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T H E E U R O P E A N PA R L I A M E N T A N D T H E E U R O P E A N I Z AT I O N O F G R E E N PA RT I E S

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‘Europeanization’, or the adaptation of national political actors to European integration, has increased the professionalization of European Green parties. Previous studies of this phenomenon’s effects on the Greens have not fully accounted for the processes behind this form of party development. Using a qualitative adaptation of Harmel and Janda’s (1994) model of party change as a foundation, this article develops an explanation of how the European Parliament’s Rules of Procedure produced imperatives for increased cooperation that helped to reduce factionalism and promote professionalism within European Greens. These facilitated their ‘Europeanization’ and allowed them to affect the course of European integration.

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Key Words  environmental politics  European Parliament  European Union  Green parties  party development

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The first transnational efforts in 1980 by European Green parties to cooperate through an organization called the Coordination of European Greens failed because of an exceptionally large rift between the French Les Verts and the West German Die Grünen (Bomberg, 1998). By 2003, the Greens had become one of the most cohesive groups in the European Parliament (EP) and the European Federation of Green Parties (EFGP), an organization of Green parties in 29 European countries, announced the formation of the European Green Party to organize the Greens’ 2004 European election campaign. Over the course of those 23 years, Green parties across Europe have undergone radical changes in their party organization and strategy. These changes, which have made cooperation between Greens of different ideological backgrounds possible, have shadowed the greater transformation of Europe through its ongoing integration. The European Union (EU) has greatly increased its impact on the lives of its citizens since 1980. Greens are particularly interested in the Union’s ever increasing competence in environmental regulation or the ‘greening’ of Europe, a task the EU takes seriously enough to now be recognized as

Cultural Dynamics

15(3): 307–325. [0921–3740 (200311) 15:3; 307–325; 038561] www.sagepublications.com Copyright © 2003 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi)

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the global leader in the field. European political elites continue to push for this integration in response to the pressures of a globalized world economy and the inability of the nation state to fully cope with the consequences. These pressures have created a broad consensus that cooperation between European states on a variety of issues is necessary given our increasingly interdependent world. Only the form, depth, and breadth of that cooperation remain hotly contested. Currently, both deep and broad integration are on the agenda. The ‘greening’ of European integration and the transformation of Green parties have occurred, in part, through a process of ‘Europeanization’. The concept of Europeanization comes from studies in several disciplines focused on the political and social impacts of integration (cf. Borneman and Fowler, 1997; Hix and Goetz, 2001). These studies have struggled over important conceptual issues about the meaning of ‘Europe’ and of the term ‘Europeanization’. The main challenge has been to define the scope of the terms, since the EU is not co-terminus with ‘Europe’ and there is debate whether ‘Europeanization’ is integration itself or a response to it. However, in the literature on party development, Europeanization is used ‘as a shorthand term for a complex process whereby national actors (in this case, parties) adapt to, but also seek to shape the trajectory of European integration in general, and the EU policies and processes in particular’ (Bomberg, 2002: 32). Europeanization is thus an interactive phenomenon that captures the dynamics of the relationship between Greens and European integration. Several studies have documented how organizational structures of national Green parties and the integration of their quasi-party European counterparts have changed in response to integration. Several use a model of party change developed by Harmel and Janda (1994). This model identifies leadership changes, changes in the dominance of factions within the party, and external stimuli as the catalysts for party change. Burchell (2001) uses the model to identify several key events that resulted in organizational changes in the Green parties of Britain, France, and Sweden. Some of these factors are European, such as the results of European elections. He concludes that these organizational changes reflect the professionalization of Green politics and a shift towards, but not total embrace, of traditional party politics. Bomberg (2002), examining changes in Green ideology and transnational activity in the EP and the EFGP, reached similar conclusions, arguing that Europeanization has ‘mellowed’ the Greens’ ideology and professionalized their party politics. The Greens have adapted to European integration by becoming increasingly professional and, in this way, Europeanization has furthered the mainstreaming of the Greens. However, it is not completely clear how European integration produced this particular form of Europeanization in the Greens. This is because earlier studies took two forms. The first form focuses on

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national factors in ways similar to Burchell’s study. The second, while explicitly acknowledging the impact of European integration on party change, merely argues that participation in Europe has required party adaptation along the lines of what Bomberg’s study suggests. These two types of studies specifically leave open the question of how and why participation in European affairs, primarily in the European Parliament (EP), affected the process of Europeanization and resulted in the professionalization of Green parties.

