Posted on 15 March 2018
“What is exciting about the European Parliament is that there is no government and opposition as in national parliaments. […] Therefore it is possible to cross political group lines during discussions and organize majorities based on a good argument,” says Gisela Kallenbach, former member of the European Parliament.
Kallenbach, former MEP and German politician, visited the Historical Archives of the European Union on 2 March 2018, where she was given a tour of the repositories and shown various documents pertaining to European political parties, as well as, EU green policies.
During her time in Florence, she also spoke to us about her visit, her career in European politics and the importance of a united Europe.
Kallenbach says she has great respect for the work of the Archives: “It is impressive that documents dating back to 1952 are available here. This is of course a great resource for scientists and historians who are looking for documents to base their research work on.”
Gisela Kallenbach, born in East Germany, started her “second life” when she stood for local elections for the Green Party for the first time in the 1990s. She went on to serve as a member of the European Parliament for the group of the European Greens between 2004 and 2009. She retired from politics in 2014 after five years as a member of the Parliament of Saxony.
She says: “It was a very special moment for me between 2004 and 2009, as someone coming from East Germany, to belong to those 99 Germans out of 80 million who represented their citizens in the European Parliament and in addition acted as representatives for all member states.”
The year 2004 also holds additional significance for her as it was the year the EU expanded to include seven former Eastern Bloc countries. “It was such a good feeling to know that these countries, which had been forced to live under the Soviet regime with us, now finally also belonged to a free and democratic world,” she explains.
Kallenbach believes that we need a “strong united European Union with a common foreign policy”. Therefore she deeply regrets that some European countries are falling back on their national structures. “I believe it is a big mistake because in a globalized world a single member state cannot wield enough influence. It is also an illusion, considering today’s trade relations, to believe that each country can be its own island.”
She hopes that Brexit may play a role in reversing this process. She adds that the UK was always hesitant about the European Union and only joined halfheartedly. “For me this means that we need more people who can convincingly convey the European idea,” Kallenbach concludes.