The European Green party has picked Terry Reintke and Bas Eickhout as lead candidates to front its campaign ahead of elections in June that polls suggest will result in it losing seats.

Flanked by green banners bearing the word “courage”, the two MEPs, who were elected by delegates at a congress in Lyon on Saturday, said they would stand up to the surge of the far right and fight for a more equal and ecological Europe.

Reintke, a German MEP who won 55% of the vote for lead female candidate, said she wanted to put social justice at the heart of the election campaign. She said: “I want us to speak to people who we are not yet speaking to.”