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The development of ‘green’ politics and Green political parties (Greens) in Western Europe during the 1970s is a well-documented phenomenon (cf. Inglehart, 1977; Kitschelt, 1988, 1989; Müller-Rommel, 1989). Although there remain sharp differences between national Green parties on many issues, they nevertheless have become ‘a more or less coherent collection of parties sharing similar origins, ideological and institutional aims’, thus establishing themselves as a distinct European political family (Bomberg, 2002: 47). These parties continue to serve as both sites of resistance to and as catalysts for the further integration of Europe. Over the last 30 years European Green parties, especially the German Greens, have developed into increasingly institutionalized and professional parties through various processes of political development and change (Doherty, 1992; Jahn, 1994; Lees, 2000; Roberts, 1995). Burchell (2001) makes the case that the British, French, and Swedish Greens have undergone significant organizational reform over the past decade. Like the Germans, these three parties had rules that provided for the rotation of officers, prohibitions or limitations on holding multiple offices, and term-limits. Over time, all four parties have virtually eliminated these rules in favor of greater control of party affairs by an executive board, greater coordination between the party and the party-in-office, and a general streamlining of their internal decision-making process. These organizational changes stem from certain events, such as European elections, which put pressure on the Greens. In the end, Burchell (2001) optimistically concludes that the changes he finds are not a result of Greens conforming to traditional party politics, but rather an evolution by individual Green parties away from a common Green organizational framework, arguably that of the Germans, to one that fits the systemic context in which each party operates. He concludes that the parties seem to have struck a successful balance between ‘new politics’ and the realities of the a competitive party system. This description of organizational change fits tightly with Bomberg’s (2002) analysis on the Europeanization of Green parties. She argues that

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Europeanization of parties results in the enhancement (or exacerbation) of current trends, rather then the establishment of new trends and practices. She also shows how integration has given Green parties certain issues, like reform, clean government, and better governance, which they can exploit for electoral gain without abandoning their core beliefs. As for the Greens’ participation in the EU, the primary effect has been an ‘ideological mellowing and strategic professionalism’ (Bomberg, 2002: 44). However, the only European-level mechanism for Europeanization she identifies is European elections. She argues that a successful election puts pressure on a party to prove they are not on the ‘fringe’, while a dismal election puts pressure on a party to become more electorally palatable. Both can lead to reorganization and an increase in professionalism. Although both authors examine a European context to party change, they only identify European elections as an instrument of party change. Neither author explores how participation in ‘Europe’ after the elections also has an affect. To explain party change, Burchell (2001) and Bomberg (2002) use, to varying degrees, a model developed by Harmel and Janda (1994). The model identified three independent variables that lead to party change: leadership change, changes in dominant factions within the party, and external stimuli. Because the model was developed for a quantitative comparative study of party change, applying it directly to the single case of the Greens in the EP is not appropriate. However, its empirical categories remain useful for documenting the changes in the Greens. The Greens’ participation in the EP provided external stimuli for change that did not occur through participation in other parliaments. European elections had the impact of shifting the dominance of particular factions within the Greens, which strengthened particular forms of party development, and helped professionalize the Greens.

Factionalism in the Greens: The Strategic Dilemma

The Green political movement is based on four main values: a sustainable society, a ‘spiritual’ dimension derived from of the interconnectedness of life, a global outlook, and a fundamental pursuit of global peace (Bomberg, 1998). These values form the basis of the Green political project, which has attempted to institutionalize green values within existing political institutions rather then to simply defy them because ‘people cannot defy institutions to which they have no access, and to which they make no contributions’ (Piven and Cloward, 1979: 23). Although Green parties are offshoots of various new social movements, the desire to participate within existing political institutions separated them from these social movements. However, they could not completely escape their social movement past and therefore remained distinct from traditional political parties through their

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grassroots, participatory democratic structure. Standing between a social movement and a political party caused some early problems for the Greens. This is because ‘the strength of social movements lies in their links to the grassroots and their much more fluid relationship with the wider masses’ while ‘the strength of a party lies in its institutional cohesion—in its access to the state and in its ability to work within established systems to effect change’ (Bomberg, 1998: 161). While balancing their dual role as social movement and political party, the Greens faced a dilemma similar to those faced by many social movements and NGOs, who are often confronted with a choice between staying ‘pure’ or accepting compromises, like external funding, that fundamentalists see as corrupting (Brinkerhoff, 1999; Salamon, 1995). In the case of the Greens, this ‘strategic dilemma’ manifested itself through internal conflicts between fundamentalist and realist factions within their membership. Fundamentalist factions base their political philosophy on the ideals of ‘deep ecology’. They insist that only a fundamental, radical, and immediate shift in the nature of economics and society will bring about the ultimate goal of environmental sustainability. This faction draws its strength from the portion of the Greens’ base that comes from environmental, peace, and anti-nuclear social movements. They refuse to accept political strategies that compromise their deeply held moral beliefs about the need for radical changes. On the other side, realist factions advocate the ideals of ‘shallow ecology’. Realists argue that incremental changes can also lead to environmental sustainability. Realists emphasize the need to employ strategies that maximize electoral success and access to political institutions. This leads to conflicts with the fundamentalists, who predictably see such strategies as leading to cooption and the loss of moral legitimacy. The struggle between these two factions is not just a strategic dilemma; it is also an electoral dilemma. When a Green party is unable to present a united front, voters marginalize it and its electoral base almost entirely evaporates (Hines, 2003). The implosion of the Die Grünen in the 1990 German elections and Les Verts in the 1994 European elections were direct results of internal divisions between realist and fundamentalist factions. Because a political party exists primarily for the contestation of elections (and winning office), the strategic dilemma can become a choice between ‘moral purity’ and electoral viability. There are two ways the Greens can resolve this dilemma. Either they can learn to cooperate in the face of these internal divisions, or they can eliminate one faction. The professionalization Greens have undergone is a reflection of the impact of these two strategies. Europeanization has furthered this process by exposing Greens to particular incentives for cooperation, incentives that are a part of the rules of the game.

