A progressive green coalition – comprised of several small parties – was launched in Bucharest on Monday to participate in the four rounds of elections scheduled in 2024.
This alliance includes the Volt and ACUM parties, MEP Nicu Ştefănuţă (elected on the USR PLUS lists and currently a member of the European Greens), and the SENS platform and is politically supported by the European Greens group and the European Green Party.
“Climate change, the housing crisis for young people, dwindling green spaces in cities, deforestation, declining physical and mental health, as well as the promising prospects of a green economy for Romania – these are all significant challenges that have been notably absent from the political discourse,” Ștefănuță said.
Many young people feel alienated by mainstream political parties, as their concerns often diverge from the offering of current political entities.
Additionally, a worrying trend is the disillusionment of a substantial portion of the electorate, with little intention to participate in next year’s elections, encompassing European parliamentary, local, national and presidential polls in Romania.
“These two trends could result in an overrepresentation of the extreme right-wing parties, as well as a mobilisation and decision-making process confined solely to party members – phenomena that we are determined to counteract”, Ştefănuţă said.
While Romania has had and still has political parties with environmentalist labels, none have successfully promoted the ecological agenda or achieved prominence at the national or local level.
Members of the new alliance assert that approximately 15% of Romanians are interested in environmental issues and willing to vote for ecological parties if genuine alternatives are available.
“There is a growing appetite for environmental policies, especially in the light of the current high cost of environmental neglect”, Nicu Ştefănuţă noted.
This coalition does not intend to limit its appeal to those already committed to environmental causes, but rather, it seeks to engage as many people as possible, emphasising that the future of business is green. “The European Green Pan is an economic one, not an ecological plan”.
A key objective of the coalition is to draw in non-governmental organisations because “in Romania, it was the NGOS that truly drove environmental policy”.
A survey conducted by CURS and published on Monday revealed that the Social-Democratic Party leads in the preferences of Romanian voters for the upcoming election, followed by the National Liberal Party – 19% and far-right AUR – 18%.
(Cătălina Mihai | Euractiv.ro)
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