The pirate party, not the green party, had a bit of support in Scandinavia, a lot less in Germany, and in France, in 2011, they could barely present 200 candidates in 50k areas, and i'm pretty sure their only access to 'powerful' people was the condescending sympathy of a single billionaire and maybe some secret service.
And a single member in the French parliament (900+) ever listened to pro-liberty lobbies like lqdn, and fought for it. So yes, it's pretty grassroots.
the gdpr was initiated by german greens
Legislatively, yes. Politically, it's from ex-members of the 2011 pirate party (many of its members ended up in the greens).
And I'm arguing against 'it's not grassroot'. My argument is that it's as grassroot as support for Snowden, wikilealks, whistle-blower protection. Because all of the was in the 2011 pirate party manifesto. It happened that only this legislation caught interest of other parties, but it's origin is grassroot. Have you heard of framasoft?
I very much doubt this was anywhere near "grassroots" to the italians
That is not even how eu politics work