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The Rules of the German Bundestag and the European Parliament

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The strategy of the first elected Greens, whether national or European, was to disrupt the political process in ways that raised the visibility of their use of parliaments as soapboxes. This was certainly true of the first German Greens. In examining the persistence of certain informal procedures designed to foster consensus in the German Bundestag, Slagter and Lowenberg (2002) found that the use of formal procedures jumped after the entrance of the Greens. The Bundestag has historically used informal procedures to increase the efficiency of the chamber. This consisted of the floor managers of the political parties informally negotiating amongst themselves over votes and procedures. The Greens saw participation in these informal procedures as cooption by the political establishment. They actively choose chose the use of formal procedures over informal ones in order to further their disruption of the process. By having this option, the rules of the Bundestag provided no stimulus for change. The Bundestag’s organization is different from many continental parliaments. It has committees with power to amend legislation and the opposition chairs some of those committees. This structure facilitates cooperation between the government and minority parties, because the latter can slow the former’s legislative program. Traditionally the parties have used their floor manager to informally negotiate compromises that avoid the need for time-consuming formal procedures. Such a strategy requires effective cooperation between political parties, but the Greens wanted to prevent cooption by the system. Rather than developing relationships with the other parties, the Greens constantly rotated their floor managers to prevent any one Green from being in a position of power for too long. This prevented cooption, but also prevented the early Greens from learning how the informal procedures worked. Instead, they used formal procedures that gave minority parties the right to place issues on the agenda and guaranteed a right to speak out and used various procedural minutiae to disrupt the process. This strategy did not require inter-party cooperation. The formal rules of the Bundestag, by providing protected rights, provided no incentive for learning the skills of compromise and cooperation that might have furthered the resolution of the Green internal divisions. Since the other parties could do little to stop them, the lack of informal relations between the parties did not hinder the Greens’ early strategic goals. This was not the case with Green MEPs because the EP’s formal rules did not provide the same luxury of protected minority rights (cf. European Parliament, 1981, 1999). The European Parliament is unique among supranational assemblies because it organizes itself around ideological, rather then national cleavages. Prior experience in the Common Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Commission, the Parliament’s predecessor, revealed that

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individualism or nationality did not provide an effective solution to the institutional requirements of a body charged with overseeing a supranational executive (Judge and Earnshaw, 2003). Within six months of the opening of the Assembly, the body became partially organized around three political groups: the Socialists, the Christian Democrats, and the Liberals. For many years, these three political groups constituted an unchallenged ‘oligarchy’ that sought to protect their privileged position by adopting parliamentary rules that gave political groups rights and privileges not available to individual members (Corbett et al., 2003). The Rules of Procedure also prevented many smaller parties from gaining these benefits by setting strict guidelines on the formation of groups. Over the last 50 years, as Parliament has evolved from a forum of debate to an increasingly co-equal branch of European governance its rules have evolved too (Kreppel, 2002). Nevertheless, they continue to give groups an unmatched position over those members not attached to a group in the exercise of influence within Parliament (Corbett et al., 2003). Four rules in particular benefited the groups over individual members. First, the rules give agenda-setting power to the groups. When the Greens arrived in 1984, the rules provided for a body called the Enlarged Bureau, which consisted of the President and Vice-Presidents of Parliament and the chairs of the political groups, to draw up a draft agenda for each part session of the plenary. The non-attached members were allowed to send two representatives to the Enlarged Bureau’s meetings, but they were not allowed to vote. The rules stipulated that the Enlarged Bureau would attempt to make decisions through consensus, but if they failed, the group chairs would cast votes weighted by their group’s size. Groups, particularly the larger ones, had total control over what Parliament would do. The rules also highly restricted alterations of the draft agenda once the Bureau has had approved it. The rules provided each group the right to submit one change per plenary, a privilege only available to individual members, including the non-attached, if they gave the President a motion to amend 24 hours before the session started and it contained no less than 28 members’ signatures. The Greens had 11 only eleven. Although Parliament powers were fairly constrained in 1984, control of its agenda was the primary way it exercised those powers. By giving control over the agenda almost exclusively to the groups, it made group membership the only way for MEPs to have influence in Parliament or in the European project. Europe. Second, the rules also gave the Enlarged Bureau the task of assigning speaking time, which was done in two steps. First, a fraction of the speaking time was divided evenly between the groups and the whole of the nonattached members. Second, another fraction was divided up based on the groups’ relative sizes. The amount of time allowed for debate and the fraction assigned to each step varied upon the preferences of the groups. The groups were also responsible for submitting to the President the order

