the Greens

the Greens, any of various environmentalist or ecological-oriented political parties that formed beginning in the 1970s. An umbrella organization known as the European Greens was founded in Brussels, Belgium, in January 1984 to coordinate the activities of the various European parties. Green representatives sit in the European Parliament as part of the Greens/European Free Alliance.

The first national Green Party

The first national party known as the Greens (die Grünen) was founded in West Germany by Herbert Gruhl, Petra Kelly, and others in 1979 and arose out of the merger of about 250 ecological and environmentalist groups. The party sought to organize public support for the control of nuclear energy and of air and water pollution. The Greens became a national party in 1980. The program that they adopted called for the dismantling of both the Warsaw Pact and NATO, the demilitarization of Europe, and the breaking up of large economic enterprises into smaller units, among other proposals. This program attracted many members of the left wing of the Social Democratic Party into the Greens’ ranks. The Greens won a sprinkling of seats in various Land (state) elections from 1979 on, and in 1983 they won a 5.6 percent share of the vote in national elections to the Bundestag (Federal Diet), thereby achieving their first representation in that legislative chamber. The Greens experienced almost constant ideological tensions between its left wing and a more pragmatic faction. Its members were largely well-educated young people, but the party drew considerable support from voters concerned about local or regional environmental and other issues.

Growth of the Global Greens

By the end of the 1980s almost every country in western and northern Europe had a party known as the Greens or by some similar name (e.g., Green List in Italy, Green Alliance in Ireland and Finland, Green Alternatives in Austria, Green Ecology Party in Sweden, Ecologist Party in Belgium). In 1990 the British Green Party split into the Green Party of England and Wales, the Scottish Green Party, and the Green Party Northern Ireland. Green parties also developed in such countries as Canada, Argentina, Chile, New Zealand, and the United States (see Green Party of the United States). Australia’s Greens coalesced as a national party in 1992, after some two decades as an active political presence in Tasmania (where the world’s first local Green Party had formed as the United Tasmania Group in 1972). After the revolutions of 1989, Green parties or groups began to emerge in eastern Europe. In 1999 Greens in the European Parliament formed a bloc with the European Free Alliance, whose representatives advocate for national groups that lack their own state and for other minority groups. The bloc is led by a gender-balanced, two-member copresidency.

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In April 2001 more than 800 delegates from 72 countries gathered in Canberra, Australia, and the result was the Global Greens Charter. This document pledged the signatories to a platform focused on six principles: environmental ethics, social justice, participatory democracy, nonviolence, sustainability, and respect for diversity.

The 2010s saw greater success for Green candidates worldwide, as concerns about climate change became more acute and dissatisfaction with major political parties increased in the wake of the Great Recession. Caroline Lucas became Britain’s first Green member of Parliament in 2010, and Canada elected its first Green MP (Elizabeth May) in 2011. Green candidate Alexander Van der Bellen was elected president of Austria in 2016; although the position is largely ceremonial, the Greens subsequently preformed well in parliamentary elections and they entered government for the first time as the junior partners in a coalition with Sebastian Kurz’s People’s Party (ÖVP) in 2020. Later that year, the Greens entered the Irish government for the first time as part of a coalition under Fianna Fáil taoiseach Micheál Martin. In 2026 Britain’s Greens scored their first success in a parliamentary by-election when Hannah Spencer posted a convincing win in what had been regarded as a “safe” Labour seat in Greater Manchester.