Greens and Ecologists in Spain: Between Critical Europeanism and Europragmatism

Authors

Giorgio Grimaldi Link Campus University – Roma

Keywords:

Green parties, Ecologism, Spain, Eurocriticism, Europragmatism, European Integration

Abstract

Greens and Ecologists in Spain: Between Critical Europeanism and Europragmatism

This paper examines the development of the main green parties in Spain and focuses in particular on their features and attitudes towards the process of European integration. Amidst the divisions and lack of political weight that characterised the events of Los Verdes, a political party born in 1984, and taking into account a marked fragmentation of political ecologism that still remains, the path that has led to the emergence over the last two decades of only two parties recognised as members of the European Green Party (EGP) is analysed: at the national level Equo, in which most of the regional parties of the Confederation of Los Verdes, expelled in 2012 from the EGP, have converged; at the level of the autonomous communities Iniciativa per la Catalunya-Verds (ICV), a red-green party resulting from the confluence of various political subjects of the Catalan left and a part of the ecologists, now refounded as Esquerra Verda. Beyond the differences and the frequent changes and re-alignments in coalitions with diffe- rent parties in order to maintain an institutional representation, these two small green parties can be considered tendentially eurocritical (such as ICV) and partly euro-pragmatic (especially Equo) as they strive towards a decisive democratic reform of the European Union.

Received: 22-04-2021

Admitted: 29-05-2021

Author Biography

Giorgio Grimaldi, Link Campus University – Roma

Giorgio Grimaldi è professore associato di Storia delle relazioni internazionali alla Link Campus University di Roma e docente presso l’Università eCampus. Dottore di ricerca in Storia del federalismo e dell’unità europea (Università di Pavia), ha collaborato con il Centro studi sul Federalismo, è stato assegnista di ricerca presso l’Università di Torino, la Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna di Pisa e l’Università di Genova, docente a contratto all’Università della Valle d’Aosta e negli atenei di Torino e Genova. È autore di diverse pubblicazioni sulla storia dell’integrazione europea e sull’ecologismo tra le quali: Federalismo, ecologia politica e partiti verdi (Giuffré, 2005), I Verdi in Germania. L’ecologia in politica dai movimenti all’Europa, (AUSE, 2020), I Verdi italiani tra politica nazionale e proiezione europea (Il Mulino, 2020).