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of speakers and how long they could speak. These time limits were strictly enforced, with many an MEP having his or her microphone cut off in midspeech because they failed to stay within the allotted time. Although the rules provide for some speaking time for non-attached members, by giving the groups control over how the time allotted would be divided up between the two formulas, groups gained extra time and were able to reduce the effectiveness of non-attached members’ floor efforts by heavily restricting their time. Third, the rules benefited the groups in the provision of committee chairs and rapporteurships. Like the US Congress, standing committees do most of the work done of in Parliament. Chairs of parliamentary committees, although not as powerful as their US counterparts, do have significant powers to shape committee agendas and represent the committee outside of Parliament (Corbett et al., 2003). Committee chairs are assigned by the D’Hondt system of proportional representation. Groups choose which committees they wish to chair, with the number of choices and the order they are made determined by group size. Although not formally a part of the rules, the system is strictly enforced (Corbett et al., 2003: 106–8). Once the committees are assigned to each group an internal decision must be made about which member of the group will serve as chair, which can lead to intense intra-group bargaining. These rules prevent non-attached members from serving as committee chairs. They also guarantee that even the smallest groups will get a chair, even if it is for a relatively unimportant committee. The other major feature of committees is their role in the appointment of rapporteurs. A feature of many continental parliaments, rapporteurs are responsible for preparing the initial discussion of an issue in committee, present presenting a draft text of a report and amend amending it as necessary. Once this is done, the rapporteur represents the committee before the plenary and is responsible for following up the issue with the other institutions if necessary (Corbett et al., 2003). Rapporteurs clearly have a huge influence on work that passes through Parliament and some positions, like the rapporteur on the annual budget, are much sought after. Committees select rapporteurs in a variety of ways, but most use some form of an auction with reports and opinions distributed based on an auction between groups. Groups are often assigned a certain number of points based on their size. The groups then bid on the reports and opinions using these points. Since only groups can bid, only attached members can get rapporteurships. Further, the need of larger groups to conserve points to outbid each other on important reports gives smaller groups the opportunity to either bid successfully for lesser reports or to pick up reports deemed of limited value by the larger groups. In short, although not guaranteed a rapporteurship, the system usually provides an opportunity for smaller groups to have a disproportionate influence on certain issues through these low-bid

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rapporteurships. It also provides the members of smaller groups the opportunity to gain parliamentary experience. Finally, the rules provide for the groups to receive funding from Parliament for the purposes of party activities and informational campaigns. Ironically, the French Greens challenged this practice in the European Court of Justice in 1983. They won a judgment that ruled prevented Parliament from spending funds for the groups’ informational campaigns if used for electioneering. Parliament then adopted rules that suspended the use of those funds 30 days before an election. The groups also received receive other benefits like office space for meetings and their group secretariat. Non-attached members received receive funding for a secretariat as well, but the complex formula for determining fund allowances was designed to substantially benefit the groups. These are just four examples of how Parliament’s rules have encouraged the formation of groups. However, the groups also made provisions to protect their benefits. In 1984, the rules specified that the smallest number of MEPs that could form a group was 14 if they came from three or more member states. To facilitate transnational cooperation, the number of members to form a group decreased as the number of nations represented in the group increased. The rules also required that the members share a ‘political affinity’, which prevented non-attached members from simply forming a party group for non-attached members. These rules not only created a strong incentive for the Greens to cooperate with each other, with only 11 members (7 Germans, 2 Belgians, and 2 Danes) in 1984, they also created a strong incentive to cooperate with other parties in order to gain access to the benefits of group membership. By restricting access to the resources of Parliament, the rules of the EP prevented Green MEPs from either using Parliament as a soapbox or from carrying out a strategy of disruption unless they cooperated amongst themselves and most importantly with other parties. They were thus an external stimulus for cooperation that was missing from the Bundestag. Although the rules made cooperation necessary for the Greens, it did not guarantee their success. The rules would only have an impact on the Greens’ strategic dilemma and their professionalism if they facilitated effective cooperation.

The Green Group in the European Parliament

Although they were strongly against being coopted into the political system, the EP’s rules provided sufficient pressure on the Greens for them to cooperate with other parties. They formed the Green Alternative Europe Link (GRAEL), often called the Rainbow Group, with the regionalists, anti-EU Danes, and the Italian Radicals after the 1984 elections. Importantly, this group was the successor to the Group for the Technical

