Bas Eickhout, Dutch MEP, GreenLeft Party
The Interview
BBC
4.3 • 537 Ratings
🗓️ 7 June 2019
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Political power inside the European Union is no longer going to be easily stitched up between the two big blocks of centre left and centre right. After last month’s European parliamentary election, Europe's Green party will wield significant influence in the next round of EU deal making. Hardtalk speaks to the Green candidate for Commission President, Dutch MEP Bas Eickhout, and asks him how much the Greens are prepared to compromise.
Image: Bas Eickhout (Credit: Marcel van Hoorn/European Photopress Agency)
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | You're listening to a podcast from the BBC World Service. This is Hard Talk with me, Stephen Sacker. |
| 0:07.0 | Thanks for downloading this edition of the program. I do hope you enjoy it. |
| 0:12.2 | Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker. My guest today trained as a scientist, |
| 0:19.2 | moved into environmental politics and then used his knowledge to become a co-author of the hugely influential 2007 report on global warming by the UN's intergovernmental panel on climate change. By then, Baz Eikout was already a committed member of the Dutch Green Party. |
| 0:39.0 | Now, he's an influential member of the European Parliament |
| 0:42.3 | and his party's candidate to be the next president of the European Commission. |
| 0:46.9 | He won't get the job. |
| 0:48.1 | The Greens have 69 MEPs in the 750 strong European Parliament, |
| 0:53.9 | but thanks to their very strong performance in last |
| 0:57.3 | month's Euro elections, they could act as kingmakers. Suddenly, the Greens have real political |
| 1:03.7 | leverage. They also control key European cities, including Berlin, Brussels and Dublin. Far from being a radical pressure group on the |
| 1:13.2 | outside, they're now insiders with real power and responsibility. So how will they use it in an |
| 1:20.8 | increasingly polarised and fractious Europe? Bass Icout joins me now from Brussels. Welcome to Hard Talk. Thank you very much for having me. |
| 1:30.9 | I should start with some congratulations. You guys in the green parties across Europe, you expanded your |
| 1:36.8 | representation in the European Parliament from 51 seats to 69. What does that mean for your power and influence inside the European Union? |
| 1:47.6 | Well, I think what is also a very important development is that we see that those two center |
| 1:52.7 | blocks, so the Christian Democrats on the right and the social democrats on the left, |
| 1:56.8 | who always had a majority, the grand coalition has been called in Brussels, they lost that majority. |
| 2:04.0 | So that means they cannot really deal on their own anymore. And I think that is a good development |
| 2:09.0 | because I think those two big blocks were really, well, I would say sucking up the oxygen out of the |
| 2:14.9 | European debate. And that will change now. So they will have to see |
| 2:18.5 | how they can remain in power and they will have to look to other parties to come to that |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.