5SM referendum without a “Greens” option, MEPs baffled

They said again and again they are “green and ecologist” inside, they assured they had tried everything to open a dialogue with the Greens, they promised the referendum would have left ‘the widest range of choices.” The online form to be used by registered supporters for choosing the best collocation of the party into the European Parliament does not even mention the Greens instead.

There are just three options for ‘the web’ – the EFD group, with Nigel Farage, the ECR group, with conservatives, and the NI group, with the ‘non-attached’ members. In a long post introducing the vote (open from 10:45am to 7pm, today) the Greens are never mentioned, in contrast with other parties that “to be thorough” are listed, such as the ALDE that, as explained in the blogpost, has considered the program created by Grillo as ‘completely inconsistent’ with its agenda.

The referendum is hosted on Beppe Grillo’s website; presented there at 10:30am this morning, it was organised and published directly from Rome. The complete exclusion of Greens from the options offered floored everyone, starting from 5SM MEPs who, up to yesterday, denied the rumours about the Greens being neglected – they assured that, for sure, the ecologist force was going to be one of the possibilities. Everyone declined to comment, but MEPs are baffled and disappointed. No one expected something like this and from Rome, as they said, the presence of Greens was given for certain.

It’s not just the bewilderment of MEPs – supporters were deceived with the possibility of having a wider range of possibilities, and things are not going well online. “You’re worse than those you want to defeat, because you’re lying pretending to be champions of democracy” – “The Net has repeatedly called for a ‘Greens’ option, and you’ve done everything you could to deny this possibility” – “Where are Greens? Where is Tsipras? Beppe, it would have been better not to organise anything, this is just farce” are just some of the messages appeared on the Facebook page of the 5 Stars Movement.

The Greens are disappointed too – these days, after a direct call for dialogue in a blogpost on Grillo’s website, they opened the door to negotiations again. “#M5S referendum on political partners @Europarl_EN limited to ECR, EFD or NI. @GreensEP no choice! Interesting. Open. Transparent. #Grillo” tweeted Rebecca Harms, head of the group. Her reaffirmation of the possibility to negotiate with Grillo was made just yesterday, on condition that registered supporters expressed their choice for the Greens. Unfortunately, they could not even try to choose Greens.