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Coordination and Defense of Independent Groups and Members. The same parties that made up the Rainbow Group (minus the Greens) formed the Technical Group just after the first direct elections in 1979 in order gain the privileges of group membership. This group was able to survive because it repeatedly beat back efforts to revise the rules on minimum group size through effective use of parliamentary procedures, especially by the Italian Radical Marco Pannella (Corbett et al., 2003). This group also had a novel organizational feature, the co-presidency, whose three presidents took turns representing the group. A coalition with the Technical Group was the most obvious choice for Green MEPs. It not only resolved the first problem of finding forming a group with political affinities, but by joining an existing group the Greens MEPs benefited from the group’s institutional memory, one that contained the knowledge gained during the earlier debate over the rules. This allowed for Green MEPs to be quickly socialized into the ‘culture’ of the EP, an advantage that the German Greens did not have. The latter had to reinvent the wheel as they learned the ‘culture’ of the Bundestag. Further, while the German Greens’ practice of rotating floor managers alienated the major parties and prevented the development of the informal relationships between them, the Technical Group’s rotating presidency operated within the informal as well as formal practices of the EP. It was not designed to the prevent cooption but was rather a device for sharing power between diverse groups. When the ‘green tide’ swept 29 Green MEPs into Parliament after the third European elections in 1989, the Greens had a sufficient mandate to go it alone. The Greens left the Technical Group and formed the Green Group in the European Parliament (GGEP). The Greens’ near tripling in size was a result of the arrival of nine new French Greens, seven new Italian Greens, and an additional member from both Germany and Belgium, with the Dutch delegation staying the same size. With the balance of power in the group tipped slightly towards the French, who were now more radical than the Germans, there was potential for a falling out similar to the one experienced in 1980 (Bomberg, 1998). However, Lees (2000) argues that the impact of GRAEL on transnational cooperation was an introduction to and an increase in the professionalism of party members. This professionalism, in the form of the experiences of the first Green MEPs, proved effective, along with the incentives of group membership, at holding the group together and fostering cooperation. Various measurements of the Greens’ cohesion as a group document the ability of Green MEPs to cooperate. One study of the Greens’ early activities in Parliament during the third term shows high levels of an effective distribution of the group’s committee assignments, with Greens gaining an early reputation as hard workers (Bowler and Farrell, 1992). The necessity of providing effective representation of the group in all the standing

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committees led the average Green MEP to serve on more committees than a non-Green colleague. The group was also highly cohesive during roll-call votes in the plenary. Using those votes, Hix et al. (2002) calculated an ‘agreement index’ for each of the groups from 1979 to 2001 to measure their cohesion. Although no score is available for the Technical Group, the Rainbow Group had the lowest cohesion of the five largest groups, with an index score just over 80 percent, which is not surprising given the diversity of the group. By the third term, the Greens on their own increased their cohesion to just over 85 percent, which surpassed the Liberals. By the fourth term, they were the most cohesive group in Parliament with a rating over 90 percent. These levels are doubly impressive because groups have no mechanism for sanctioning a member who does not support the group’s position. These changes in group cohesion have important implications for the model of party change. First, during the period of greatest ideological division within the Greens in the EP, when the group was divided between French and German factions in the 1989–94 Parliament, their level of cooperation increased over that of the Technical Group. Although Bomberg (2002) criticizes the Greens’ efforts at cooperation because of the vagueness of their group’s positions, the fact the group has held together with such high cohesion should not be so readily dismissed. At a time when factionalism was tearing apart their national parties, the cohesion of the Greens in the EP actually increased. The external stimuli the EP’s rules and procedures offered the Greens were more powerful than the shifting strengths of the factions. This does not mean that those shifting factions had no influence on party cohesion. As noted earlier, the Greens’ cohesion increased in the fourth term to the highest in Parliament. This may reflect shifts in the group’s membership due to election results in Germany and France. A snapshot of the German Greens in the late 1980s would have found them in the classic Green model of perpetual crisis, struggling to maintain their pluralistic attitude, their influence, and their legitimacy as a grassroots party in light of pressure for increased professionalism. The fundamentalist faction of the party still maintained a slight majority and thus control of the party. In the run-up to the 1990 elections, this proved disastrous. The fundamentalist faction forced through a party platform that denounced unification, making the Greens the only German political party to do so (Roberts, 1995). The denouncement of unification, which 90 percent of the German public supported, and the open divisions within the party led voters to punish the party heavily in the post-unification elections. Barely mustering 3 percent of the vote, the Greens failed to meet the required threshold of 5 percent, and lost all their seats in the Bundestag. No party in modern Germany’s history had ever re-entered Parliament after failing to meet the threshold. If the Greens were going to change that,

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a final resolution of the ideological division was required. After a brief power struggle, the realists wrested control of the party from the fundamentalists and began to rebuild the party. Doherty (1992) says this occurred for three reasons. First, the Hesse Greens were surprisingly successful in the 1991 Hessian elections, and Hesse was a bastion of realists. Second, a majority of Green voters (not necessarily Green party members) supported electoral strategies that would make the Greens a viable coalition partner. Finally, there was a shift in the balance between factions after the Greens merged with Bündis 90, the East German umbrella organization for human rights, peace, and civil liberties organizations established after the toppling of the Berlin Wall. Strengthened by Bündis 90’s ability to enter Parliament on its own in the 1990 elections, realists who wanted to restore public confidence in the party used their small post-defeat majority to arrange a merger of the two parties in anticipation of the next general election. The infusion of the Bündis 90 membership into the Green party permanently tipped the balance in favor of the realists, whose final victory was guaranteed by the quitting of the party by many fundamentalists (O’Neil, 1997). The Greens instituted structural changes that provided greater stability in the party’s leadership, but maintained the rank-and-file nature of the party. The merger and the changes worked, and in the 1994 German elections the Greens defied history and returned to the Bundestag. The shift in party leadership towards the realists also resulted in the realists having total dominance over the German Greens’ delegation in the EP. It also helped the German Greens increase their mandate in the 1994 European elections. The French were not so lucky. Les Verts had not suffered a humiliating defeat like Die Grünen, and therefore had not resolved their strategic dilemma. The debate over their platform for the 1994 European elections, buoyed by the deep divide in France and the party factions over the Maastricht Treaty, resulted in a literal split in the party. Both factions ran their own lists in the elections. The public’s reaction to this split was similar to the one in Germany. Voters completely rejected the party because of its failure to cooperate and they lost all their seats in the EP. Burchell (2001) identifies this election defeat as one of the stimuli for organizational changes in the French party, which brought them more in line with the Germans. The election results also affected the GGEP because it left the more fundamentalist French out of the picture and the German Greens, more pragmatic then ever, totally dominated the group with 12 members out of 23. This allowed helped the group to become the most cohesive in Parliament. Hix et al. (2002) also measured group cohesion in the first two years of the fifth term, with Green cohesion holding steady, even in light of some significant changes to the group. First, the charismatic and pragmatic Daniel CohnBendit led the return of the reorganized and revitalized French Greens in the 1999 EP elections with nine seats. Cohn-Bendit, a German Green MEP

