UN Bonn Climate Change talks: FYEG follows the negotiations demanding a fair and green outcome.

A delegation of FYEG is arriving tomorrow to Bonn to follow the UN Climate Change Conference from the 2nd to the 6th of August. Our Delegation is composed of 9 Young Greens from Algeria,Germany,Belarus, Finland, Italy, the Philippines,England and Wales, Burkina Faso and Georgia.

As we did in Copenhagen, we will attend not only the talks but also the demonstrations and activities of other greens NGOs, being part of the social movements.

If we want to conserve our planet we cannot accept more than 1,5ºC increase of the global temperature, which means 350ppm. To achieve it first we need to build up alliances with developing countries, the smalls islands, youth organizations and the social movements in general to be strong enough to push for a real, fair and green agreement in the COP-16.

Follow the negotiations with FYEG, in facebook and in our magazine the ecosprinter.eu

Emails of our delegation:

Sebastian Power, FYEG Spokesperson
E-mail: sebastian@fyeg.org

Freia Then
E-mail: freiathen@hotmail.de

Antonina Yelistratova
E-mail: a.yelistratova@gmail.com

Kathrin Henneberger
E-mail:petitgrenouillebleu@googlemail.com

Nikolai Klix
E-mail: nikolai.klix@helsinki.fi

Anna Buccio
E-mail: buccio@ehess.fr

Shenna Sanchez
E-mail: Shenna.Lee.Sanchez@vub.ac.be

Tamar Shengelia
E-mail: tamarshngl@yahoo.com

Ben Medjkoune Aissa
E-mail: aissaetude@hotmail.com

The Federation of Young European Greens celebrates bullfighting ban in Catalonia

The Catalan Parliament has approved today the banning of bullfighting. Catalonia is the first community in Spain to ban this cruel Spanish tradition.

A popular initiative was accepted for consideration by the Catalan parliament last year followed by an intensive debate unfortunately contaminated with nationalistic feelings. Today, despite the uncertain scenario, the initiative was approved with an absolute majority. Of course, the ban will not end bullfighting in the rest of Spain, but this is a big first step.

FYEG stands for animal rights and against bullfighting, what is barbaric and an unacceptably cruel practice which cannot be justified by any reference to tradition.

FYEG congratulates the work of the Catalan greens ICV and young greens JEV as well as the all activists who continue to fight for a society without animal cruelty.

FYEG also asks the European Parliament to take a position on bullfighting and other animal mistreatment that takes place around the European Union. A common directive against animal violence should be approved and adopted by each member state.

Delfina Rossi, FYEG Spokesperson

Sebastian Power, FYEG Spokesperson

MASS ARREST OF PEACEFUL ACTIVISTS IN ZAGREB, CROATIA IS ANTIDEMOCRATIC – YOUNG EUROPEAN GREENS

The spokespersons of the Federation of Young European Greens, Delfina Rossi and Sebastian Power, condemn the recent arrest of 140 activists protesting against construction in a Zagreb pedestrian zone.

On the morning of the 15^th July, as construction works began on a private underground car park which would likely destroy part of the neighbouring pedestrian zone, hundreds of people gathered to protest against the destruction.

However, hundreds of police moved in arresting more than 140 activists. Vlasta Tot, Co-Spokesperson of the European Green Party’s observer party in Croatia, Zelena Lista, Josip Kregar, vice-president of the City Council of Zagreb, Tomislav Tomasovic, leader of Green Action Zagreb (Friends of the Earth Croatia) and Vedran Horvat, director of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Zagreb were amongst those arrested as well as citizens, students, older people, university professors and members of the city parliament.

Riot police were also deployed to arrest and disperse protesters and seal off the area so workers could begin cutting down trees in preparation for the car park.
The construction site has been at the centre of a long-running controversy over the legality of the development. Jagoda Munic of Friends of the Earth Croatia commented: “It’s a tragic day for justice in Croatia when riot police arrest over 100 residents for entering a public street instead of arresting the decision-makers and investor who engaged in corruption and nepotism in order to force this project through against massive public opposition. In mid-June the State Attorney (DORH) issued a statement that legal irregularities have been found in the project, but that investigations were still going on. Construction must stop immediately while these corruption investigations are completed”.

One local activist voiced her frustration with the process and the corrupt political and business elites: “Finally, after 4 years of protest, Warsaw Street, a symbol of our fight for public spaces and anticorruption has been destroyed, and the trees have been cut down. This street was until today a pedestrian zone, and now it is just a gift for a rich capitalist that will make an entrance for a private garage for his shopping centre.”

