and ecological achievements attained during the twentieth century.
More than ever we must be Green and more than ever we need to work actively to organize democratic rebellion against the government acting daily to drive Spanish society towards a system similar to Asian emerging capitalism.
This is no time of refounding, of navel-gazing to see if we are more or less green, or the greenest of all green, or the most authentic, or the most original. The Greens are what we are, what we want, what we have always been, what our Statutes say, and now it is time, with all the things we are, with these essential principles that define us as Greens, to put together an outraged society, mobilized as shown in the massive demonstrations against education cuts and health, student and union, to take a qualitative step and outrage becomes rebellion, in overthrowing the political system that seeks social regression of our country.
The expression of public outrage which supposes 15M or PAH shows that people are sick of being ripped by those who have generated the financial crisis, they have filled the political corruption and institutions, the government passing boards of large companies and boards of large companies to the government, and claim, urgently for, more democracy, more participation, a new political system which has to be cooperative, self-management, ecological, participatory and with a supportive base.
The Greens want to actively engage so that our political option is useful on the street, in institutions, from the articulation of a unitary alternative, non-violent, to be green and red, of all colours of the political and social left, for citizens to be hopeful again that it is still possible an honest policy with a new economic, social and environmental fairer model, more egalitarian and less consumerist, more balanced and solidarity with the rest of the world, more cooperative, gentle and tolerant so that the means and ends are matched, more respectful of the Earth, with full protection, harmony and restoration of biodiversity and animal rights, clean energy, without the nuclear threat, and where banking is a tool that fosters public solidarity, equality and green economy.
It is time to articulate the replacement of PP in the institutions to change the economic and environmental, and predatory neoliberal model, and also to change the two-party political system from top to bottom, from the crown to the electoral law. It is urgent because the removal of basic rights is fast and the tragedy of unemployment increases, because climate change is not expected and because farmers cannot stand it anymore, because you cannot lose a generation of youth, because the misery of many families is a daily reality.
We will be more than ever, Greens and Rebels.
CONFEDERATION OF GREENS -ELS VERDS-BERDEAK-OS VERDES.
30th Anniversary of the Green Manifesto Tenerife and start of the process of the Confederation.
In Gandia, June 2013.