German Greens

8 Pages 1917 Words

Table of Contents
· The emergence of Green parties in Europe: The Greening of Europe Begins
· The Guiding Principles
· Greens on the EU
· Main Political Issues of German Greens
· Current Situation in Germany
· Bibliography

The Greening of Europe Begins
The Green movement as an electoral force is young. The first ecological and alternative political groups emerged in the 1960's, but most European Green parties were not created until a decade or more later.
The very first ecology party in Europe emerged in Britain in 1973. The European elections of 1989 were a spectacular success for the UK Greens, who scored 15 % of the votes. Due to the first-past-the-post electoral system, however, the 2.5 million votes did not translate into one single seat in the European Parliament.
In Belgium the French speaking Ecolo was formed in 1980 and gained 5% of the votes and five deputies in 1981. Their Flemish speaking sister party AGALEV had their breakthrough in the local elections of 1982, obtaining 50 local council members. In Italy, the first Greens entered Parliament in 1987, when the list of the ecological movement - Lista Verdi - got 13 MP's and two senators. The Georgia Greens have had a substantial following from their start in the same year.
The German Greens are generally regarded as the Mother of all Green parties, although they are not the oldest or the first Green Party to enter national parliament. But their significance comes from being the first Green party to have a strong presence in the legislature of a large nation. The big break came in 1983, when Die Grünen attracted nearly a million votes (5.6 %) and gained 28 seats out of 497 in the federal Parliament.
The Guiding Principles
Here are the Guiding Principles, adopted by the member parties of the European Federation of Greens:
The European Greens want eco-development. The economy must adapt to what the natural environment can tolerate. The aims of the...