Below you can find the FYEG policy papers, the political platform being the most important one. All policy papers are all adopted by our General Assembly, starting in 2008.
Our political platform document outlines what FYEG stands for as an organisation. The current version was adopted by the General Assembly in May 2013 and last updated in August 2019 in Istanbul.
PDFOver the last years, the economic, social and political situation in Venezuela have worsen and turned into a crisis of international relevance since the president of the National Assembly of Venezuela, Juan Guaidó, proclaimed himself Interim President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
PDFAfter the shockwaves of the global financial crisis swept through Europe, indicating the unsustainable nature of lax neoliberal economic policies, the answers ruling decision-makers gave to the crisis further deepened wealth inequalities through austerity measures. These measures, coupled with other factors, such as climate change, new technologies, demographic changes, and globalization, have not only led to very high youth unemployment rates in Europe (especially in Southern and Easter European countries) but also to a stance among political decision-makers that “any job is better than none.” But we need to focus on qualitative indicators of young people and other vulnerable groups’ work experience, instead of having a fixation merely on quantitative indicators. The current generation of young people is worse off than their predecessors, pillars of European welfare states are gradually being deconstructed and labour deregulations coupled with new technologies are taking us even further away from a labour market equally benefiting employers and employees.
PDFThe European elections of May 2019 were the climate elections. In the months leading to the elections young people rose up in unforeseen numbers. They have been brave, they have been calling out the ignorance of mainstream parties on what are the most crucial challenges our societies are facing today. They reclaimed their future. At every step of the journey, we were with them, joining them in the streets, spreading a shared message throughout the continent.
PDFClimate change is an urgent crisis on an unprecedented scale. Alongside the alarming rate of biodiversity loss (sixth mass extinction), it threatens the very foundations of human civilisation.
Despite the aim of the Paris Agreement to keep global temperature rise to 1.5 and at least well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, government reactions have been mainly timid and overdue – and at times utterly negligent. At best, we have seen individual pockets of action addressing the crisis…
Adopted by the EGP Council, Tampere, 8 - 10 November 2019
PDFCross borders, meet people, get together.
European citizens are becoming more and more mobile. We are going out more often, we are going on holiday more frequently and further than ever. That is really amazing from a social and cultural perspective. However, there is a downside to this: the frequency and the impact of flying, notably, is increasing significantly over the years.
PDFDespite the inactivity from governments all over Europe, climate change is imminent. Many of these governments represent insular countries, such as the United Kingdom, Ireland, Iceland, Malta or Cyprus, as well as states with insular territories and outermost regions, such as Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Croatia or Greece, among others.
PDFBy the summer of 2019, more than 790 local councils across the globe as well as the governments of the Republic of Ireland and the UK have issued a declaration of climate emergency. Carried forward by the increasing awareness of the climate crisis, we can expect that the movement demanding similar declarations will grow in the coming years. While we in principle welcome these developments for providing an accurate label of the situation and a concrete frame for taking action, we believe they also raise several questions. We believe that for the concept of climate emergency to prove successful, the climate movement needs to work intensively towards specifying the demands for measures which should follow any climate emergency declaration.
PDFThe 2019 European Elections demonstrated that Greens have become a considerable political power in the EU and we have Green Wave materialized in some EU Member States as well. With the climate crisis being fought for becoming a priority in the EU and outside, also major established political parties falling short on people’s expectations, it is projected that Greens will gain more traction in the foreseeable future. This year Greens group in the European Parliament has 75 MEPs that gives them more leverage to engage and further Green agenda on the EU and Member States levels as well as outside the Union. Especially, Green MEPs that are subscribed to the relevant committees working on the EU external policies will be able to position themselves and contribute to the policy-making for the non-EU countries. And hopefully, with the coming years, Greens will be able to significantly shape and influence the decision-making in the EU institutions.
