The Irish Green Party and Europe: An Unhappy Marriage?

Abstract

To what extent is the Irish Green Party affected by the presence of an additional, European arena next to the domestic one? The answer is twofold. Organizationally, the Irish Green Party drew on the experience and support of the pan‐European Green Party Federation and more developed Green parties in other countries. The European arena also provided a platform for electoral success and thereby an important route to resources used to professionalize the organization. Programmatically, and despite the above, the positioning of the Green Party towards European integration has always been ambivalent. European environmental law is more demanding than national law and environmental problems often ask for international solutions which, theoretically, should be welcomed by the party. Yet their fight for direct citizen participation makes them wary of shifting power to a polity whose democratic credentials are contested. While the Green Party originally opposed Europe, they have become more differentiated and constructive over time, pushing for democratization whilst simultaneously viewing the EU as an arena in which desired policies are generated. Having entered government at a national level in 2007, its closer involvement in EU decision‐making should reinforce this trend.

Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful for helpful suggestions of the editors and of the participants of the PSAI conference ‘Party Politics and the EU’ on 28 April 2008, Institute for International and European Affairs, Dublin. They also thank the Green Party office in Dublin which allowed them to access their archive and numerous interviewees. Parts of the research for this article have been conducted in the context of a project funded by the British Academy on the ‘The Organisation of New Parties in Western Europe’ run at the University of Exeter (October 2008–October 2009).

Notes

1. Note that the Progressive Democrats was officially dissolved as a party in July 2009.

2. Private, semi‐structured interviews have been conducted in 2008 and 2009 with Green Party officials, TDs, party staff and experts (journalists and academics).

3. The capacity of the Greens to raise money was very limited. The party does not receive trade union or business donations, and private funding tends to be small scale and from collections or social events. Even this source of revenue can create internal difficulties, since local groups have been known to refuse to engage in fundraising methods if they consider them ‘un‐green’, thus further restricting the potential to generate party income (Mc Cluskey, 1992: 38–39). This situation could only improve with electoral success.

4. For instance, some groups refused the label ‘party’ as part of the Green Alliance's official name.

5. While many analyses in party research draw on the data from the manifesto data project to trace programmatic change, we found it more insightful to refer to Dáil speeches as a major source to capture the public position‐taking of the party over time. To back up this analysis, however, where possible, we refer to the manifesto data. It also shows that the Green Party became less Eurosceptic over time.

6. It covers 23 issues in its summary, starting with energy, transport, housing, child care, health, education, tax social welfare, crime, and road safety. Only then, is environmental protection listed (Green Party, 2007: 4–5).

7. While Trevor Sargent and John Gormley had been the only Green TDs in the legislative period starting in 1997, they were joined by Dan Boyle, Éamon Ryan, Ciarán Cuffe and Paul Gogarty in 2002.

8. See www.europeangreens.org/cms/default/dok/216/216162.63_of_irish_greens_vote_in_favour_of_eu, accessed July 2009.

9. For example, Senator de Búrca stated that: ‘The result of today's Special Convention explodes the myth that the Green Party is anti‐European. 63 percent of party members voted to support the Lisbon Treaty’ (Green Party, 2008). John Gormley, Party Leader and Environment Minister, argued ‘This is a historic day for the Green Party. I believe that our conception of, and approach to, Europe has been updated to reflect what our parliamentary party thinks, and what the majority of our councillors and members think. The large majority of Green Party members have endorsed the view of the Party's Leadership’ (Green Party, 2008).

10. Exceptions might be those parties that are found by MEPs to push for more transparency in the EU, such as the ‘Hans‐Peter Martin's List – for genuine control and transparency in Brussels’ which won one Austrian seat at the 2009 European Parliament elections, or parties which deliberately do not run at national elections such as the Eurosceptic Danish ‘June Movement’ which was dissolved after failing to win a seat at the 2009 elections.

11. Fianna Fáil gained just 23 percent of the first‐preference vote in the June 2009 elections to the European Parliament.

12. For example, the 2007 manifesto even goes beyond environmental issues and states that the Greens seek to ‘press for the EU's competition, state aid and public procurement policies to be adapted to include social and ecological factors’ (Green Party, 2007: 33).