The FYEG Executive Committee does its part for German Bundestag-elections!
One part of being an EC member means being allowed to study the offices of Greens all over Europe. This time, the EC got the honour to study the office of Hans-Christian Ströbele, member of the German federal parliament and Green. As always, the meeting’s agenda was extremely full. But hey, we were there to work and make FYEG run, so you don´t hear us complaining.
On Thursday, we had a meeting with the German Young Greens, who were having their federal council. This was a nice opportunity to strengthen the relations between FYEG and one of its MO´s (these relations got even stronger at the party on Saturday evening). After that, the EC worked in smaller working groups on upcoming events, political matters and financial issues.
The next day, the EC mainly did some practical arrangements. We worked on fundraising, the MO´s tour, communications, projects, political work and the campaign. Every EC member has its own responsibilities and reported on what she/he had done since the last ECM and was planning to do in the future. The other EC members spewed some remarks. This took us all day. After a drink with some German Young Greens, we went to bed early.
Benjamin of the new board of CDN paid us a visit on Saturday morning, in order to discuss the relations between FYEG and CDN. We all agreed that a strong link between both organisations is important to bring young greens from all over Europe together, without getting in each other´s way. In the afternoon, we felt like campaigning for the poor German Greens who were looking towards a difficult election. We hoped to boost their morale by participating in the Christopher´s Street Day (German Gay Pride Parade) and distributing their stickers saying “Merkel/ Guido verhüten”, which is a slogan too difficult to translate, has to do with contraception, and in hindsight seems to have worked! On this parade, we met our host Hans-Christian Ströbele and got a nice picture with him. After the parade, we thought we deserved an ice cream because Berlin had been extremely hot ever since we were meeting there. Half an hour later it started to rain. This gave us energy for a long lasting discussion on the office co-ordinator´s tasks. This was so exhausting that afterwards we had to fight the urge to fall asleep during dinner. Still, we had some energy left to go to the German Young Greens party, which took place in an amazingly large and beautiful loft. On Sunday, the EC members grabbed a once in a lifetime opportunity to admire Joska Fischer´s oratory talents. We went to the capital of Brandenburg, Potzdam, where the Brandenburg German Greens were having their GeneralAssemblee.After that, we went sightseeing in Potzdam and enjoyed ourselves resting on the beach and taking a swim in the lake. The EC meeting was over; we were charging ourselves with new energy from the bright shining sun which allowed us to keep on striding confidently down that shiny Green path.