Bringing the Green Agenda Back to the Forefront of Czech Politics

The green agenda in the Czech Republic is currently in its worst condition since the fall of the communist regime in 1989. There are several reasons for this gloomy situation.

First, in the tradition of its founder, the current Czech president Vaclav Klaus, the conservative ODS as the leading government party is steadfastly neglecting the environmental agenda. Klaus became known as a notorious climate-change denier and is, in fact, a non-believer in the environmental crisis full stop.

The official governmental policy tends to perceive the environmental agenda and civil society’s environmental concerns as annoying obstacles to free enterprise. This was made obvious by the current Minister of Environment who openly declared his understanding for business interests, hence, presenting himself as their advocate regardless of the implications for the environment.

Second, the situation is exacerbated by the current, right wing Czech government’s largely incompetent and harmful policies. These have notably affected education, health care, pensions, culture, welfare, diplomacy, and of course, the economy. The concerned public, as well as the political opposition, have had to put aside the green agenda to fight to preserve the basic accomplishments of the past 20 years. The fight against systemic corruption, now at a “Byzantine” level in the Czech Republic, remains top of the priority list. Though, it’s usually resolved with token reforms rather than meaningful measures.

Third, to a large extent the Czech Green Party has enabled this all by taking part in the 2006-2010 right wing coalition. The party discredited itself by holding hands with the very same ODS party that’s infamous for its cynical attitude towards green issues. The coalition agreement was generally perceived as sheer power deal ensuring benefits for the party leaders. Due to this breach of trust between the Green party and its voters, the party was not re-elected into Parliament in 2010. The possibility of a comeback looks rather gloomy.

Fourth, thanks to the efforts of civil society groups like Friends of the Earth, the green agenda used to be high profile public debate topic. But even they are left unsettled as a result of the former green-conservative coalition. They have become over-reliant on lobbying and have been gradually weakening their ties to the activist roots. Yet, the environmental groups’ influence on policymaking remains quite weak as shown by the political debacles of the new energy policy and the devastating forestry policy in the iconic National Park Sumava in the Southern Bohemia.

There are, nevertheless, several signs of hope:

• A small but growing number of concerned consumers and correspondingly growing number of trades in fair and local goods, especially groceries;
• A small but promising minority in the main oppositional party – the social democratic party – that seeks to make green issues an integral part of the party’s policies;
• A coming new generation of activists who understand green issues in their social context and who want to revive the tradition of radical direct action, which was always the most effective tool for green groups to promote their agenda.

Notwithstanding the Czech situation, the European level seems to be the single most important one in terms of the politics of sustainability. Since the forces running the current and fundamentally unsustainable economy are of a transnational and global nature, there is no way to tame them on a nation state level, nor on the level of the most prominent European nation states like France, the UK or Germany.

Thus, at the European Union level the economic patterns must change. The EU must provide a shield and framework in which elected bodies of national, regional and local political communities can take over the setting of the political agenda from the commercial interests, who dominate them nowadays.

Political leaders will have to stop pretending that the social, environmental, cultural and political devastation stemming from the absolute dominance of the so-called free markets (a devastation that is characteristic for the neoliberal policies) are forces of nature. They will have to recognise, and declare, that the patterns on which the markets, and the whole economy, operate is a consequence of political decisions, that has – as is the case with all political decisions – its alternatives, some of which are more appealing.

I therefore suggest a significant reformulation: In my opinion it is a futile belief, that economic growth is a necessary condition of any successful policy. Instead the real challenge is how to make society good and improve the quality of life for every citizen without expanding economy. Given the clearly limited resources of our planet, sustainability must take priority over any material growth.

To this end, it is necessary to realign the patterns on which the economy operates with the thoughts of the Occupy movement and other social movements with similar agenda. The economy should serve the bulk of society. It should not benefit an increasingly isolated lavish minority. Wealth has to be redistributed fairly extensively to generate funds for programmes necessary in transforming society towards sustainability. In principle all future economic activity must respect the sustainability criteria.

Consequently, the top political priority must be to reclaim political power from the economic forces that are setting the direction of the world today. This includes making the economy and markets respect and obey the constraints set by the democratic decision making processes without unduly interfering with them. It also includes large and far-reaching redistribution of wealth and redirection of finances in order to restore economic justice and mobilize sufficient public resources. These are necessary for the transformation towards a sustainable, socially and economically just and truly democratic society that seeks to provide all its members with a base for acquiring a decent quality of life.

The red-green coalition of interests can represent the legitimate social and economic concerns of the majority and the political and environmental (or in a broader sense “green”) concerns of a progressive minority. Hence it can really become a perfectly matched force for political transformation that seeks to reclaim political power from the global markets and transnational commercial interest and bring it back to the democratically elected leaders.

This column is  part of the Sustainability in the Good Society Online Debate jointly run by Social Europe Journal, the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung London Office and Compass.

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