The 5 Star Movement’s path to getting into the Greens/Ale group in the European Parliament remains an obstacle course. Opposing arms shipments to Russian-occupied Ukraine, as the movement is doing, amounts to a genuine “betrayal” of the EU’s ideals, Greens/Ale MEP Reinhard Bütikofer told Adnkronos.
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Bütikofer, former federal secretary and chairman of the Green Party and former president of the European Party of Ecologists, now sits on the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament and heads the House of Representatives delegation for relations with the People’s Republic of China. In 2021, he was sanctioned along with other Beijing MPs in retaliation for EU sanctions against Chinese leaders for human rights abuses committed in Xinjiang. That of the MEP from Mannheim, in Baden-Württemberg, is a voice heard in the environmental group that met with M5S leader Giuseppe Conte last March 8 in a four-hour question-and-answer session behind closed doors a possible membership in the ecological group of five-star MPs.
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The movement’s parliamentarians are still stuck in non-registration, a state of limbo they have been trying to get out of since 2019. For the German Greens, “we defend our fundamental interests and show solidarity with Ukraine. Some people – adds Bütikofer – have been in the hands of the Russian leader, like Beppe Grillo, Vladimir Putin has had him in his pocket for years. I don’t trust these people.” And “whatever excuses they come up with to rationalize the options against Ukraine’s freedom, they don’t convince me.” But Conte has a more nuanced position on arms sales to Ukraine: “It’s not nuanced – he replies promptly – he has spoken out publicly against supporting Kiev, which I see as a betrayal of European ideals.” Nevertheless, the Greens are in talks with the M5S about the latter’s possible entry into the group: “Well – he replies – Suffice it to say that the talks are ongoing and I don’t want to draw any conclusions until they’re done…”
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