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during the 1994–9 term, returned to his native country to stand as the top candidate for Les Verts 30 years after his expulsion from France for his role in the 1968 student protest movement. He now serves as co-president of the group. Second, the German Greens suffered the loss of five seats and were again reduced to being the second largest nationality in the group. Third, the Green Party, or the British Greens, joined the group for the first time after the UK adopted a proportional electoral system for European elections. Finally, the Greens joined forces with the European Free Alliance, which is made of 17 regional parties. The EFA has ten MEPs from Wales, Scotland, Belgium, and Spain. The group’s name was changed to the Greens/EFA to reflect the coalition. The relative ease at which the new Green delegations and the regionalists joined the group reflects how well the Greens have learned the art of compromise and cooperation within the EU. The group has reached a point in its political development where shifting national and ideological factions no longer disrupt its cohesion or its ability to cooperate. The Greens are now using these skills outside of Parliament.

The European Federation of Green Parties

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The increasing visibility of the Greens in Parliament though their work in the GGEP led to the formation of the European Federation of Green Parties prior to the 1994 EP elections. Created as a forum for cooperation with Greens across Europe, including those outside the EU, the EFGP has slowly been transforming itself into a true European political party. Initially, the EFGP was empowered to speak with a single voice for all European Greens during European elections in order to present a more unified front. What makes the group especially notable is its inclusion of all European Greens, including those outside the EU. This is a reflection of the Greens’ position that the Europe is more then than the EU. The EFGP’s membership approved a set of principles that have guided the formation of their for the EP elections in 1994 and 1999. The principles reflect certain ideas that are common across the radical–fundamental divide and between national parties. They are an effort to unite around their commonalities rather then an effort to eliminate differences. An examination of some of those goals proves instructive: 1.1. Green policies are based on sustainable use and not on unlimited consumption. This means that the rich must limit their consumption to allow the poor their fair share of the earth’s resources. The Greens favour cooperation not competition, satisfying the needs of all, not the greed of a few: The Greens favour peace and security, not warfare and aggression. 1.2. Green Policies are based on the belief that people want to live in harmony with their surroundings and in peace with their neighbours, in a society which offers a clean and safe environment, security in the present and confidence in the future.

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Cultural Dynamics 15(3) 1.3. The ecological and social aims of green politics are compatible neither with a free market economy nor with a state-controlled economy, both of which are based on unlimited growth and expansion. New models have to be developed and implemented, which are based on the necessity of an ecologically and socially regulated market economy.

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1.4. Ecodevelopment has to be based on democracy, equity between men and women, the right of all people to express themselves and to participate fully in decision-making, which requires access to all relevant information and access to education. 1.5. The aims of the green economy are ecological sustainability, equity and social justice, self-reliance. To reach these aims strengthening of regional and local economies is necessary.

1.6. A sustainable world economy will enable those presently living to meet their own needs, without jeopardizing the ability of future generations to meet theirs. It will respect the integrity of ecological systems, upon which all human activity depends.

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1.7. Equitable distribution of power and resources is necessary to meet basic human needs unconditionally, and to ensure that all citizens have full opportunities for personal and social development. 1.8. A green economy will encourage a sense of community, so that all will have a stake in society and none will be excluded, and ensure equitable use of environmental space. Self-reliance should be based on the region and not limited by national or administrative borders . . . (EFGP, 1993)

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Although these goals do not constitute a true ideology, they reflect the growing sense of shared purpose between the parties. Although Bomberg (2002: 43) concludes ‘the integration of Europe has not (yet) led to the integration of Green parties’, there are signs this is already changed. At the EFGP’s Congress in Malta in May 2003, the group agreed to the formation of the European Green Party, which will run a transnational campaign during the 2004 EP elections in the newly enlarged EU (EFGP, 2003). The willingness of Greens to embrace these principles, with their emphasis on the decentralization, but expansion, of the EU and the enshrining of the ideal of ‘deep ecology’ within the language of incremental steps, is the final sign that the Europeanization of the Greens has resulted in their increased ability to cooperate.