PDFFor almost three generations, Palestinians have lived in occupied territories where each day, more and more land and resources have been confiscated by settlers, and where the Palestinian inhabitants have endured constant humiliation and violation of their human rights. As the Israeli government continues to mistreat Palestinians and their culture and history, it is not an option to remain silent. At the very end of 2016, United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 was passed, demanding the end of Israeli settlement activity on Palestinian territory. Nevertheless, the Israeli government legalised 4000 houses of settlers in Palestine in February 2017. This FYEG resolution is not aimed to put an end to internal discussions on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Rather, we call for an increased effort to fight for equal treatment, security and freedom in the region. As long as the power dynamics are unequal, sustainable peace cannot be established. To create this equal playing field the steps that are presented in this resolution are needed. It is beyond the scope of this resolution to describe the full extent of all the steps that have to be taken to solve the conflict. We condemn all war crimes from both sides.
A third of the world’s population has limited access to essential medicines. Also in developed European countries the costs of new and expensive medicines can cause problems of accessibility. High prices of drugs threaten every patient’s’ right to treatment.
PDFAs stated in the resolution “Hot air or climate justice? The COP21”, adopted on May 28, 2016 during the General Assembly in Prague, Czech Republic, rights of climate refugees are currently not being discussed during the Conferences of the Parties (COP) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conferences. This despite the fact that according to the United Nations, by mid-century one in 30 people could be displaced as a result of climate change.
PDFA basic idea of democracy is that all people in society should have the same right to influence political decisions, no matter who we are. Public governance is not just for the smartest, those with the best education or the most mature; it is for everyone. The more excluded from the right to vote, the more distorted becomes our representative democracy.
PDFIn order to facilitate the reconciliation process between various Member Organisations of the Federation of Young European Greens [FYEG], the General Assembly calls on all parties involved in this issue to consider this resolution. Without a proper debate, this resolution does not necessarily fulfil the needs of all Member Organisations and can hence only be understood as the starting point for a discussion. It is understood that this paper cannot be seen a final position, but rather as a sign of good faith and trust in the possibility of a good debate between all parties that results into an end of the damaging debate between MOs at the next reasonable opportunity:
PDFThe fight against refugee and migrant smuggling has evolved into a central paradigm of EU asylum and migration policies in the past several years and has played a pivotal role in the public discourse ever since the adoption of the EU Agenda on Migration and the Action Plan on Migrant Smuggling in 2015. We consider the policy prerogative of fighting smugglers misconceived in several ways.
PDFIn 1957, European leaders decided to start a Common Agricultural Policy to commonly face challenges such as the low income of farmers, the dependence of Europe from foreign production, the instability of market and the high prices of food. Sixty years later, European Agriculture is once again stuck in a deep systemic crisis and faces new challenges. Because of the too low prices, many farmers cannot live from their production. Industrial agriculture keeps on using too many chemical inputs and pesticides threatening both our health, our soils and climate.
PDFThe rise of national populism in Europe is mainly caused by the lack of citizenry empowerment and neoliberal policies and others. One element that contributed to the multiple societal challenges we are facing is a lack of citizenry empowerment at the transnational level. Instead of reacting progressively to these challenges, the European Union is pressing the member states to comply with the demands of capitalistic structures to continue with neoliberal policies as if nothing happened. This left the vast majority of people behind. The continuation of neoliberal policies and the lack of democracy at the European level are only some of the causes that led people to consider the false solutions proposed by the far right.
PDFIn many European states, narcotics policy springs from the view that drugs should never be present in a society. Based on this ideology, the goal becomes a simplistic one: minimising the demand for narcotics. This is typically done by stigmatising drug users, believing that less people will use narcotics if you make them suffer for it.
PDFEurope’s Southern countries experimented a great political, social, cultural and economic progress since their entry in the European Economic Community during the eighties (with the exception of Italy). Nevertheless, despite the period of growth and stability in these countries within the context of a buoyant Europe, their structural problems concerning its productive systems and administrations weren’t faced by the EU. What is more, this growth was built upon low skilled employment, bank credits, large infrastructure investment, etc.
