Euro Greens council meeting in Malta

The European Federation of Green Parties is holding its 14th council meeting in Malta on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. During the meeting elections will be held for the European Greens executive committee and for the post of secretary general.

Arnold Cassola, Alternattiva Demokratika's spokesman on European Union affairs, is the only candidate for the post of secretary general of the European Greens for the period 2003-2006.

The election to this and other posts of the European Greens executive committee will take place on Saturday at the Forum Hotel, St Andrew's.

Over 150 Greens from Europe will be taking part in this meeting, which is being co-organised by AD and which will open with speeches by President Guido de Marco; the co-president of the Green Group in the European Parliament, Monica Frassoni; the spokespman of the European Greens, Marian Coyne, and AD secretary general Stephen Cachia. This is the first time that a European political family will hold its council meeting in Malta.

The delegates present, who include Dany Cohn Bendit, Green Group in the EP co-president, German Green Party leader Reinhard Buetikofer, and secretary general Steffi Lemke, former Green Ministers Dominique Voynet (France), Pekka Haavisto (Finland) and Serhii Kurykin (Ukraine), will be debating various interesting political topics, including the role of neutral countries in the EU foreign policy, the European Green party and the Iraq crisis: the transatlantic and inter-European role of the EU.

The European Greens' official carrier is Air Malta.