The Impact of the Greens on Europe

Although the focus of this article is on the how the European Parliament helped Green parties become Europeanized, Europeanization is an interactive phenomenon. A full account of the Europeanization of Green parties is not complete without at least a brief explanation of their two most important impacts on Europe. First, pressure asserted by an increasingly united Green movement has altered the institutional framework of Europe. Second, the high visibility and political salience of environmental issues has

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helped the Greens be at the leading edge of the ‘greening’ of Europe. Although the Greens’ impact in these areas has been limited, Europe clearly is different than it would have been without them. The Greens have altered the face of integration in several ways. First, the pressure asserted by the Greens during debates over the Maastricht Treaty ratification with their emphasis on the Europe of the Regions prompted the European Council to add provisions for an advisory Committee of the Regions. The committee’s mission is undeveloped, however, partly in keeping with the Greens’ inability to define what they thought it should do during the debates that brought about its inclusion in the structure of Europe. The principal impact of the committee has been to raise the political saliency of regionalism. The issue has not only become highly important to the Greens, witnessed by their coalition with the regionalist parties, but has pressured many European states to increase the powers of regional governments (i.e. Belgium’s new federal structure, Britain’s devolution to a new Scottish Parliament and a Welsh Assembly) over the past two decades (Loughlin, 1999; Phillip, 1999). Second, the announcement in May that the Greens would form a European political party for the 2004 elections is just the latest step the Greens haven taken in promoting a truly pan-European party system like the one envisioned by the Maastricht Treaty. By actively promoting a European political system, the Greens have helped to legitimate the idea and increased the pressure on the other political groups to also adopt shared platforms for European elections, which the Socialists, Christian Democrats, and Liberals have done (Corbett et al., 2003). The impact is thus far relatively limited, but potentially could have major implications as Europe grows. The other major effect the Greens have had is on the promotion of a green Europe. The Greens’ ability to successfully push for policy changes rests upon the unique characteristics of green politics. Just as they do in their national legislatures, Greens in the EP act as moral watchdogs because of the image of morality attached to their parties (Bomberg, 1996). This image derives from the high salience of environmental issues in Europe. European citizens in the Eurobarometer, a public opinion poll conducted twice a year by the European Commission, consistently rank environmental regulation and protection as high priorities for the EU. Public opinion has steadily increased in importance to European policy-makers as the Union has come under increased challenges over its democratic legitimacy. For the Union’s first 40 years, its legitimacy was based upon its output. A ‘permissive consensus’ between the masses and European elites allowed for integration to proceed as long as it provided benefits to all, but this consensus began to break down in the 1980s under the strain of high unemployment and the attack on European currencies in the early 1990s (Schutter, 2002). The breakdown of this consensus created a scholastic cottage industry

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that continues to produce countless plans for ameliorating this perceived lack of democratic accountability known as the ‘democratic deficit’. Even the European Commission acknowledges the need for change in the mechanisms of European governance in their White Paper on European Governance (European Commission, 2001). This stems from their acceptance of the idea that the output-based legitimacy of the first 50 years of the Union must now gain input legitimacy. The Greens, long advocates of the democratization of the EU, have benefited from the shifting attitudes of European elites towards input legitimacy to the EU. The Greens have been able to turn their moral authority on environmental issues into a moral authority over issues of good governance and transparency (Bomberg, 2002). The results of this have been twofold. First, the EU has placed a great deal of emphasis on environmental issues in response to public pressure. The Greens’ unique position in the area of environmentalism has caused a more radical European environmental agenda then the one that would have been pursued in their absence, because they have been able to rally public opinion. The agenda is not as radical as the Greens would like, but their footprint is unmistakable. Second, the Greens’ manipulation of public opinion has benefited them electorally as they have become the party of clean government as well as a clean environment (Bomberg, 2002). The visibility of these issues that the Greens create has solidified public opinion in favor of more democracy in the EU, and the emphasis placed on democratic legitimacy during the Convention on the Future of Europe, which recently completed a draft European constitution, reflects the attention elites are paying to this issue. In short, the Europeanization of the Greens has enabled them to place certain issues on the European agenda and given them a limited ability to change the trajectory of integration. By manipulating public opinion, they have increased the saliency of issues like regionalism and democratic accountability which political elites have been forced to address. This has resulted in changes to the institutional framework of Europe and to the priorities of those institutions.

Conclusion

The rise of environmental politics alongside the integration of Europe has forced the two phenomena to interact. Through a process of Europeanization, Green political parties have altered the face of Europe while Europe partially coopted them. Through sometimes radical organizational reforms, the Greens have become a true political family. Using the empirical categories of Harmel and Janda’s model of party change, a primary mechanism through which those changes occurred is revealed to be the EP’s Rules of Procedure. By creating an imperative for inter-party and

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intra-party cooperation, those rules provided an external stimulus for party change and helped foster the resolution of the Greens’ strategic dilemma. The Europeanization of Greens also allowed them to influence the trajectory of integration. They have increased the salience of regionalism and decentralized policy-making and promoted the prominent role the EU takes in environmental policy in Europe and the world. The gradual shift towards pragmatic politics and the continued saliency of environmental issues in the discourse on integration strongly support the contention that integration and the greening of Europe are connected through the process of the Europeanization of Green parties. The final paragraph of the introduction to EFGP’s guiding principles suggests that this is far from complete:

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While there are vast differences among different parts of Europe, the Guiding Principles presented here are the first-ever attempt to create a Pan-European strategy of ecological and social reform. We invite all Europeans concerned about the future of the Earth to join us in turning the ideas into reality. The Greening of Europe has only just begun. (EFGP, 1993)

REFERENCES

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Bomberg, Elizabeth (1996) ‘Greens in the European Parliament’, Environmental Politics 5(2): 324–31. Bomberg, Elizabeth (1998) Green Parties and Politics in the European Union. New York and London: Routledge. Bomberg, Elizabeth (2002) ‘The Europeanisation of Green Parties: Exploring the EU’s Impact’, West European Politics 25(3): 29–50. Borneman, John and Fowler, Nick (1997) ‘Europeanization’, Annual Review of Anthropology 25: 487–514. Bowler, Shaun and Farrell, David (1992) ‘The Greens at the European Level’, Environmental Politics 1(4): 132–6. Brinkerhoff, Derick (1999) ‘Exploring State–Civil Society Collaboration’, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 28: 59–86 Burchell, Jon (2001) ‘Evolving or Conforming? Assessing Organisational Reform with European Green Parties’, West European Politics 24(3): 113–34. Corbett, Richard, Jacobs, Francis and Shackelton, Michael (2003) The European Parliament, 5th edn. London: John Harper. Doherty, B. (1992) ‘The fundi-realo controversy: An analysis of Four European Green parties,’ Environmental Politics 1(1): 94–120. European Commission (2001) White Paper on European Governance, 428 Final, 25 July. Luxembourg: Office of Official Publications of the European Union. European Federation of Green Parties (1993) ‘Guiding Principles’, URL (consulted 15 May 2003): http://europeangreens.org/info/principles.html European Federation of Green Parties (2003) ‘Greens Parties Lay Groundwork for Common European Election Campaign’, URL (consulted 15 May 2003): http://europeangreens.org/press European Parliament (1981) Rules of Procedure. Luxembourg: European Parliament.

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European Parliament (1999) Rules of Procedure. Brussels: European Parliament. Harmel, Robert and Janda, Kenneth (1994) ‘An Integrated Theory of Party Goals and Party Change’, Journal of Theoretical Politics 6(3): 259–87. Hines, Eric H. (2003) ‘Choosing Green: A Pooled-Times Series Analysis of Green Party Support in EP elections, 1979–1999’, paper presented at the annual conference of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, IL. Hix, Simon and Goetz, Klaus, eds (2001) Europeanised Politics?: European Integration and National Political Systems. Portland, OR: Frank Cass. Hix, Simon, Noury, Abdul and Roland, Gerard (2002) How MEPS Vote. Brussels: Weber Shandwick-Adamson. Inglehart, Ronald (1977) The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles amongst Western Publics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Jahn, Delef (1994) ‘Unifying the Greens in a United Germany’, Environmental Politics 3(2): 312–18. Judge, David and Earnshaw, David (2003) The European Parliament. Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillian. Kitschelt, Herbert (1988) ‘Left-Libertarian Parties: Explaining Innovation in the Competitive Party System’, World Politics 40: 194–234. Kitschelt, Herbert (1989) The Logics of Party Formation: Ecological Parties in Belgium and West Germany. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Kreppel, Aimie (2002) The European Parliament and Supranational Party System: A Study in Institutional Development. New York: Cambridge University Press. Lees, Christopher (2000) The Red–Green Coalition in Germany: Politics, Personalities and Power. New York: Manchester University Press. Loughlin, John (1999) Regional and Local Democracy in the European Union. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. Müller-Rommel, Ferdinand (1989) New Politics in Western Europe: The Rise and Success of Green Parties and Alternative Lists. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. O’Niell, Michael (1997) ‘New Politics, Old Predicaments: The Case of the European Greens’, Political Quarterly 68(1): 50–67 Phillip, Andrew (1999) ‘Regionalism in the United Kingdom’, in Peter Wagstaff (ed.) Regionalism in Europe, pp. 19–39. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Piven, Frances Fox and Cloward, Richard A. (1979) Poor People’s Movements: Why they Succeed, How they Fail. New York: Vintage Books. Roberts, Geoffrey (1995) ‘Developments in the German Green Party’, Environmental Politics 4(4): 247–52. Salamon, Lester M. (1995) Partners in Public Service: Government–Nonprofit Relations in the Modern Welfare State. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Schutter, Olivier de (2002) ‘Europe in Search of its Civil Society’, European Law Journal 8(2): 158–217. Slagter, Tracy Hoffman and Lowenberg, Gerhard (2002) ‘The Persistence of Procedural Consensus in the German Bundestag’, unpublished manuscript.

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

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ERIC HINES is a third year graduate student in political science at the University of Iowa. His research focuses on comparative and international politics with an emphasis on European integration, environmental politics, and the European Parliament. Address: Eric H. Hines, University of Iowa, 702 Westwinds Dr #5, Iowa City, IA 52246–4010, USA. [email: [email protected]]

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