PDFThe European Union project has been recently challenged by international situations for which member states would have to stand all together, politically reflecting the values and ideals the European construction is supposed to be based on, in order to fulfill their role as a global player. Unfortunately, they have not always been able to appear as unity to the international community, as the ongoing inability to cooperate for the sake of refugees’ rights tragically shows every day. One reason for this are the discrepancies between European governments’ political stands and the apparently nearly impossibility to find a consensus or an internal arrangement regarding important political topics. Particularly, in the central Europe region, the Polish, Hungarian and Slovakian governments showed in the last months a rather questionable political shift towards right-wing authoritarian populist attitudes and policies.
PDFWith a notion to Federation of Young European Green’s values of green social economy and in light of our 2008 Resolution on Basic Income, we, the member organisations of FYEG, demand a European basic income to protect European’s social rights. Taking action for this matter is more important than ever, especially in the light of the economic crisis.
PDFFortress Europe has during the past year manifested its’ exceptional brutality, exposing the face of those who defend it. Fear and selfishness. Demagoguery and fascism. Whatever the motivation, the result is the same.
PDFThe Paris Agreement is a two sided medal: Ambitious for what was possible, catastrophic with regard to what is needed. The inclusion of the 1.5°C goal is a success for the Global South and the climate movement. The universality of signatories and the rhetoric leaders used at the COP21 were unprecedented and this agreement is the most ambitious up to now, in addition to it being legally binding. The deal makes reparations for losses & damages caused by the climate crisis impossible. Human Rights and other principles are not ensured. Necessary support for the Global South is not provided. The failure of Paris leaves the planet with a manifestation of global injustice and a poisoned 1.5°C goal.
PDFEver since 2008, the world economy has been shattered by aftershocks of the mortgage crisis in the US. The crisis made its way across the Atlantic and throughout the world taking the form of a banking crisis in the European Union. The Heads of EU States swiftly bailed out the banks with public money turning the banking crisis into a debt crisis. The eurozone, an elliptic system of monetary union lacking a common economic policy was the first to show symptoms of this failed political attempt to avoid an implosion. The crisis has shown how tightly interconnected and interdependent our economies really are, as well as the weak spots of our Union.
PDFAs Greens we have always supported the anti-colonialist struggles of those who have been under the control of often European countries. Even today, colonialism is still visible on the maps. The Western-Sahara, under Moroccan occupation, is one of these cases, whose liberation has been demanded on countless occasions by the UN Special Committee on Decolonisation. We the Greens in Europe demand the freedom of Western-Sahara and an end to this case of colonialism just outside our borders.
PDFFYEG believes that freedom of movement is a human right, migration is not a crime and no human is illegal. We strive for the complete abolition of borders and the unquestionable right for everyone to choose a place of residence and of work.
PDFThe same scenario repeats over and over again: Boats filled with refugees trying to reach Europe, yet drowning, unidentified, in the Mediterranean instead. The European strategy has been one of indifference and cruel cynicism for all too long. We are ashamed of Europe that lets people drown at its shores in order to prevent others from coming. We are ashamed of European leaders for whom more than 20.000 dead in last 15 years were not enough to take the necessary actions to finally protect lives of refugees and migrants at High Seas. Europe cannot and must not let people die at its doorsteps. A Europe that leaves people dying at its shores is not the Europe we want and not the Europe we need and we can live in.
PDFThe last General Assembly (Strasbourg, July 2014) voted the resolution Olive Tree Branch, mandating FYEG to promote training and further discussion between all its structures on the issue of the situation in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. To take this forward taking into account the range of positions existing within the Federation, the EC has put together the attached project outline proposal.
PDFI. Why infinite growth is a myth
II. Why economic growth is not a desirable policy goal
III. What about “zero” growth as advocated by the club of Rome in 1972?
IV. And Jobs? How will we create enough employment?
V. Why not sustainable development?
VI. What kind of society would we like to live in?
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It was one of those days when we felt like change was in the air – even if it was a small victory it was an important one. Yesterday, we confirmed that notorious palm oil producer and forest destroyer, Duta Palma, has (finally) been...
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