European Green Party Newsletter #12
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Greens/EFA Co-Presidents' visit to Athens
In the context of the financial and Eurocrisis and after the second Greek bailout at the end of last month, aGreen delegation made up of Greens/EFA Co-Presidents Dany Cohn-Bendit and Rebecca Harms and Green MEP Nikos Chrysogelos held a series of high-level meetings in order to debate the latest developments of the situation and seek to further explore alternatives in Athens. As well as meeting 30 representatives of the Greek Greens, economic and social stakeholders, trade unions, SMEs and NGOs, the Green delegation also had constructive discussions with Prime Minister, Mr Lucas Papademos, Foreign Minister Stavros Dimas and the Governor of the Bank of Greece, Mr Georgios Provopoulos
Social and Community enrerpises and RES
- There exist 2 million energy producers from renewable energy sources in Germany (small producers, houses, cooperatives, social and community enterprises), not just the 4 major companies.
- Güssing, a small town in Austria that was suffering socially and economically, managed to stop the tendency of local population towards migration and increase its population from 500 to 3764 people, by creating 1100 new jobs and attracting 50 new companies, primarily through the development and utilization of local biomass for electricity, heating and fuel, thus reaching the impressive levels of 71% energy self-reliance. At the same time, this effort ensured stable, low prices for the heating of the residents while the prices of heating oil sky-rocketed.
- 5400 companies and 18 million members participate in DGRV, the German Cooperative and Raiffeisen Confederation. Many of the cooperatives produce energy from renewable sources.
- Many of the social and community enterprises participating in the European confederation of cooperatives and small RES producers REScoop.eu have history from 20 to 100 years.
- A group of German University students who created a cooperative for energy production collected from students-small shareholders 400.000 euro in order to install photovoltaic systems at their university, within a few weeks.
- The video from the public hearing:
- The photographs from the public hearing:
- A short interview by Nikos Chrysogelos in ERTworld:
- A short interview by Vassilis Bellis, director of the Development Company in Karditsa in Ertworld: