The Irish Greens are very united, so no fighting about the war is expected at today's annual conference in Greystones, Co Wicklow. This is not the case elsewhere in Europe. Below, John Gormley TD recently greeted the world's most powerful Green, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fi- scher, who arrived in Dublin on a presidency tour of Euro capitals.
The Greens are currently in power in Germany, France and Italy and so back the Nato bombings of Serbia. Those not in power, including our own, are vehemently anti-NATO and all that goes with it. So heated has the debate become that the European Federation of Green Parties is in crisis and resignations have ensued. Gormley says it is all to do with being in power and the Irish have written to the German branch stating that the bombing is entirely counterproductive and only plays into the hands of Miloslevic. He expects that today's conference will call on the German presidency to intervene and stop the bombing.
Other debates will centre on issues such as GM foods, Partnership for Peace, on which they seek a referendum, and traffic chaos. The conference will also serve as a launching platform for their three Euro candidates, sitting MEPs Patri- cia McKenna in Dublin and Nuala Ahern in Leinster, both of whom are vulnerable, and Ben Nutty in Munster and about 80 local election hopefuls.