It was one of my first insights in GroenLinks. In AMOK, operational center of Kees Kalkman, a few members of the Europa Werkgroup meet in order to flesh out the position of Groenlinks regarding the Heerlen Group. That was in 2003, or about. What begun few years before as an irrational attempt to create a europe of citizens politically active across borders was being recognized by Groenlinks. And the tale went on since. Now we are called Network of Individual Supporters of the European Green Party (EGPISN),  having an active core of five to ten persons that organize -always across the border- activities and discussions for members of the many European Green Parties.

So it was that this weekend -starting Saturday 3:30am in Utrecht, I'm still amazed at myself- I attended to the preparing meeting of the yearly event of the EGPISN, this time planned to happen in Lille around February.  Meeting friends is always nice, and certainly when one is still getting his own bearings in the Lille station and is welcomed by the great Luc Lamotte in the middle of the street, brought to an hotel, assigned a room, and still with time to score breakfast and shake hands all around. Besides, in my own ignorance I thought that Lille was yet another small countryside french town. Not quite. It was certainly cool to be greeted by buildings of Koolhas, and later to perambulate in the corridors of quite an extensive museum of fine arts.

Anyhow, old friends and all, this post is not -only- a remembrance of nice things past. Around Saturday 10:00 am the sessions started, and we where deep in thinking and discussing what will happen with the EGPISN. There where no easy discussions neither. The reality of our group is that it seems to have reached a plateau, and we are facing the need of reform and reactivation, partly by the establishment of new goals, and partly by the effective use of our new structure. As the Heerlen group begun there was a certain spirit of challenging the party structures, and for a while it looked like we where not going to get away with it. Allowing members of a national party to become members of an European party (a federation of national parties, not of persons) was quite radical some years ago for many aparatchniks. But no longer. In successive meetings of the EGP the board have been agreeing with our views, ending up recently with our recognition as a formal and existing group inside the EGP. If you want, an extra party of sorts in the federation.

Of course, that didn't come without what might feel like bureaucratic structure. In the forthcoming Heerlen VIII meeting, planned to happen in Lille we should elect our own internal coordination team, where eight persons will come from "us" and four will come from  "the EGP". A distinction a bit strange, because in the end we are all members of one or another green party, but whatever. We expend quite some time the Saturday figuring out how would we produce a fair and transparent election process.

In the end all comes down that in the next full fledged Heerlen meeting we will elect eight persons to carry on with what has been done so far... And perhaps challenge our party structures once more? The next goal of the EGPISN is putting for herself is to convince the EGP that we can have members... that aren't members of any green party. It sounds contradictory, I know: Why members of political parties would create structures inside their own party to encourage participation of non-members? On the other side, it just follows the logic of the green movement. Created -also- as a challenge to the idea of traditional political parties, we are just trying to increment the participation of citizens in politics.

All in all, it was a nice weekend. Soon enough minutes will become reports, and a complete picture of our discussions will be made public. Then will be the time for turning on the torch again, hopefully in Lille at the begin of coming year.