Brussels, 17 June 2024 – Activists from Greenpeace Belgium have recreated Leonardo da Vinci’s famous “Last Supper” painting in Brussels’ Parc du Cinquantenaire, calling on EU leaders to protect the rights and interests of youth and future generations.
The image dramatises leaders’ focus on their own political fortunes and short-term crises, and contrasts this with their inattention to the long-term interests and needs of both present and future life on this planet. It comes as Greenpeace EU publishes a short position paper calling for an EU policy framework to ensure the rights of youth and future generations.
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Greenpeace EU campaigner Ariadna Rodrigo said: “As EU leaders cut deals over dinner, we’re here to remind them that they can’t trade away their responsibility to youth and future generations. Europe is facing multiple crises, and the impacts of the decisions that politicians make today will be felt for decades to come. The planet’s ability to sustain life, our children’s future, the state of our democracies, and our rights must be core priorities for the EU.”
Breaking more than bread
The activists’ recreation of the “Last Supper” comes as 27 EU heads of state and government gather in Brussels to discuss who should be the next president of the European Commission, and to set their political priorities for the next five years.
Leaks of the priorities indicate that EU leaders are planning to abandon their commitments on climate and environment, even though the level of voter support for EU environmental action has remained high since 2019, and in fact has increased marginally from 83% to 84%. European voters continue to rank climate and environment as the second-most important issue the EU should tackle in the medium term, after security and defence.
Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent. Extreme weather events, like the recent deadly floods in southern Germany, are becoming more frequent and intense. The European Environment Agency, in a first-of-its-kind study earlier this year, found that Europe is drastically unprepared for the impacts of climate change, which is wreaking havoc with ecosystems and threatening Europe’s energy and food security, infrastructure, water resources, financial stability, and people’s health.
An EU Agenda for Youth and Future Generations
A cross-party group of MEPs published an open letter in the run-up to the European Parliament elections calling for the creation of an EU Commissioner for Future Generations.
In the position paper published today, Greenpeace goes further and argues the European Council and the next president of the European Commission should:
- Appoint a European Commission Executive Vice-President for Youth and Future Generations
- Integrate the rights of youth and future generations in EU Treaties, including the recognition of an enforceable right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment
- Develop an intergenerational solidarity policy framework that ensures fairness between generations
- Introduce legal safeguards for EU long-term planning and policy formulation, using impact assessments, the EU’s regulatory scrutiny board, and other measures
- Lead international, multilateral efforts to recognise the rights and interests of future generations.
Read the short position paper “An EU Agenda for Youth and Future Generations” here.
Don’t make a meal of the future
Some European countries have already played an important role in spearheading work to consider the impacts of today’s policies on future generations. The Netherlands has a Future Generations Lab, which provides advice to the government. Hungary has a Future Generations Ombudsman, and in the UK, Wales has a Future Generations Commissioner.
Germany and Namibia are jointly facilitating a process at the United Nations that will culminate in the Summit for the Future and the Declaration on Future Generations in September 2024. The EU can now take the lead in the process by adapting its own political agenda and structures to safeguard the interests, rights, and wellbeing of future generations.
Note: this page was edited on 9 July 2024 to amend the links to a new version of the position paper “An EU Agenda for Youth and Future Generations“, following the signature of the paper by the European Youth Forum.
Contacts
Ariadna Rodrigo, Greenpeace EU campaigner: [email protected]
Greenpeace EU press desk: +32 (0)2 274 1911, [email protected]
This press comment is also available on: www.greenpeace.eu