European Parliament after the elections of 2014: The role and the place of environmentalists

Abstract

The May 25, 2014 Elections to the European Parliament led the “European Federation of Green Parties”, which unites representatives of European environmental parties, to the fifth place in the political situation and allow to form a parliamentary group of 52 deputies together with the regionalist party “Free European Alliance” Green/Free European Alliance “(EELV/ ALE). In this article, the main program settings of the “green” and the group’ specific initiatives on their implementation by the European Union are considered. The author’s strongly believes that should be admitted that the requests, appeals to the CES and the Council of the EU, as well as speeches during the parliamentary debates, were in line with the planned group programme, and were not devoid of “ecological tonality” and largely met the interests of European civil society. At the same time, it should be recorded that due to a small number of members of the “green” group in the European Parliament, it did not have sufficient resources to significantly influence the adoption of political decisions in the European Union. In addition, it should be noted that in the EU and between main parties as a whole, there was a consensus on environmental issues and the “voice of the green” under such a situation is not always catchable.