Election of EU candidates – Gewessler and Schilling took part in the congress

In total, more than 1,100 delegates from all over Europe came to the conference in France. On Friday, Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya gave a speech at the start in which she spoke, among other things, about the defense of freedom and democracy. “It is important that the EU remains vigilant against internal and external threats to its core values.”

Reintke and Eickhout elected
The top candidate for the spring EU elections was chosen on Saturday. German MEP Terry Reintke and Dutch EU MEP Bas Eickhout were appointed. Reintke received 55.2 percent of the votes, Eickhout received 57 percent. Reintke has worked for the Greens in Strasbourg since 2014 and was the youngest MP at the time, aged 27. Since 2022, she has been co-chair of the parliamentary group.

Eickhout has been a member of the EU Parliament since 2009 and was a co-candidate of the European Greens five years ago. Traditionally, the green duo previously consisted of a woman and a man.

After the elections, Reintke stated that the Greens would, among other things, fight for freedom and against the climate crisis. “We will fight the fascists,” Eickhout promised.

First official nominations
The Greens are the first party to officially nominate its leadership for the European elections in June 2024. Other parties will follow in the coming weeks: the Social Democrats on March 2, the European People’s Party (EPP) on March 5 and 6 and the European Liberals on 20th of March. The European Left wants to decide on its leadership on February 23 and 24, conservative and right-wing populist parties are fundamentally against the concept.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is expected to stand as a candidate for the EPP and Nicolas Schmidt for the Social Democrats.