Sebastian Power commented: “The police intervention was an outrageous attack on democracy.  We call for an immediate stop to all antidemocratic activity and call for the mayor of Zagreb, Milan Bandic, and the governing National Conservative Party to respect activist’s right to protest peacefully. Further to this, there clearly needs to be a thorough and independent investigation to discern any wrong-doing or fraudulent activity by the city’s authorities.”

However, the arrests have not deterred activists. There was another day of action yesterday in front of the two largest party’s headquarters. Following this, there were further demonstrations near the construction site as well as protests which blocked traffic on two major roads in Zagreb.

Delfina Rossi concluded: “We will be paying close attention to any developments in Zagreb. We give our full support and wish all the activists well in holding the authorities to account and reclaiming their city.”

[ENDS]

Contact:

Maria Delfina Rossi, Spokesperson of FYEG, +34 666320831

Sebastian Power, Spokesperson of FYEG, +44 7886543863

Finland decided to regress back to the nuclear age

The Finnish Parliament approved the construction of two nuclear power plants on Thursday 1st July 2010. The parliament voted 120 to 72 to grant a permission to a new nuclear power plant built by Teollisuuden Voima (TVO), and 121 to 71 to back a nuclear power plant application from Fennovoima.

According to the opinion polls, majority of the Finns were opposed to nuclear power. The Greens were the only parliamentary party to unanimously vote against the proposal despite belonging to the ruling coalition.

The two companies are planning to start operating the plants by 2020 – although TVO’s current nuclear project, Olkiluoto-3 (OL3) reactor, is running four years late of the planned schedule and has more than doubled it’s budget from 2.5 to 6 billion euros.

Anni Sinnemäki, the Spokesperson of the Finnish Greens (Vihreät – De Gröna) described the decision being “one of the greatest mistakes in the history of Finnish politics”. Indeed the disappointment was grave also among the Finnish Green Youth and Students (ViNO) who were part of an anti-nuclear coalition consisting of the majority of the Finnish youth political organizations and environmental organizations.

However, the approval by the parliament by no means finalised the construction of two new nuclear powerplants in Finland. The companies still need to convince their shareholders to invest in a risky nuclear project, which in case of the newcomer Fennovoima may well be a rocky road.

Despite this newfound nuclear stupidity, the Finnish Greens will continue to fight for progressive energy policy based on renewable energy and better energy efficiency.

Erkki Perala

Meeting at the Summer barbeque of JongGroen

I attended the meeting of the Flemish young Greens. It was one of the last meetings before the summer break. The atmosphere was rather informal. I arrived a bit late.

Jonas, International Coordinator, introduced me to everyone. I had the chance to meet all members of the board and also the members that are going to the Summer camp in Turkey (there are three people from Belgium, two of them from JongGroen). I have also met during the evening Pieter-Jan who is Flemish YG and member of the FYEG Financial Control Committee. It was very interesting and nice to have met all these activists and persons involved in FYEG.

Kristof, a member of the Flemish Young Greens, has recently been elected as the youngest member of the Flemish parliament two weeks ago. He is really interested in international work and confirm me his attendance to the GYG Congress. More directly concerning FYEG I had the opportunity to talk more in depth about the future participation of the Jong Groen about their active participation in the Youth Participation project in Turkey and Brussels together with the Turkish and German Young Greens and which will be organised by the end of 2010. It´s really cool that we have this activity together

JongGroen really seems to be a motivated and structured organisation. Around seventy people were there, although it was just an informal barbeque. In autumn they are going to elect a new board.

Terry

FYEG Celebrates with Pride!

The 28th of June is the international pride day, where people take to the streets to demand equal rights and equal opportunities for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual persons (LGTB).

FYEG denounces the culture of imposition and the patriarchal structure that submit and condemn people just because they are different. Despite some advances in member state legislation that includes LGTB marriage and adoption; Homophobia and Transphobia are still a social evil. Moreover, in Eastern European countries the situation is often worse, like Russia for example, with their criminalization of the LGTB collective and violent suppression of popular demonstrations that stand for LGTB rights. This is totally unacceptable in a democratic society.

FYEG fights for a European Union which protects human rights and freedom, thus, we ask the EU to set LGTB Rights and freedom as a precondition to begin negotiations with neighbouring countries; moreover the European Council must set common rules to protect LGTB in every single Member State. There must be an upper harmonization process to set common rules to guarantee LGTB rights and non discrimination all over Europe.

Furthermore, this year FYEG wants to emphasise the Stop Trans Pathologization-2012 campaign. FYEG supports this campaign which “advocating for the despathologization of the trans identities (transexual and transgender) and their retirement from the manuals of disorders (the DSM from the American Psychiatric Association, which’s newly revised version is due in 2012, and the CIE from the World Health Organization, due in 2014)” http://www.stp2012.info/en